Crossing Nation, it is so incredibly good to be with you.
I want to welcome you joining from all of our different
locations, those of you watching online and those of you who are
part of our inside family. Christmas is right around the
corner. There is still time to buy gifts
online and get them delivered to your house.
Men, order them soon. OK, now, if you have not yet
picked out your Christmas Eve service times, we're going to be
starting our Christmas Eve services on Thursday and taking
them all the way through Sunday. And if you are going, hey, which
one should I go to? You can go to
thecrossing.net/christmas. That's us.
And you can pick your campus, pick your service and pick a
couple people that you like and maybe one that you don't like to
bring with you. I have a special message of hope
that I believe will be a blessing not just to you, but to
the people that you love. We are in the middle of a series
called In the Middle of the Mess.
Week one I talked about in the middle of the Mess Joseph chose
to trust. Last week, Jerry was talking
about in the middle of the mess. Mary chose to rejoice.
Today I want to talk to you about In the Middle of the Mess
the Wise men chose to worship. I don't know if you know this,
but sometimes life doesn't go as planned.
Do I have a home team tonight? Anybody been there?
Some of you are like that's my week.
That my week did not go as planned.
In 2016, Jennifer and I and A group of our friends, we decided
to go on a trip to Riviera Maya to spend a week.
Part of that is because Jennifer and I cannot go somewhere by
ourselves, and that is because I am a Labrador retriever.
I need someone to throw a ball that I can go fetch.
I need someone to play with and she wants to lay by the beach
and read. And I'm like, you can lay
somewhere and read at home. Like, I don't understand why we
would do that. So I have to have some.
So we have to take friends. So that way I have someone to
hang out with. And can I just tell you this
trip was an absolute disaster. It begins by us going down to
Saint Louis because we have like a super early flight and the
pictures online for the place where we were going to stay
looked pretty fantastic. In fact, it was a really bargain
price for such a nice hotel considering the pictures.
But when we got there, elevator didn't work.
Had to go upstairs. And then we had to step over
electrical cables that were and bare wires, duct tape, water
raining down from the ceiling buckets, only catching half the
water to a door that wouldn't lock.
A faucet that wouldn't turn on. It was one of those
environments. And, fellas, I don't know how
cool your wife is, but the wives on our trip said we're not
sleeping here. And the guys were kind of like,
I'll just lay on top of the bed. The sheets were stained.
We didn't even upload our bags. We were like this.
There's been murders here. We can't.
We don't want to be, you know we
can't do this. So we finally we, you know, we
just, I don't even know how. I don't even.
That part of the trip is a blur because all I know is we ended
up at the resort and we we got like the nice rooms and so
everybody got really nice robes. The problem is, I'm not a normal
sized human being and my robes stopped here.
So when everybody's getting ready to like go down in their
robes to like hang out by the pool, Nope, I'll just be me.
We did a Segway tour and I've never ridden A Segway neither
anybody else on our trip. And one of the guys, you've
actually met him before, Ryan Riggins, he's at the the Solomon
Foundation. He hopped on on his Segway and
they were doing like the training routine on how you're
supposed to navigate the Segway. And he did like 3 moves on his
Segway that looked like he was JB Maloney on riding at 8
seconds on a bull. And I don't know how his body
could go so far this way, so far that way.
And then he landed and Ben and I are on our Segways doing the did
we just watch our friend die? And when he got up we're like,
OK, so he can walk. We started laughing.
We laughed so hard, we were dangerous on our Segways.
Then we went to a really nice Italian restaurant on the
resort. And if you ever go with me, I
like a good Italian meal and I love bread with Parmesan cheese
with the little oil. And if you take the oil, put it
on a plate, put a little Parmesan cheese on it, stir it
all up real nice. It makes a nice little
cholesterol sauce and you dip your bread in it.
And they weren't bringing the bread around very fast.
And I have been known at times to be impatient.
And so I went over to where they had the bread and I started
cutting it up. Well, while I was cutting it up
I decided to be funny and I put, I put the little, the the wine
napkin, you know over your. So I look like I was official.
