Jarek Berga - The Court of Public Opinion

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God, you welcome you. Hey there. [00:00:06] Speaker B: If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event but a family you belong to. So we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we, we hope you enjoy the message. [00:00:37] Speaker A: All right. Good morning, everybody. If I haven't had a chance to meet you yet, my name is Harrick. I'm one of the elders here of Restore Temecula. Glad that you are here. Glad to be with you. Week two at Gardner Middle School, we made it. Well done, everybody. Thank you, guys, teams, everybody that helped. We talked more about it in depth the first week we were here. But just again, if you were here last week, thank you for all that went into helping make this move. We were at Margarita Middle for several years and now we are here. And it's good to be here with you. So this morning I am going to pause on the King and his Kingdom. We've been going through a series on the Gospel of Matthew for a long time, and today I've been really kind of sitting with a very specific text that just kept kind of coming up over and over again as I was thinking about today and praying through today. And so I'm excited to share with you on something out of the life of the Apostle Paul. If you don't know who the Apostle Paul is, he was a leader in the early church. He used to be a persecutor of Jesus, actually of Jesus and his people and the church. And he once gave his life to actually stop the Christian movement in the earliest stages. And then he had an encounter with Jesus and he was like, who are you? And he's like, I'm Jesus, the one that you're persecuting. And from that moment on, the Apostle Paul's life completely and utterly changed. And we get to learn so much from a changed life. I don't know about you, but. But I am so grateful for people that follow Jesus and that do so publicly that they give us a window into their life so we can learn from them. And the Apostle Paul, Naturally, this was 2,000 years ago in a different context and place, but I am never not amazed at how applicable and relevant what he has to say is to my life. And so I think there's Something out of the life of Paul that we're going to unpack today that I think is going to be relevant for your life. And so it doesn't matter really whether you've been following Jesus for years if you are a new follower of Jesus, or if you're here and I'm like, I don't even know what I believe about Jesus. What I'm going to share with you today is for you, and it's for you no matter where you're at in your journey and in your stage of life. And so I'm going to invite you. Would you pray? Would you pray for me? Would you pray with me for this time? Because ultimately, if God doesn't do something among us, nothing's going to happen through us. So, Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for this opportunity to open up your word. God, thank you that this is all for you, God. As I think about my own life, it's been my life, but really it's your life. And you have, in the best way, reoriented me around you and what you care about. And not perfectly. My response has been flawed in every way. But, God, I am so grateful for your active presence and purposes working out in not just my life, but the lives of the people in this room and those that couldn't be with us here today. You are. You're at work in our world, and you do it through people. And I have benefited so greatly from people taking you seriously and taking your call on their life seriously. Maybe they're not themselves super seriously, but they're calling seriously. My life is radically different because of them. And I pray that today, Father, that you would reorient us around the calling that you have for each of us, the specific assignments that you have put on our lives, and the ways in which you desire that we respond to the gospel. This good news about Jesus. Would you do something fresh in us, that you might do something powerful through us? We love you, Father. We thank you. Team. We pray. Amen. I remember a time I bombed a sermon and some of you were like, yeah, which one? What I'm about to tell you is a composite, actually. It's take bits from various moments that were hard. But I remember walking off thinking, I don't know that I want to do that again. And for the rest of that day, I just replayed everything. What I said, how it sounded, what people must have thought, and if I'm honest, there was some comparison in it, too. Someone else could have done that better. Maybe I'm not the right person for this. Maybe I need to rethink what it is that I give myself over to and what I do. And the next day, I was invited to speak again. And it was one of those moments where the question in my head wasn't, you know, lord, what are you asking of me? The question that was bouncing around my head was like, how am I going to come across? Because I didn't like how I came across last time. Maybe you've felt that before. Maybe it's not a preach necessarily, but maybe it's a conversation that you've had. Maybe it's a parenting moment. My goodness, almost every parenting moment. Maybe it's something at work. You just replay it. You ever been there before? It's just like you're thinking about your performance. How did you do? How did you look? And then suddenly, it's really not about faithfulness anymore. It's just about optics. It's about how it looked in that moment. I wasn't thinking about faithfulness. I was living under a verdict. And the truth is, we're not alone in this. I'm not alone in this. You're not alone in this. We're not alone in this. We're in a world that constantly evaluates us, aren't we? Who's up? Who's down? Who's winning? We rank everything. Neighborhoods, schools, teams. Sometimes it's kind of fun. Sometimes it's kind of dark. Even without realizing it, we can start living under those same verdicts. And here, where we live, it's oftentimes more subtle. Who's doing well, who's put together, whose life really looks like it's working right now. And underneath that, as I've thought about it reflected on this, there's often fear. There's a fear of falling behind. There's a fear of not measuring up. There's a fear of what people might think. The apostle Paul, this guy who used to be an opponent of Jesus and whose life was ultimately turned around, he started following Jesus. And really what he started doing was he started telling people about Jesus. And then people started responding all over the place. And then he would start little churches all over that part of the world. And so he had something like that in Corinth, in a place called Corinth. And this is what was happening in Corinth. There was a church that had really started well. And if you've ever read the first letter to the Corinthians, what ends up happening is that this church starts to divide. It starts to actually fracture around what, interestingly it starts to fracture around leaders, which I think is really, really fascinating. They started kind of comparing and ranking them like the leader power rankings. And they started sizing up Paul based on how he sounded, how he looked, how impressive Paul seemed. And you