Well friends I want to Dive Right into our text.
This morning is Rashad said we're in Matthew 5 in verse 8
and I want to get us started this morning with a question.
Question is this have you ever hidden something about yourself
or played a part in order to be accepted?
We have her hidden something by yourself or played a part in
order to be accepted a while back.
I was at a social event with some neighborhood dad's that I
was just getting to know. And I was really excited to
connect, we were huddled around a fire pit in a buddies,
backyard. And I was just like, I'm glad I
got invited to this thing. I've been wanting to get to know
some of the guys who are stage of life and live close to me,
and we were having a great time, the drinks and the jokes were
traveling around pretty freely. Most of the evening was really
just beautiful and connecting but there was a specific point
in the evening. When I got caught up, when I got
caught playing a part, an individual came up in the
Conversation, who candidly a bunch of the people in the group
did not like very much. Someone made a joke at his
expense and then another person followed on with a pretty
ungenerous judgment about this individual.
And before you knew it, it felt like everybody was kind of
piling on and part of me felt uncomfortable.
I was like, oh, this feels off, you know, granted, I know this
individual. I've been also put off by some
things that had recently happened, but the way that he
was being mocked kind of bothered me.
And at the same time, there was a bigger part of me that I'm
embarrassed to say just like wanted to fit in.
I was more worried about kind of being part of the crew that I
was about how I showed up as relates to this other guy.
And so before I knew it in an attempt to connect with these
other guys to build some Rapport, I found myself.
Not only awkwardly laughing along but chipping in with with
a snide comment my own the very next day and my spiritual
practice is the holy spirit brought Me back to that moment
with a highlighter underlining it and instantly I had one of
those moments you know, when you're when you're communing
with Jesus and it's like, I missed it there.
I'm disappointed in how I showed up.
I hadn't done anything, particularly flagrant, but as I
looked back on the events of the previous evening, I just, I
immediately knew I had gotten, pulled out of my values, out of
my integrity and begun to play a part in order to fit in.
Maybe you can relate is there been a moment where you've
you've hidden something about yourself, you've played a part
in order to be accepted or to get something that you want.
Pastor and author, Mark scanned Rhett in his book on the
Beatitudes suggest that not only do each of these sayings of
Jesus invite us into a new posture, but they also invite us
out of a default or a first instinct way of relating with
one another. And this morning we come to the
Words of Jesus that Rashad's already read for us.
In Matthew 5:8, where Jesus says, blessed are the pure in
heart for they will see God. So what's the opposite of that?
If we were to pick an opposite of pure in heart, Pastor scanned
Rhett suggests that, it might be this instinct to hide and
pretend the instinct to hide and pretend and this Instinct has
been with us for a while, has it not right.
This goes all the way back to the Garden at the very beginning
of scripture. Story in Genesis 3, we find our
first parents disobey God and then immediately, how do they
respond? Right?
They begin to cover up and hide. They, they want to Shield
themselves from being seen, no sooner than had Adam and Eve
disobeyed. God, then there was something
inside of them that for the very first time broke where there had
been wholeness, there was now Division and they knew it, they
sense something was off internally and so their
instincts to hide to avoid being seen to avoid being seen.
Posed in their Brokenness, there was something that told Adam and
Eve, even in that first moment of Shifting out of Innocence
that if I show up if I allow God to see me if I'm seen by God,
then this thing that is off inside, my soul will be exposed.
And so they responded by hiding and this is an instinct friends
that continues on for each one of us, right up until today,
right, everyone of us is a paradox, if you will where a
mixed bag, Back because on the one hand and this is this is
true, I can't overstate this enough.
Every single one of us is beautiful Created in God's Own
image designed for good. We're beautiful.
And also paradoxically were broken, right?
Something inside. Our soul has been Shattered by
sin and there's their pieces of us that are off, right?
That have been warped and twisted from their original
intent. And deep down everyone of us,
know this, we sense that there are certain parts of us that are
more loveable than others. This is The Human Condition,
Paradox, beautiful, and broken. And our first instinct if skin
red is, right? Is that if we're going to feel
okay and our desire to be accepted to, in our desire to
find belonging that we default to hiding and pretending.
