The. Thank you so much.
All right, good morning, everybody.
My name is Pastor Dave. I am the middle school director
here at Rez. Thank you guys.
You guys. You have awesome kids, by the
way. I know I was with them all week.
My body is sore, my throat hurts, and I I wasn't even
screaming and I'll probably never wear a Jedi costume to
church again probably. But let me tell you, my heart is
full. My spirit is full.
If I got the chance to experience the hand of God in
our presence, forever changing the lives of students and really
everyone who was here that witnessed it all, I would do it
all again tomorrow. And we kid you not, the baptisms
were through. It was crazy.
There were so many baptisms. It was it was wild.
We were handing out wet used towels for kids to dry off over
and over again. By the end of it, our waters, no
joke, turned from this crystal clear to this delectable kids
soup. There are all kinds of things
floating in it. That murky water?
It represented 22 lives being washed clean by the blood of
Jesus Christ. Over 30 students realized that
they were playing games with God and decided this week was the
week that they were going to be serious, that they were going to
rededicate their lives, they were going to follow Him with
all they had. Amen to that church.
This is what happens when the body of Christ shows up in
Christ, honors it, when you show up with your time, your energy,
your sacrifices. I know you've been giving.
I know you've been encouraging students all week.
We're encouraging students to become Jedi disciples who begin
to abide in God's Word, to experience his spirit and life,
to believe God who sent Jesus to follow him through darkness
because he is the light of the world.
We are learning this week after week.
We're encouraging them all to memorize the fruits of the
Spirit. If you ask any of the students
in there, they probably will tell you I beat it into them
because that was our goal for the whole week, to have love and
joy and no peace and patience and kindness and goodness and
faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.
Thursday we had this light bulb moment that these lifestyle
changes, these choices, they come from one source.
That source is having Jesus Christ in your life and abiding
in him. So today join me in John chapter
8. I give you a second to get there
in your Bibles. If you don't have it, it's going
to be on the screens. We'll be in verse 31.
This is where Jesus is questioning.
He questions if we are abiding in His truth or just memorizing
facts, where he's questioning if we are true disciples or just
knowledge gatherers. So let's read verse 31.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide
in my word, you are truly my disciple, and you will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free.
They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham and have
never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will
become free? Jesus answered them Truly,
truly. I say to you, everyone who
practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the
house forever. The sun remains forever.
So if the sun sets you free, you will be free.
Indeed. Our big idea for today is
abiding, is moving from knowledge collecting to life
transformation. I'll say that again, abiding is
moving from life, from knowledge collecting to life
transformation. Abiding in knowledge is much
more than facts and information gathering.
I would know my favorite way to pass a test is to memorize it.
Memorize the questions so the instant I see, I know the
answer. Or even worse, I'll just
memorize the answer. I'll visualize patterns or
themes. Can I?
Can I be honest for a second? In seminary Bible college, I was
a master at gaming the system. I remember this one question.
In what way does Jesus divinity manifest itself?
I knew that question had 7 answers and each of them, each
of the words ended with ER or Orr.
So I memorized the pattern, but I didn't dig into the truth.
I aced the test. It's about Jesus without
actually knowing Jesus any deeper.
I turned the Son of God into a word puzzle, just collecting
Bible facts while my heart stayed unchanged.
Why? Because this is the fastest way
for me to pass a test. It demands the least from me,
keeping my involvement to a bare minimum.
But does that actually change me?
Did it develop my knowledge on the subject?
Does it actually grow me, Prepare me?
Did it instill any of the fruits of the Spirit into my character
that we've been pounding into you all week?
Was it transforming me into a better person?
The idea of being transformed directly come from abiding in
Jesus. Abiding.
What a weird word.
We don't even hear it anymore, probably because we're too busy.
Abiding means to remain, to dwell, to let something
penetrate you so deep into your soul that it changes you,
changing not what you know, but who you are and how you actually
live. Back to verse 31.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide
in my word, you are truly my disciples.
Jesus is laying out what it really means to be a disciple,
or he's laying out what it actually means to be what we
call a Christian, a follower of Christ.
Through the past several weeks, if you've been sitting in
church, you've been reading John chapter 8.
Jesus is surrounded by people who are surface level in their
beliefs. At best, one moment they believe
Jesus is speaking the truth, giving amazing guidance and
insight, and then in the next, like they turned off the lights.
These people are living in the dark, disregarding Jesus for
their personal opinions. Jesus is trying to lead them
into a real a deep personal understanding of what what it
means to be a follower of him, a follower of Jesus, a Christian.