Well, people from the resort started coming up to me and
having me cut bread for them and put it on their plate.
Now let me ask you if you've been to a resort in the Riviera,
Maya. Do I look like someone who works
there? Oh, yeah, The 66 white guy.
He's one of our best employees. That was just a cutting away
bread, like. All right, another loaf.
Hurry, purple boar. I just my our table's like,
where did Clayton go? Just over there, just dulling
knives. How many of you want?
All right, no. Anyhow, even though the trip was
an absolute mess, it ended up being an incredible experience.
In fact, I would tell you that our best memories of the trip
were the messes and every single one of you.
You are going to have a mess at some point time in your life.
Some of you, maybe even most of you, are in a mess right now.
And I'll remind you of something I talked to you about in week 1.
The choices that we make in the middle of the mess can make all
the difference. How many of you in the middle of
a mess have written yourself a permission slip that you
probably shouldn't have written? OK, how many of you in the
middle of the mess have made a decision that you probably
shouldn't have made? What if instead of doing that,
we did something different? Let's talk about the wise men.
Matthew chapter two starts it off after Jesus was born in
Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod.
Pause. If you're reading through your
Bible, you're going to see the name Herod over and over and
over again. And you're like this guy's dead
and then he shows up someplace else in the book.
Let me unpack this a little bit for you.
So, Herod, this is Herod the Great.
He is the first of several Herod's mentioned in the New
Testament. In fact, there are 6 Herod's in
the New Testament. You're like, oh, that makes way
more sense. This Herod died, we get a new
one. In fact, Herod was like the
first George Foreman. You know how George Foreman.
He named all of his kids George Foreman.
Somebody asked him one time, why did you name your kids all
George Foreman? He goes, well, if you're going
to get hit in the head as many times as I have by Ali, Frazier
and Holyfield, you're not going to remember that many names.
OK, so Herod's like, hey, son, that's a great name.
You're Herod. And you, you're a Herod.
Herod was as bad of a man as you can find.
This Herod was as horrible of a human being as you could be.
You would be hard pressed to think of anybody in our recent
history who was as bad as this guy.
He had his wife's brother drowned.
He had his wife killed, along with her mother and two of his
own sons, five days before his death.
He had his a third son killed during the time when he was
getting ready to die. He had important and well liked
Jerusalem officials arrested and imprisoned.
The reason why he did this is he was convinced that when he died
nobody would mourn his death and he gave instructions that upon
his death that all of the well liked officials in Jerusalem
would be killed so that there would be mourning in Jerusalem
when he died. Bad dude.
After you're going to actually see at the end of the story how
bad of a duty was because you know what he actually does.
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the
time of King Herod, we got that one figured out.
Magi from the east came to Jerusalem.
Pause. Two things.
You should probably call him Magi instead of Magi, but I
learned it when I was a kid and I can't switch it around.
So forgive me. OK, we don't know how many there
were. We say 3 because there were
three gifts that were given, but that's all we know.
There could have been a ton more.
We do know that they were from the East.
More than likely they were from a a priestly political class who
were known for their knowledge of science, agriculture,
mathematics, and history. In other words, these were
incredibly accomplished dudes. These were the Elon Musk, Jeff
Bezos dudes of their day. OK, we don't know if they wrote
camels, but camels seem like a cool way to get around if you're
a smart dude. So maybe they wrote them.
They were the most powerful group of advisers in the in the
Medo Persian Empire and the Babylonian Empire.
When you read about those in the Old Testament or in world
history, these guys were Ballers.
And it is from this term of these guys that we get the words
magic magician. These guys would show up and
things would change. Came to Jerusalem and they asked
where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?
We saw his star when it rose and we have come to worship him.
When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all of
Jerusalem with him pause. We already have established that
Herod is crazy. These important officials, more
than likely with a gigantic entourage to help them travel
from the east, show up, and they're asking where is the king
of the of the Jews? And this disturbed Herod.