Brene Brown. The noted.
Shame researcher talks about fitting in and says fitting.
In is about assessing a situation and becoming who you
need to be in order to be accepted when we distance
ourselves from the parts of our lives that don't fit in with who
we think we're supposed to be, we stand outside our story and
hustle for our worthiness. And this kind of hustling for
our worthiness is at the very core of this instinct to hide
and pretend and man it starts off, not only early back in
history but it It's early for us, doesn't it?
Like from from childhood from childhood.
It starts out when I was little my parents love.
The fact that I was precocious, they were both teachers and in
our home you know they didn't this wasn't like explicit but
they valued intelligence, they valued academic success.
And so anytime I be carrying around a clipboard anytime I'm
like learning the ABCs all of a sudden my parents like they just
got so excited guys. They were like oh yeah, we are
Really smart. This is wonderful, right?
I don't know. Probably wasn't even that smart,
but my parents were, like, really hype about this and, you
know, it's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing to
celebrate things. In your kids.
I have an almost two year old daughter now and I find myself
all the time. Oh my gosh.
Ava. You're so beautiful Ava.
You're so smart, right? But but implicitly at a subtle
level. What happens, right?
We began to foreground certain parts of ourselves.
And hide others, right? We begin to show off the parts
of ourselves that we think others want to see and hide and
pretend when it comes to these parts that are not ashamed of
and and friends, if there is ever been a time when this is
problem in the world, it's got to be now, right?
It's got to be now when our whole world pulls out us and
invites us into a posture of hiding and pretending, I've
recently been interacting with the work of Sherry turkle the
sociologists and psychologists at MIT and she names this
reality. Saying texting email, posting
all of these things. Let us present the self as we
want to be. We get to edit and that means we
get to delete, it means we get to retouch the face, The Voice,
the flesh, the body instead of being in the world and with
others as we really are we find ourselves wearing masks
cultivating. Personas in order to win favor
and the acceptance of others. And look at some level.
I get it right? This makes sense at some level.
So, like, all of us, all of us want our parents to like us, all
of us, right? One other, one of the accepted
you look nice. Today, I make up the most of you
took showers before coming here. I'm not complaining about that.
Okay, right. There is, there is a level at
which it makes sense for us to foreground parts that are
beautiful. I'm not suggesting that any of
you walk out of here today. And, you know, Yourself.
Hello, my name is Josh. Please allow me to introduce you
to all the most dysfunctional and terrible parts of me, right.
That'd be a weird way to introduce yourself.
Not everyone is worthy to hold your wounds and your tender
parts, right? Not everybody's worthy to hold
your wounds and tender parts. But here's the problem while
this instinct to hide and pretend works at a level to keep
us safe, right? It's a great survival strategy.
This very same strategy Keeps Us divided and keeps us stuck.
Even if we are successful. Using the strategy even if we're
effective at masking the broken parts of our souls even if we
can cultivate and curate a compelling image in score,
thousands of likes and follows and become an influencer or a
YouTube celebrity out there with a divided life.
They'll be something in our soul that says, it's not.
Okay, it's not real. Parker Palmer so beautifully.
Describes, this burden saying the divided life is a wounded
life and the Soul keeps calling us to heal the rude.
See when we operate in this posture in this first instinct,
default of hiding and pretending, we begin to lose
touch with the core of our being.
We begin to lose touch with our souls.
We start to disappear into personas and projections And
very often, we sense that there's something off, there's
something missing, something's not right?
But instead of going inward, we go outward.
We began to see if we can create that thing.
Which will reflect back to us the worthiness that we long for.
You know, if I can just get in this relationship over here and
this girl, or this guy, right then, I'll feel like complete,
right? If I could just man, if I could
just get this job and this salary, right?
Then on, I know that I've made it.
I'm Legit. I'm I'm if I could just get into
that school, right? Then.