Just like the Jews here. It's possible for us, say me, to
believe in God and not let His truths shape our lives.
Abiding in His Word implies commitment, enduring continue
practice, and obedience to His teaching.
It's possible believing God, but not walk the life of a true
disciple. How do I know?
Because I do that all the time. I wear the title Christian.
But sometime, sometimes I'm just tired.
I'm exhausted. I'm worked out, tired of being
strong, tired of pretending everything is OK.
Christianity calls me to lay down my life and to pick up and
carry a cross when I'm already caring so much.
I read come to me, Jesus says this, come to me, all who are
weary, but I keep running to the other things instead.
Entertainment, every distraction I can think of, performance, and
ultimately I just have to check out.
I want peace but avoid the path that leads to it.
Obedience. I want joy but I avoid pruning
what I know is souring me. I want transformation but avoid
surrender because even though I am exhausted, I am tired, I have
done all I can. I still I think it's best for me
to be in control. The real cost of discipleship
isn't doing more, it's laying more down.
Think about that. The real cost, what it really
cost you to be a disciple, is not to do more, it's to give
more. Up my pride, my pace, myself
made strength. Jesus isn't asking me to hustle
harder, but to trust deeper, to abide, not to strive, to rest in
him. Not just for him.
Because the title Christian does not transform me.
Discipleship in Christ is a person who's developing,
growing, changing. It's a person who's becoming
more like the teacher, more like Jesus.
And often I fall back into being more like Dave, less like Jesus.
According to the Bible, there are two versions of you.
One who was enslaved to sin, living under the power of
fleshly desires. This is kind of our default.
This is what we started from. The other is filled with the
Holy Spirit, living as if we were originally created in the
image of God as we were. So when I say I want to be Dave,
I have to ask which Dave, the one that's redeemed and made
holy by God, or the one who is still bonded to sin?
And when did becoming like Dave become more appealing like than
being like Jesus? When what makes me think more of
me is better than more of God? When I stopped abiding in
Christ? When I stopped recognizing that
my life isn't how He intended it to be.
This transformation is recognizing that I need God's
word to shape my life. This is a disciple.
This is what Jesus is talking about, or this is what we call
in church sanctification. It's the growth in your capacity
to be more like Christ, to be more like Jesus in your
character. All right, think of it like
this. You guys like food?
Yes. OK, four people like food.
OK, The foodies in here, you don't get intense flavour by
brushing on marinade. Brush it on, throw it on the
grill. How's it taste?
If you want your rib eye to taste like garlic and balsamic
and explode in flavours, you can't just dip it in and cook
it. Nothing sinks in, nothing
changes. Real flavor comes when you let
it soak in, absorb when you work that marinade deep, give it time
to break down the tough parts and then fuse into the middle.
That's how transformation happens, not with a quick
splash, but with the slow, deliberate soaking.
And the same is true with God's Word.
It has to soak in, not just sit on.
Jesus says in order for you to become a true disciple, He says
you must continue. In my Word, discipleship always
involves 2 key components. Receiving His word #1 and being
shaped by His Word. It's both truth learned and
skill developed. Abiding means more than hearing.
It means continuing in it, applying it, living it.
Information must be married between practice and skill.
Imagine you need something like a heart surgery.
Something that's super important.
And your surgeon walks in and he starts explaining it to you,
This is what I'm going to do. And he shows you diagrams of how
your heart's working. And you're impressed.
Like, wow, this guy's pretty good.
And then he's got his medical degrees on the wall.
Wow. He doesn't go to a Skibby
school. Then you ask him the question
that changes everything. How many of these have you
actually done? He goes Oh no, I've never done
this before, you're my first. Suddenly all that knowledge is
just surface level. When life and death is on the
line, information without experience is worthless.
Life is too big of a deal to not get this right.
Abiding is moving from knowledge collecting to life
transformation and in a life and death scenario, information is
not enough. Knowing Christ or not knowing
Christ is a life and death situation.
We love to gain knowledge. We love to hear God's Word.
We love the idea of living godly lives.
We are so good at biblical knowledge gathering, but for
informational purposes only. We want the data without the
responsibility. That's truthfully what happens
on a Sunday morning. So many people come in, but they
don't continue in God's word. They hear God's word.
They come in and say, give me a sermon, teach me, preach to me,
make it good, make it exciting, let's get our lightsabers out,
let's go crazy. But the second they leave those
back doors, is it being applied to our lives or is it simply
they love the feeling of church and excitement?