Rightfully so. You see, Jerusalem was an
occupied country. They were occupied by the
Romans. Julius Caesar, who you've read
about in your history books, had placed Herod's father in charge
of Judea. And then Herod's dad put him in
charge of Galilee, the region where we're talking about.
Then Herod traveled all the way to Rome, and he was named, Check
this out, King of the Jews. This would be like somebody pick
your country, your foreign country that you don't like,
that country taking over the United States of America, and
then a foreign person who's not an American being called
president of the United States. And we would all have a huge
problem with that, right? So in order to make things a
little bit more palatable to the Jewish people, he married a Jew.
So somebody comes here to the States and they marry an
American citizen. So that way they're trying to at
least make us feel like they're part of the American people.
And so now you have a cruel, bloodthirsty ruler being who
goes by king of the Jews, being asked by a bunch of influential
people in Jerusalem, Where is this king of the Jews that's
been born When he had called together all of the people's
chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the
Messiah was to be born. In Bethlehem, In Judea.
They replied, for this is what the prophet has written.
I'm going to pause for just a second.
Prophet is written as actually a big clue when you're reading
this text because there are actually 4 geographical
prophecies fulfilled in just Matthew chapter 2.
If you go home and read it, you're going to see Bethlehem,
Egypt, Ramah, and Nazareth. The reason I'm telling you that
is there are over 300, more than likely 330 depending on how you
count Old Testament prophecies about Jesus Christ, and Jesus
fulfilled everyone. This is like dude perfect on
steroids. This is not him making one trick
shot. This is him making 330
consecutive, more difficult, more challenging 1 trick shots
in a row. The reason I'm telling you that
is the arrival of Jesus Christ is no small thing.
The entire Old Testament. All of human history has been
prophesying and pointing to this moment.
You those of you who claim to be a Christian, you have a reasoned
faith, not a blind faith. To those of you who maybe have
never started a relationship with Jesus Christ, I want you to
hear me say this. There are reasons to believe
that Jesus is who he says that he is.
He is a prophecy fulfiller. But you of Bethlehem, this is
one of the keys in the land of Judah, are by no means least
among the rulers of Judah. For out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.
Let's keep going. When Herod called the Magi
secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had
appeared, he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and
search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report
to me so that I too may go and worship him.
So you are these magi, and you have a crazy, bloodthirsty king
telling you, come back and tell me what you learned so I can go
and worship him. Let's keep going.
After they had heard of the king, they went on their way,
and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until
it stopped over the pallets or the place where the child was.
Pause. I thought the star led him
basically all the way there. No, no, no.
Imagine these Magi. If they see this star, it leads
them to basically Jerusalem, and then it stops showing off.
Now we got to stop and ask for directions and then they get
directions and then the star reappears and takes them right
to the place where Jesus was. Let's keep reading.
When they saw the star, they were overjoyed because they'd
lost it. It stopped shining on coming to
the house. Pause.
We know that some serious time has taken place since Jesus was
born. In this moment, he's no longer
in a stable in a Manger. He's now in a house somewhere
between 41 days and two years of ages where we find ourselves in
the life of Jesus. They're no longer in The Cave.
They're no longer in a Manger. The journey for the wise men
could have taken months. They were not in attendance on
the night of Jesus's birth. You don't have to throw them
away. You don't have to get rid of
them from your little nativity scene.
I'm just saying, like, put them in a different room.
OK, just to scale, put them in a different room.
Maybe the garage next to the Elf on the Shelf.
OK, now, the reason I'm telling you all this is already in the
text. You see three different
approaches to Jesus. Three different groups of people
have an opportunity to interact with Jesus, and they all take a
different approach. Herod was threatened, and so he
didn't want anything to do with him.
The chief priests and the teachers of the law pay little
attention to him. They should have been looking
for this. They're religious people.
They were waiting for a Messiah. They could have been joining in
on the search, but they didn't. They should have been excited
about what was happening, but they weren't, because Jesus
didn't show up the way that they wanted him to show up.