I would know if I can buy this house in this neighborhood,
right? If we could have a kid and on
and on and on, we go with these attempts to somehow create
externally. These mirrors, that would would
show back to us that we're okay that we're worthy were accepted
in all the time, we fail to realize in our search for the
missing piece that that which is missing is us As long as we
attempt to manage our image and traffic in projections real
relationship remains Out Of Reach, you may have 1,000
connections but you're still going to wind up with deep
loneliness. Palmer suggest that there can be
no greater suffering than living a lifelong lie and friends.
I don't think it is accidental that we are now in a space in
our society and culture where we are more connected than we have
ever been. And also more moment.
So many of us are caught in this default of hiding and pretending
me too, instead of showing up as we really are, So what's Jesus
got to say about all this, back to our text Matthew 5:8, Jesus
proclaims a blessing, over those who are pure in heart, blessed
are the pure in heart. He says, for they will see God.
Now let me be real with y'all for a second.
When I first read this verse, I thought Jesus was talking about
sex. Okay, maybe you did too.
I don't know. I grew up in Conservative
Christian culture. Somebody else out here did to I
know And, you know, there's a strong Association if that's you
between Purity and sex, right? So if you are reading this and
thinking as kind of I did initially, that Jesus is
warning, that if you really want to connect with God, don't look
at explicit content or sleep with you partner outside of
marriage, right? That is not.
I would suggest to you, what is actually going on in this text
now, there may be other good reasons for that, right?
But tonight, despite my initial assumptions, I don't think
that's what this passage is all about.
See in scripture Purity, generally has A much deeper and
richer meeting than it's kind of given in Purity culture.
When a material is free is pure in the world rather it has the
characteristic of being free from division, right?
It's not contaminated by other sources, its whole later in the
same sermon Jesus again brings this same concept back in in
chapter 6, verses 22 through 24 and there he's warning again
about the same danger of a divided heart, but his caution
isn't about sex. It's actually about the love of
money and the danger or of walking in a Vision where we try
and pursue both Jesus and wealth.
The same time in another context, James is talking about
the same thing. When he says a double minded,
man is unstable. The kind of Purity Jesus is
describing here has to do not primarily with sexual
abstinence, but it has to do with interior, alignment and
undivided Soul. So Jesus says, blessed are the
pure of heart and heart here, too, can be a word that can get
us off track based. Our cultural assumptions about
what the heart is, right? Because in our, in our language,
and in our thinking, very often the heart has to do with the
emotions, it has to do with our feelings, right?
But this word in the Greek actually has to do with the
interior, the deepest part of one's Soul, right?
So what Jesus is saying in otherwise is this, he's saying,
blessed is the one whose values beliefs and actions are aligned
right down to the core of their being.
I think the message translation actually gets at this pretty
effectively when it says blessed are you when you get your inside
World your mind and heart put right?
The best way of describing this kind of purity of heart.
Jesus has in mind here, might actually be Integrity integrity.
In other words, Jesus is inviting us from a posture of
hiding and pretending into a posture of wholehearted.
Integrity, and integrity is a powerful word, isn't it?
As it has some weight to it, right?
You know, instinctively kind of what this quality of Integrity
is, right? If your chair has some Integrity
to it, you're good, right? If it loses his Negra T, what
happens? What happened?
So you've all right, somebody's gonna end up on the ground,
right? You want you chair to have some
Integrity to it? Integrity is this characteristic
of alignment that says that when things are in Integrity,
everything fits together, everything aligns, everything is
where it's supposed to be. And this quality of Integrity,
when its present, it allows for things to function, effectively
and powerfully. Potently for several years
growing up, I study martial arts.
I'm not cool. I was not very good at it.
I Remember very much of it and please, I do not want to spar
you after this Gathering, okay? But one thing I do remember is
how important alignment was right?
This is something that our instructors like drilled a sin.