And don't get me wrong, church is amazing.
Church is here to lift us up, to refocus on the Lord.
But Jesus says when we're not abiding in his word, when it's
not changing you, when you love the way you live more than the
way the Lord asks you to live, Jesus says, you're not my
disciple. You may be a church attender,
you may be taking tons of notes, but a disciple, No, you may be
saved and on your way to heaven because you truly believe in
him. But his disciple, No.
Again, verse 31. So Jesus said to the Jews who
had believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are truly
my disciple, and you will know the truth, and the truth will
set you free. They answered him, We are
offspring of Abraham, and I've never been enslaved to anyone.
How is that you say you will become free?
Become free? What is this freedom he's
talking about? We live in America.
What do we need to be free from? The Jews are asking the same
question, which is blowing my mind.
These are the same people that God had to save from an
enslaving hand of Pharaoh. How could these people forget
about their million people leaving Egypt where God had to
intervene? Get in the middle of it
physically do one of the most spectacular miracles of parting
the seas. It's the same way we forget to
put Christ in our lives. Somebody might be thinking this
Jesus talk sounds great, but I'm not even sure this guy existed
2000 years ago, let alone that he can set me free from the
things that I'm dealing with today.
That's a fair question, I get that.
I understand what you're thinking, but let me show you,
no matter how skeptical you may be, that freedom that Jesus
talks about changes lives. All of us have a basic idea of
tools. Yes, we have tools at home.
OK, We have all kinds of tools. We have computers, we have
phones. Some that's good, some of it's
not so good. We have cars, we have drills,
and there's a way to use our tools well, the way that they
were designed. But if you don't use the tool
correctly, you'll ruin the tool. If you took an electric drill
and you used it as a hammer, eventually this will no longer
be an electric drill. It'll be destroyed.
There'll be pieces. If you take it and you start
digging and trying to use it as a pry bar.
Done it before, destroys it, by the way.
It's pretty messed up. It's no longer optimum.
The lie the devil tells you is that anytime you have a
restriction, a barrier, a guideline, a guardrail in your
life, you are not free. That's basically saying how dare
you tell me how to use that drill?
How dare you? If I want to use it as a hammer,
I'm going to use it as a hammer. How dare you.
You're so enslaved. Often in our culture, we look at
guidelines and designs that the Bible talks about and go How can
rules or guidelines lead to freedom?
But here's what's wild the husband and wife who actually
follow God's design, who choose exclusivity, who practice
selfless love, who build their relationships on trust, respect,
biblical commitment. These couples, they report the
highest satisfactions in their marriage.
The reality is when we actually live life the way our Creator
designed for us to live, this is when we are the most satisfied.
You were created for a dependent relationship with your Creator.
Let me say it again, you were created for a dependent
relationship. We don't like that word, but
it's true. And life without Him will not
feel satisfied. In fact, life without Him leaves
you feeling broken, missing out. True freedom isn't about having
no rules. It's about living within the
right rules that actually fit how we were designed to work.
So you can be your absolute best.
Jesus is. True freedom means being
liberated from bondages and limitations, bondage that is
preventing you and I from becoming what we were created
for. What Jesus died on the cross
for. Bondage is such a shame and
guilt. Unprocessed trauma, envy,
addictions, goes on and on. Here's what's fascinating.
Jesus is making a claim that every human can test this, that
there are invisible chains holding us back from becoming
our best selves. You don't have to believe in
miracles to recognize that something inside of us sabotages
our own happiness. We know what is good for us, but
we keep doing what hurts us. Jesus says this pattern has a
name, it's called slavery to sin, and he claims he has the
key to break those chains off. How does an addict know that
they're an addict? At one point do they say I am a
drug addict, I'm a sex addict, I'm an alcoholic?
The truth is, at first they don't, because addiction doesn't
feel like slavery in the beginning.
It feels like freedom. It feels like a choice.
It feels like you're in control. From the outside, we say, how
could they not see that they're a slave to this?
But when we're doing it, we don't feel like a slave until
you try to walk away and you can't.
I didn't think I was a slave to working, being a workaholic,
even though I've been told many times you need a vacation.
Working myself to the point of depletion.
I didn't believe it because I was doing it to myself.
And I love working. It makes me feel good, makes me
feel important. When I'm not working, I miss it.
I can't stop thinking about getting things done.
This is just me. Anybody else in this room have
something in their life that is like that?
Amen to that hand. Freedom isn't doing what you
want. Freedom is being able to stop
when you realize you need to stop.