They weren't interested in following and paying attention
to this Jesus. But the wise men, these
foreigners, these people who wouldn't have been included,
keep pursuing Jesus and they end up worshipping him.
Now let's keep reading. They saw the child with his
mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.
We're going to come back to that.
Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of
gold, frankincense and myrrh. One time my parents had people
living in our house. I can't remember their names,
but they had a rule in their home that they only gave their
kids 3 gifts at Christmas because that's as many presents
as Jesus got. And their kids weren't better
than Jesus, which is cool for their stupid family.
But that wasn't a rule that we had and it was our house.
But we got shortchanged that year because we had to play nice
to the weirdos. But parents, if you're on a
budget this year, you can at least play the you know well,
Jesus got. Now flip side, if I'd have been
a Bible scholar back then, but yeah, but those 3 gifts were
pretty impressive, weren't they? Yeah, dad, you'd only have to
give me 3 gifts this year. But make the first one gold,
Paul. Are the girls like?
Oh, I'm in. I'm in.
Diamond sounds great. Pay attention to this.
All three gifts were expensive. They were all of great value.
Lots that has been written about these particular gifts.
At the very least these expensive costly gifts paid for
the upcoming flight of them to leave where they were at and
make their way to Egypt. You got to remember 2 weeks ago
when I was preaching to you, Joseph and Mary were poor and
now we're going to find out Herod's going to try to kill all
the people in Bethlehem, all the young boys in Bethlehem, and so
they're going to have to flee. How are these poor people going
to leave with no job, no decent means of transportation and make
a gigantic journey through treacherous areas?
And at just the right time, gifts of gold, frankincense and
myrrh arrive on the scene to provide for the journey.
That's at the very least, at the most.
They had intense spiritual overtones.
Gold was the most valuable metal that is mentioned at All in all
of scripture. It was used to adorn temples and
palaces, and it was a gift that was given to kings.
Frankincense was used on special occasions, and it was used in
the temple specifically on the Day of Atonement.
Frankincense was a gift that you gave to signify a deity to
worship a God. Myrrh was used as incense for
those of you who don't know what incense is.
You probably have an aunt or a stay at home mom who's selling
her essential oils. That's what it is.
And you don't have to raise your hand if you're one of those
people who's we can we can smell you.
We know you're here. We appreciate we appreciate your
lavender mint. And I'm I'm sure that the new
thing that your Aroma pusher is way better than the one you were
selling last year. We're happy for you.
We love it. So that's what myrrh was.
This is like the first essential oil salesperson and it was a
perfume that was used to cloak bad smells.
Sometimes you would put it on a lover's bed to make sure that
the room was set up just right, but it was also used when
somebody died and it was packed inside of the burial clothes to
keep away the smell of the decaying body.
It signified humanity. Here baby Jesus is given 3
gifts, one for a king, one for a God, one for a human.
Taken together, these gifts could indeed signify Jesus's
kingship, his deity, and his eventual sacrifice and death on
a cross on your behalf and on mine.
Let's keep going in the text, and having been warned in a
dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country
by another route. We're going to circle back to by
another route. If I have enough time in the
sermon, take away number one. You can have everything, but you
have nothing if you don't have Jesus.
Here are wise men who, from the outside looking in, have
everything that you could want. They were more than likely rich,
well to do, highly respected, influential in their spheres of
influence. There are big deals, but here
you find them chasing after Jesus.
They had everything from the outside.
But look what happens in Matthew chapter 16.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be
my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and
follow me. For whoever wants to save their
life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will
find it. What good will it be for someone
to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?
At the end of the day, it is not about what you have that
matters, it's about who has you. It's not about all the things
that you can accumulate into your hands, but whether or not
you will place your life in his hands.
Parents, we spend an awful lot of time, myself included, on
sports school, getting ready for college.
But hear me, if your child does not have a relationship with
Jesus Christ, they have nothing. I would rather my kids be a high
school dropout and a follower of Jesus Christ.