If you're going to throw a punch the punch doesn't come from your
elbow, right? The punch comes from your lower
body. All the way from from your hips,
right? When you throw a punch
correctly, the energy is being transferred, from your hips,
through your shoulders, down your arm, and into your
opponent, right? And when you throw it, when you
throw a punch with alignment with integrity, something on the
other end is going to move. There's some power there, right?
What happens when you throw a punch out of alignment?
Well, a couple of things can happen, right?
One thing that can happen, is that your punched just kind of
crappy, right? There's not a lot of power
there, right? You just you throwing This
Little Light punch that's coming from, from your elbow or from
your shoulder. Another thing that can happen is
you can actually get injured. Very often.
This is exactly what happens. People actually get injured.
In fact, the injury is so common, it's called boxer's
fracture and boxer's fracture is the injury that occurs when you
throw a punch and, and things are not aligned.
And instead of that, that power are flowing through you into
your opponent. What actually happens is your
hand gets snapped in the process.
Right. Integrity and Alignment are
important and they're not just important in boxing.
You know this right? When we lose Integrity in our
lives, when we lose a purity of heart, it frustrates our ability
to show up in the world with power and our ability to connect
with other people a few minutes ago.
I described the situation in which I began to slide out of
alignment in response to some perceived social pressure.
I was more concerned with fitting in even if it meant
putting forward, a projection of myself, then I was about being
true to my values and maintaining my own Tegrity.
I was hiding and pretending in order to fit, in, in this moment
and friends. This is the absolute opposite of
what we see in Jesus. It's the absolute opposite of
what we see in Jesus, and Jesus is fascinating to me, because
Jesus, honestly, is kind of weird.
I don't know if you thought about this before, like Jesus is
a super weird, dude, right? Don't get me wrong.
Jesus is enormously impressive. There's huge Authority and power
that comes out all over the place, but there were any number
of parts of Jesus that you would think that he'd be a little bit
awkward by, right that he try and hide that he try and kind of
move into the background. I mean, this is a dude, there
was rumors that Joseph wasn't his real dad.
He was from a Podunk Village out in the middle of nowhere, right?
Vocationally, he did not have a quality education.
This man was working as a lowly Tradesmen.
And yet Jesus did not hide. He didn't try to impress people
or cater to them. In fact he constantly invited
people into the reality of his life and he went he will like
far with this friends like Jesus straight up said, hey follow me,
come with me even when he did not have a place to live.
We thought about this like the tank says he did not have a
place to lay his head. Can you think about the audacity
of that with me for like one second?
All right, you are homeless, you literally do not have a place to
stay and you're like, yo, why don't you come to my place
afterwards? Like this is gonna be great,
right? I mean that's some that's some
audacity right there. It wasn't just that how many of
you have ever been in a situation where you had to ask
somebody for help, right, maybe for it, maybe was a cow.
Ouch, you need to crash on for a couple nights either just
because you're out and bad luck or we're traveling.
Maybe you need to borrow somebody's car.
Maybe you go on a service trip and you need to raise a couple
bucks, right? And you had to go around and ask
some family and some friends. If they chip in, I don't know
about you. I've been in that position a few
times in my life and let me tell you, it feels it feels
vulnerable. Doesn't it right?
You know, if you've been in that spot it's like who this feels
vulnerable. I don't like not being
self-sufficient. I don't like needing to depend
on other people. Get my needs met and yet.
Jesus whole Ministry. This dude who is literally the
creator of the universe? The possessor of all things puts
himself in a position where he has to vocationally depend on
other people's generosity to do his work.
Like scripture tells us that there was a group of women that
had the bag, like they were, they were helping this man get
paid so he could continue doing this thing.
And what's crazy is that Jesus didn't debit any of this out of
his profile. All right, like we got the text.
Jesus, loved it all in there. Like, how easy would it be for
Jesus? Or for his followers to say is
kind of what's our guy in a bad light?
Lets, you know, we're just going to shake this up a little bit
over here, put a little filter, on it, over here, we can, you
know, make that a little thinner, you know, it's going to
be good. Jesus leaves it all in.
And that's Integrity, Jesus knew who he was.
He operated in a wholehearted Integrity for Jesus.