Freedom is having the sight that you need to stop.
Slavery is when you can't stop. Verse 34 Jesus, answer them
Truly, truly. I say to you, everyone who
practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the
house forever. The sun remains forever.
So if the sun sets you free, you will be free.
Indeed. Abiding is moving from knowledge
collecting to life transformation.
Our big idea for today is simply stated.
It's easy to say, yet it's not often taken seriously.
I know because I often fall short of abiding in His word,
from dwelling in it, from pondering how His words should
change my character, from letting it truly set me free.
I do this because it's easier to skim than to soak.
Because I will seek the Lord as an afterthought because I'm too
caught up in everything else. And there's a lot going on.
Romans 12/2 says do not be conformed to the patterns of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
And it's crazy to me how I will only see transformation when
it's so deep, when I'm in it so deep that it's hurting.
My thought life, my prayer life, it becomes about me.
I'm enslaved by what I want, ultimately letting the sin of my
life overcome and enslave me. And if I'm being honest, the
same split sin that's enslaving me is enslaving you, not
allowing you to have and enjoy the benefits that God is
promising us, keeping us from the benefits that we were
created to receive. And that's my question I asked
you today. Do you have true freedom from
life's bondages? Christ offers freedom in his
salvation. It's not merely enough to know
that Christ can set you free. He has to be a part of you
before you become free to take off those sinful chains of your
life. Christ offers in this through a
real relationship with Him and if you actually believe in
Christ that Christ is who he says He is, He gives you the
free gift of salvation and it starts to break you free.
Our lives consequences may seem impossible to overcome, but the
reality is without Christ most of them are right now I give you
the opportunity to have a real relationship with Jesus today.
The Bible says you must place your faith in Him to be saved.
Romans 10/9 through 10 says because if you confess with your
mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with a heart 1 believes and is justified, and with the mouth
1 confesses and is saved. If you would like to surrender
your life to God today, I want to give you that chance.
So if everybody could please bow your heads, close your eyes,
just for a quick moment. This is just so you can focus on
God, if you're willing to ask Him for forgiveness and
salvation with every head bound you can quietly, silently repeat
repeat this prayer or something similar.
Jesus, I know I am messed up. I am a Sinner.
I can't save myself. I want you to save me, adopt me
into your family. I surrender everything to you.
I receive your promise of forgiveness.
I receive your adoption and eternal life.
Jesus, please be my Lord with every head down.
If you pray that prayer for the very first time, would you be
brave enough to raise your hand? Amen.
You may put your hands down in the amazing power of Jesus.
Amen. If you just committed your life
to Jesus for the very first time, welcome to his forever
family. There are tables in the back of
this room behind banners that says, I raised my hand and we
just have a small gift for you, something to celebrate.
But really we just want to pray with you and be there for you
while you make this first step into having Christ come into
your life and change your life and start breaking you free from
the things that you know you're working through.
And before we end today, let me give you some practical steps of
abiding in God's word #1 hang out with God's Word.
Hang out. Take a second.
One of the best places to do this is in our community groups.
Our community groups are not secular Hangouts.
They are centered around the Word of God.
Because community is nice, but biblical community is essential
for everyone here. It's the word that changes us.
Sometimes it's the word from other believers, so hopefully
with a group of people, if not by yourself, take a verse, take
a section of scripture and read it over.
Ask God, am I living like this? Pray and ask Him.
God, what are you telling me in this section of your word?
Let it soak into you. Dwell on it.
If you have no idea what it means, even better.
Search, see, talk to people about it #2 be a doer, not just
a hearer. Throughout the week, take a
moment to ponder the word that you've been reading, that you
opened up and read, and ask yourself, how can this change my
outlook on a situation? How should it change my
character or my actions? Lastly, find a verse that speaks
directly to an area you know you are called to be transformed in.
Utilize your pastors, your elders, your leaders, the people
around you to find a verse that speaks into what you know you
need to change in, Be transformed.
Write that verse somewhere where you'll see it multiple times a
day, every thought, Every time you see it, don't just read it.
Confess your need for God's help to actually live it out, because
we really need God's help. The goal is not perfection, it's
authentic discipleship. It's when we get to see God,
when we are face to face with God and he says, you, you were
my disciple. It's allowing God's truth to
slowly conform you to the image of His Son.
As we close the song, I ask you all to please stand.
Our prayer team will be up here if you need to pray about
anything. And when I say anything, I
really need it. These people have heard it all.
If you need healing, if you need encouragement, if you need just
to be with somebody, come forward and pray with them.