I would rather have my kids get hit in the head every time
someone throws a ball at them and then have a relationship
with Jesus Christ. Parents of kids who are getting
ready to start your college visits, before you pick a
college, check out to make sure that they have a church and get
your kid plugged into that church before you sign up for
that college. Because if you don't pay close
attention in those first eight weeks of them being at school,
they will not get connected to a church.
They will fall away and a lot of your hard work will be lost.
Make sure between practices and dances and trips and vacations
that you are doing your part to make sure that your kids
recognize their need for a Savior.
Take away #2. In the middle of the mass, the
wise men chose to worship. They had orders from a dangerous
man. They had all the reason in the
world to be full of worry, to be anxious, to be nervous.
This guy kills people and they show up after Jesus anyway.
And when they get there, they do something really strange.
They worship him. Sometimes we come to church as a
way to kind of get away from the mess sometimes, and I love it
when they say it. I even agree when they say it.
Sometimes worship people say, hey, I I just want you guys to
leave. Whatever you've had going on
this week, just leave it behind for a little bit and just come
in and get some rest at the feet of Jesus and you know, leave
your troubles behind for just a little bit and connect with your
Lord. We want.
And that's what we want to do, isn't it?
We want to escape it. We want to escape the pain,
escape the trauma, escape the hurt, escape everything that's
going on. So we're just going to come to
church to escape it for a little bit.
And we get a little high and then we walk out and it's
waiting for us in the car. Sometimes it walked with us to
the car. Don't.
Careful, no nudging. OK, here's what I want to say to
you. Maybe instead of leaving it
behind, what if you brought it with you and you worshipped him
anyway? I'm not as impressed with people
who can worship God when everything's going right.
It's probably easy to worship when you got a raise.
Man, you're so good. You're so faithful.
Woo Jarrah, right? But you you tell me, which is
more impactful. I didn't get a raise.
I lost my job. Can you still sing how good he
is? Can you still sing that he's a
provider? I'm more impressed with people
who can worship in the middle of the pain than I am with people
who are worshipping without any pain.
That you take your mess and you bring it in and go.
This is where I'm at, and I'm choosing to worship you anyway.
It's one thing to worship God when you're on the mountaintop,
but it says something completely different about us when we can
worship him in the valley and the Christian life and life in
general. It's not mountaintop to
mountaintop. It is mountaintop, valley,
valley, valley, valley, valley, mountaintop.
And just so you know, the one who's on top of the mountain is
the same one who's in the valley.
If God's good all the time, that means that he's good when you're
going up the mountain and He's just as good when you're going
down the mountain. And when you bring that kind of
mentality into your walk with the Lord.
When you bring that kind of mentality into your worship, it
doesn't matter what's going on. I am worshipping him.
Take away #3. The wise men came prepared to
worship. Worship should cost you
something. It was hard for me to worship
because my seat wasn't just right.
It was hard for me to worship because it was too loud.
It was hard for me to worship because I was sitting next to
someone stinky. It's hard for me to worship
because I had a long week. These people came in advance
prepared to worship. They prepared to encounter a
king, and the idea of worshipping a king and showing
up with nothing is foreign to biblical Christianity.
When you are worshipping Jesus, he is the Lord of your life and
he is the Lord of everything in your life.
But functionally, he is only the Lord of the things that you have
placed in his hands. And there are things we will
place in his hands, like our sins.
There's things we'll place in his hands, like our messes.
And that's what we end up doing to Jesus.
We make him Lord of all the things we don't want, but we
don't make him Lord of all the things we do want.
Hey, Jesus, you're a great Lord over my messes, just not my
finances. I don't want my mess, but I do
want my money. Got you.
You're in charge. You're in control of all of my
failures. But I don't want you to
necessarily touch my successes. What they're doing is they're
bringing costly things Wherever you placed your time, your
talents, your resources, what gift are you going to bring to
King Jesus? Oh, this might be my favorite
point of the sermon. This one, don't doubt What seeds
of faith you can plant in the middle of the mess.
I'm going to go along, but I'm going to tell you a story.