The deepest parts of his nature and character flowed through his
values into his actions into his behavior into the way he showed
up with people. And there was an authority, it
was present because of that. It was nothing tisza T, that's
present because of that. Now friends, I am embarrassed to
admit this, but I'm a millennial.
How many Millennials we got out here?
If you're a millennial in the crowd.
Okay, Millennials everywhere. All right, shout out to all the
Millennials out there. So if if there's one thing that
we value as Millennials it is, Authenticity, cool.
I thought someone was gonna say iPhones, but yeah, authenticity
is actually the answer that I was looking for authenticity.
Unlike most Millennials, I have a high value for authenticity,
but I think sometimes in our culture Authenticity is put
forward not as the real version of authenticity, but is a
counterfeit. Does anybody know what I mean?
By this? Write as a times we use the word
authenticity which again I think is a good thing is a value.
But sometimes we use this kind of counterfeit version of
authenticity. That means something along the
lines of just, I'm going to express whatever feels true to
me, right? I'm going to say, whatever.
I think with no filter, right? My dad used to say.
Yeah. You're like somebody who just
like open their mouth and their brains fell out, right?
It's like Sometimes we think that that's what authenticity
looks like. And I would suggest that these
versions of authenticity are actually counterfeit.
To according to scripture, there's not one you inside you.
Right. We're actually in this innermost
being we're divided. There's there's a lot of stuff
going on Paul talks about this in Romans 7 when he describes
the wrestling that he experiences between conflicting
desires. He says, I don't understand what
I do. Like I want to do.
I don't do it like, but what I hate I do that.
What's going on here? I'm like, Paul, I feel the same
way when I need to go to sleep, but there's like social media
and there's something on Netflix and then there's this bad, a bag
of chips, that's calling. My name, right?
Like I get it. There are things that I like, I
want to do but I also don't want to do those things.
There's a battle inside us, right?
Where a mixed bag where a paradox.
It's interesting. Like Paul said this like a while
ago, internal family systems. If any of you therapy nerds out
there saying the same thing, right?
We have all of these parts inside us that are operating in
different ways and showing up in different ways and pulling us in
different directions. Everyone of us is a paradox.
We are beautiful and we are broken.
Both things are true. And the path forward.
I think this is, I want to dial in on this because sometimes in
the push, for authenticity. What actually ends up happening
is we say, I'm just going to embrace and celebrate the whole
back. Write everything that is
present. And I would suggest to you that
the path forward is not just settling for a divided soul.
Right. It's not just saying, okay well
there's all this going on, it's all good.
It's all to be celebrated great. Nor is it as I think sometimes
in the church, we do more often or is it self-hatred right?
Because there are parts of us that we dislike.
Wholehearted Integrity can accept and be with all of who we
are, the good Bad and the Ugly, but here's where it differs
from. This kind of counterfeit
authenticity wholehearted, Integrity, invites us Beyond it,
it offers us, an actual path forward towards wholeheartedness
and healing. Towards an undivided heart where
we increasingly align all the way from our values through our
feelings, into our Behavior will become the beautiful people that
God has designed to us to be. So, what is this path to Purity?
I think it's actually hinted here.
It's not a lot of text and I'm working with this morning, but I
think it's hinted here in Matthew 5:8.
Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God,
you see it. You see the pathway.
It's precisely the opposite of hiding and pretending.
It's the opposite of settling for a divided.
Soul. The pathway to purity of heart
is coming out from behind our cover-ups, into the light to be
seen and to see God. In our Christian faith is
practice is called confession. And confession really is just
simply the act of naming. What is real naming?
What is true. And this is counterintuitive for
us friends, because it goes directly against some of our
instincts in this matter. Right.
Because our instinct to hide and pretend tells us, yo, if you
bring this thing into the light, they will reject you.
Right? If you bring this thing into the
light, then you cannot be worthy.
You cannot be loved. And sometimes it feels when
we're attempting to bring this thing.
That's so hard to name. That's wrapped in shame where
we're hurt or broken or traumatized into the light.