There is a strong possibility that the reason that these wise
men made a trip from the east all the way to Bethlehem is
because 400 years earlier there was a young man who was living
in Jerusalem who was taken captive to Babylon.
And that young man's name was Daniel.
And he showed up in Babylon, and he was put through the wringer.
He had to take a strong stand to maintain his faith and his diet.
His comrades had to choose not to bow down to a false idol.
He interpreted dreams at the threat of death.
He was told it's illegal to pray, and he chose to pray three
times a day anyway. And because of that they put him
in the lion's den. But because he kept being
obedient to God and going from 1 mountaintop to into the valley,
and then God would save him and deliver him in and prop him up,
and then he'd be persecuted and put back down and go through a
hardship. And because he kept being
faithful to God, he was placed in charge of all of the wise men
in Babylon, and 400 years later, a group of wise men, more than
likely from the region where Babylon was, make a trip to see
baby Jesus. Daniel's life was walking from
one mess into the next and choosing to follow God anyway.
However, his legacy is what caused the journey the wise men
took to Bethlehem. Listen to me.
And the gifts that they that they brought paid for a trip
that Joseph and Mary didn't have the funds to take and didn't
know that they were going to have to his faith may have given
the wise men the courage that they needed to take a stand
against Herod and not go back to him and tell them where they
found the Christ child and they spoke or they ran away so that
way they didn't have to face him.
Hear me. To those of you in a mess right
now. Somebody is watching you and
they are taking notes. Someone is paying attention to
the story you are writing. They are seeing you go through a
hard time and they're paying attention to what kind of faith
you have. One time I was with a friend
named Jeff Nemco and he's way more charismatic than I am.
And somebody there's details about this that are tough for me
to remember. I just remember this one part
and we were praying either for me or we were praying for
somebody. And it was one of those, you
know how you have those people who pray for you and they just
pray that everything goes great for you.
God, I pray that they get healed tomorrow.
I pray that when they go to the doctor, they don't find
anything. God, I pray that when they show
up, everything goes right. I pray that the the boss doesn't
make it out of his house today. So that way everybody else gets
promoted. I, you know, they're just
praying a prayer for you. And Jeff, like, did that part of
the prayer and then he didn't shut up and say Amen.
He said another part. And he basically said, and God,
if you want to make the road harder and higher, if you want
to make him suffer more, stop praying, stupid.
We don't. Don't listen to this guy.
Jeff goes, give him the strength to walk it.
There's someone watching you in your mess and it might just make
him go for a long trip to find Jesus.
But my favorite part of this story is my final take away.
They chose to worship him for who he is, not for what he had
done. Everybody say before, before
they were worshipping Jesus. Before the feeding of the 5000
they're worshipping Jesus. Before The Walking on water,
they were worshipping Jesus before the calming of the storm.
They were worshipping him before the miraculous catch, before the
raising of Lazarus, before the casting out of demons they were
worshipping, before he healed the paralyzed man.
Before the Sermon on the mount, before the cross, before the
resurrection, before the forgiveness of sins.
They were worshipping him before because they weren't worshipping
Jesus because of what he had done.
They were worshipping him because of who He is, and He is
the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
The Word made flesh, the only begotten.
All things are from Him and through him and held together by
Him. He is the image of the invisible
God. He is holy, and angels encircle
him and never stop declaring it. He wraps himself in light.
He is light. He is who He is, and no one can
take it away from Him. Sometimes we get so caught up in
our circumstances and our mess is that we forget who we're
talking to. We're talking to King Jesus and
we keep trying to give God a last name.
Dad, you can relate. I get called Daddy.
Can I? All the time, Like, can I?
Is my last name Anybody been there?
Hey, Dad, can I have my friends over?
Dad, can I get a phone when I'm 13?
Dad, can I get we get a new game on the PS5 like that.
My last name's Hensel, get a job.
And how many of us are prayer life, myself included.
This whole week was God, Kenya. God, would you?
God, please. God doesn't have a last name.