It feels like, oh my gosh, this would absolutely crush me.
It'd be so shaming that I could never stand it.
But I can say, and this doesn't make sense, but I can tell you
it's true, is that when we actually bring our shame to
Jesus, we bring it into the light and the presence of loved
that. Instead of being reinforced, or
us being crushed, somehow, it's diffused by his presence, maybe
I was witness to that. Anybody else out there, have
that experience. In first, John 1:9 scripture
talks about this. It says, when we confess our
sins, when we bring them into the light, Jesus Will purify us,
So purify us and the Greek word for Purity.
Here is the r is 0 from which we get the word cathartic
cathartic. I don't know if you've
experienced this but I can tell you there have been times in my
life where I was sitting on a point of Shame for a while.
And it felt to me, like, oh my gosh, I can't tell anybody about
this. If I do, I will die.
Terrible, things will happen. I will be rejected.
There are times looking back in my story where I was stuck in
that place for a couple of years, like for a minute.
I can tell you every time, every time I have vulnerably brought
those pieces of Brokenness, those pieces of hurt to
trustworthy people in my life who looked like Jesus, What I
have gotten is not shaming or more hurt, it's actually been
healing, it has felt cathartic, right?
And some of you know what I'm talking about.
If you've been down this road, you know what I'm talking about
when that thing that you've been holding and walking with alone
when you're able to share it with somebody else.
There's a freedom that emerges but it's not just cathartic in
the sense of releasing some kind of emotion because I can tell
you that when we're willing to face these places of Shame,
these places of injury and sometimes it's things that we
have done, sometimes it's things that have been done to us,
right? Sometimes we're talking about
sins, sometimes we're talking about trauma, but whatever.
These things are these places of injury and Brokenness in which
we feel unworthy and unloved, when we bring them into the
light, Right? It's not just a cathartic
experience. We're actually taking the first
crucial step towards wholeheartedness and integrity.
Just before John's call to conversion confession.
And first John 1:9, he says, two verses earlier.
In first, John 17, if we walk in the light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of
Jesus. His son purifies us from all sin
man. I could talk about that for a
minute. What is he saying?
He's saying when we bring these points of Shane and Brokenness
into the light, right? Two things happen.
One we have Fellowship. Right, we get connected.
You cannot connect based on a false Persona.
You can't be deeply. Loved when you are pretending.
But when we come into the light as we really are in all of our
Beauty and Brokenness connection happens, right?
And not just connection but we're actually purified.
All right, there's that word again.
Where purified? We move towards Integrity.
Why is it that Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart
for they will see God. What?
If one of the people who are pure in heart get to see God.
I'd suggest to you this morning is that when we choose this
pathway of Purity, when we choose this, this pathway of
wholehearted Integrity. What we're choosing is to
abandon this strategy of hiding and pretending.
And we're entering the very presence of God.
And what then happens is transformation, what then
happens is wholeness because if you spend time in God's
presence, you will be changed. Right?
It's not a neutral. Transaction that relationship
will transform you friend. And honestly, I don't mean this
to sound like a threat, okay. Starfighter initiating.
I'm not sure what's happening back here, but Jesus said, Jesus
taught us. I'm gonna need a minute.
Jesus taught us that whatever is inside of us eventually comes
out right? Whatever is inside of us
eventually comes out. He said in another place there's
nothing hidden that will not be disclosed nothing concealed that
will not be known or brought into the open.
See. Jesus understood that God knows
all and everything eventually reveals itself.
This is incredible. How this happens?
Friends, some of you who are nerds, like me may have read
Bessel, Van, Der kolk Sex book, number one, New York Times
bestselling author. The body keeps the score to
talks about how trauma lives in our bodies, right?
And he says, a lot of things, but one of the things that van
der kolk, explorers in, this book is how traumas from our
life manifest actually physiologically in our bodies,
right? Is a crazy but profound read and
friends. When we choose to tolerate The
Divided self, granted some of us are doing it because we feel
like we got to protect ourselves.