He is who he is and in the middle of the mess the wise men
chose to worship. And in the middle of your mess
your marriage, your family challenges, your diagnosis, your
parenting hardships, your financial pressure, your worry,
your fear, your depression, your anxiety.
I want to encourage you to do the same that in the middle of
the mess you are pre deciding I'm going to worship and maybe
that's what we need to do. We need to step into the throne
room and see him for who he is and then we won't have to worry
as much about our message because if we saw God for who he
is, we would say this. If he's for us who can be
against us? We're moving to a time of
decision so I didn't have time to get into it.
So let's do it now. I'm going to re preach the
sermon at the end it says the Wise Men took another route home
and I'm going to pull the text a little bit further than it's
supposed to and I'm acknowledging it so you don't
get to call me a heretic. But that's what they did.
They physically took a different route home and I wonder
spiritually if there's some of you who need to take a different
route home today. You've been navigating life all
on your own. The roads that you have been
walking, you've walked before. In fact, you never stop walking
them. You've been walking the route
of, hey, if I just get enough stuff, I'll finally be happy.
How many of you have bought some more stuff this year?
Nobody bought new stuff this year.
This is the participation part of the message.
Like, no, Clayton, we are broke. Hey, we're not.
We weren't having on Christmas. This three is going to be a
stretch question. All the stuff you got.
Are you that much happier? Are you laying in bed going now
that I got these shoes? Woo, right.
I always buy white tennis shoes because I'm dumb.
Because you know what happens to white tennis shoes?
They get dirty. Take them out-of-the-box.
You're done, and you've been trying to fill the hole in your
heart with your stuff, and I'm guessing it hasn't worked.
Some of you, you're trying to fill the hole in your heart with
relationships, but yet you've found out.
You've looked in the mirror and realized that you're attracted
to stupid people. Question.
How's that working? You've been running that route
for a long time. Some of you, you're going, you
know what? I'm just going to be selfish.
I I've been for everybody else for so long.
I'm just going to be for me. And I bet you're incredibly
unhappy and lonely because selfish people don't win friends
and influence. People question.
You've tried that route. How's it working?
Some of you, you feel this incredible weight and tension
and pain in your life over the sins that you've carried.
Your mind is a little bit turned spiritually and you're trying to
figure out how to pray enough and be good enough that you will
finally get into heaven. And I got to ask you, how's that
route working? Maybe you came to church on one
Rd. but you would go home another route.
Can I tell you about a route the early Christians were called
members of the Way. Jesus is called the Way, the
Truth, and the Life. It's a narrow road, and few find
it, But those who do never regret it.
If you were here today and you have never started an intimate,
personal relationship with Jesus Christ, can I encourage you to
take a different route home today?
You've been to a lot of invitations at our church.
It blows my mind how many people get baptized and have been
coming here for a decade. Like, what are you doing during
this part of the message? I'm tuning this guy out.
I gave him 30. You took 35.
I'm done. I'm going to start the
invitation first next week. Just do it on the front end when
you're still paying attention. Question.
You've been coming to church, you come to invitation time.
You sit there, arms folded. What if during this invitation
time, you tried a different route and he walked right over
there by the Baptist? He said.
I got to, I got to, I got to talk to somebody about how do I
get this relationship with God figured out to those of you who
are Christians. I want us to be worship anytime
Christians worship in the mess kind of Christians, people who
come to God and go. I'm worshipping you today.
Not because of what you've delivered me from, not because
of what I'm going through, not because of any of that.
I'm just worshipping you today because of who you are.
If they can worship him for who he is before the cross, we can
certainly worship him for who he is after the cross.
And there are people watching you right now, watching you
walk, watching you work. Watching how you love and treat
your family. How you navigate hardship, How
you deal with pain, How you cope with loss.
They're watching you, and I'm praying like Daniel.
When they get done watching you, they go looking for what you
have in Jesus. Would you stand with me?
God, this church is nothing. I'm nothing.
This sermon is nothing unless you're in it.
And so, God, I'm begging you to be in this place right now to do
a work that only you can do, in ways that only you can do it in
your name, I pray. Amen.