We got to stay safe, right? But, when we choose to tolerate,
The Divided self, there is a cost that accrues to us, right?
Places of sin and wounding unhealed can manifest in all
sorts of ways. We're embodied being so
spiritual and emotional problems show up in, chronic pain, and
sickness Unforgiven an unhealed trauma can show up as hauntings
in new relationships, that continue to distort fresh
relationships with injuries that were incurred in the past,
right? The addiction that you think
that you have a handle on. If it remains hidden will grow
Until you find yourself. Engaging in Risky behaviors
that. You may end up getting exposed.
Jesus says, there is nothing hidden.
That will not be disclosed and friends for some of us that is
our greatest fear, right? That that thing that I've been
hiding would come out to the light that people would know it.
I get it, it's risky. But what I'm saying this morning
is that we actually have a choice.
We have a choice about how we bring these things into the
light. Right, it going to happen at
some point some way. But you can choose to be in
control of that process, you can choose to bring it to people who
are trustworthy in a way that allows you to be healed.
In a way that allows you to connect and find true belonging
and friends. I get it stepping into the light
is terrifying. It's scary.
It feels as though sometimes our shame will crush us or will be
rejected. But isn't it interesting that
the person that we are invited to bring things to is the one
who already knows? Hey, isn't it funny like anybody
else sometimes trying to hide things from God in here?
I do. Is anybody trying to hide things
from yourself that you totally know to be true?
But you're like, I'm gonna pretend that's not a real thing,
right? Isn't it ironic, we are silly.
Because we're embarrassed about these things, we try and hide
them from from the people who can help us right from ourselves
from God. Friends.
Jesus is the one who already knows, you completely and loves
you, absolutely. He is the one who knowing fully
all of your Brokenness. Still loved you so much to give
everything in order to be connected to you.
This is crazy. What I'm saying is that, Jesus
is one, who is worth holding your broken parts.
It's still going to feel like a risk, but Jesus is worth the
risk. Jesus is worth bringing it to.
Because friends, there is a reward for integrity.
When we move down the path of Integrity towards
wholeheartedness. The reward is intimacy.
If you will choose to move towards Integrity, you'll get
intimacy. And so, this text tells us
blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.
And be seen by God. Intimacy.
Friends. That's why it's worth it.
His transformation and intimacy are some pretty big payoffs.
It's worth the risk. You want to see God, you've got
to allow yourself to be seen. If we were to imagine this this
morning is a physical posture, I think it might look like
standing or maybe even kneeling with an open body position open
hands Open Hearts. Actually, let me invite you to
just get into that position. Now physically, whatever that
looks like for you and open body position, maybe on crossing your
arms, opening up your chest, raising your head, maybe there's
some muscles that need to be relaxed.
Maybe there's some shoulders that could be opened up.
Friends. We're going to move into a time
of response this morning. An opportunity to move towards
intimacy to move towards transformation. as we move into
confessions, we move into wholeheartedness And friends
I'll just name with you again. You know, it's risky, I get it I
feel it. It feels that way for me too.
But the reward for integrity is intimacy.
And you can trust Jesus. So this morning, as we move into
a time of worship, we're going to have the prayer rugs down at
the front. Here are open If you want to
calm want to pray, we'll have some space afterwards if you
want to talk to somebody. I'd ask you to consider.
What's true for you? What does that thing in your
life that you've been hiding been sitting on been pushing
down, have stuffed into the backpack that you're just trying
to make it alone. It feels like if you were to
surface you would just die. But you're carrying alone.
Where have you? Abandon yourself?
Or maybe you're in performance and projection you know you're
hustling you got a million connections, your Instagram
profile or your Tick Tock is popping but you still feel
lonely. Where's your life out of step
with your best and truest self? What are you trying to project
to the world? Or convince everybody else is
true. How might you bring what you're
noticing into like this morning? And with whom in your life,
might you take the risk to share Jesus and some trusted people
who are up for holding those tender wounded parts.
Did you pray with me? Did you pray with me?