know what's interesting about it, as I've thought about this, as I've studied it, they were actually judging him by what their culture valued, which if you don't know the values of that ancient culture, which I don't expect you to, it's 2,000 years ago, totally different part of the world. I can tell you what they valued, how he spoke, how impressive he was, how strong he looked, how successful he seemed. Does this sound familiar? It's not that different from the world that we live in right now. They had their own metrics that they imposed on Paul, that they were cultural values and metrics and they were turning those impressions into verdicts on Paul. And the passage that we're going to read today, he's going to respond to that and we're going to see how he does that. But before we get into it, I think if we're honest, we tend to kind of do the same thing. And I say we because I include myself in this category too. We may just have different categories today, although they're not that different. Who's put together, who seems confident, who's producing results? Man, we are a result oriented culture, aren't we? Without realizing it, we actually start handing out verdicts based on things that God never said were final. Okay, that's the courtroom that they had created. It was a place where people were deciding what really mattered. And Paul steps in. In the passage that we're about to read, if you have your Bibles, Turn over to First Corinthians, chapter 4. Start at verse 1. Paul steps in and he says, you're thinking about this all wrong. The Apostle Paul was remarkable. If you read his stuff, it is an emotional roller coaster. He has these moments where he's encouraging the mess out of them and it's passion and it's honest. And then he has these moments where you're going to read something like what we read today. And sometimes it's in the same exact letter and broken up by just a few verses. But why do I say that? Because this is human. This was a real person with real emotions. And he's telling them, you're thinking about this all wrong. Because the question isn't like, who's the best? The question is, who's being faithful with what God has entrusted. Okay, you may be Sitting here thinking, this is about pastors, man, why would you read this about Paul? He's going to talk about himself and think that it has anything to do with me. Because it's not just about pastors. The Apostle Peter actually tells us, every Christian is a steward. Everyone. So if you're a follower of Jesus here today, or you're thinking about following Jesus, or you're even like, I just want to learn about what this is, know that following Jesus is a stewardship. You're entrusted with things. Every person has resources, every person has opportunities, relationships. This isn't just for pastors. Peter says, like, every believer has received grace and you are called to steward it. This is about you, your time, your relationships, your influence. So don't get lost with, like, Paul speaking very specifically about the situation that he's speaking to. That's real and that's true. And we need to honor the context in which this stuff is written. Just know that the rest of the Bible makes it super clear. This applies to you too. You are a steward. So as we get into it, the last question, think about this. What are you living for right now? Now? Faithfulness or how things look, let's get into it. The Apostle Paul writes this in 1st Corinthians 4, 1 in the CSB. It says, A person should think of us in this way as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God. In this regard, it is required that managers be found. And here's a key word if you're taking notes, if you're reading in your Bible, physically underline this word. Faithful. That's the requirement. It is of little importance to me that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I don't even judge myself, for I am not conscious of anything against myself. But I am not justified by this. It is the Lord who judges me. So don't judge anything prematurely before the Lord comes who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts. And then praise will come to each one from God. Wow, Man. There's so much there and. And I'm not gonna be able to do everything justice, but I do think there's a couple, two, three things that I wanna point out to you guys that I think will help you as you chew on and consider what this text might have to say for your life. So if you're a note taker, point number one is this. This one pops straight from the passage. Stewards must be faithful to their master. Stewards must be faithful to Their master. Here's what Paul says. He says, servants of Christ, this is how you should think of us. Servants of Christ and stewards required to be found. Faithful. Okay, that word, servants is actually a really interesting word in the Greek. It actually refers to an under rower. So imagine a ship and you're below deck and you're pulling in rhythm under a captain, okay? You're not rowing alone. You're rowing as part of a crew. And so that word, servants, it implies that you are under another, you are following another, the leadership and the guidance and the direction of the captain. So that word is interesting, the word steward, where we're gonna camp out for most of our time together today. That word is fascinating. And that word, what it means is a manager that's over what belongs to somebody else. Okay? Not the owner, someone who's responsible for what's been entrusted. And so as I was thinking about this, as I thought about the Scriptures, there is one early example of a steward that is incredible, and it's in Genesis and it's towards the back of the book. It's this guy whose name is Joseph. If you don't know his story, Joseph ended up being a steward, a manager over what belongs to someone else in the most fascinating places. Does anybody know of one of the spots where Joseph was a steward in Egypt? Yes, in prison. Do you guys know that that dude ended up in prison? He did nothing wrong. He was falsely accused, he got thrown into prison, but guess what ended up happening to him? He was such a faithful steward that he was placed in a spot where he was responsible for a bunch of other people. And in that prison, he was developed to the point where he became someone who could be entrusted with the nation of Egypt. So you just never know what God is on about, how he's developing people in darkness. So Joseph is a prime example of a faithful steward, a manager over what belongs to someone else. He wasn't the owner. He was just responsible for what he was entrusted. I forgot to bring my keys up, but I was going to grab my keys right now because I think this is a good example. How many of you guys have house sat before? Yeah, that good chunk of the room. You can't see it, but I can. It's a higher number than I thought. I thought it'd be a handful. No, this is a common thing. What happens when you house sit? Somebody gives you the keys. The keys, yes. Yes. And so when you get the keys, when you're house sitting, imagine if someone hands me their keys. They have a four Bedroom, house, nice neighborhood. And they're going to vacation somewhere. I don't know where Kansas came to mind. They're going to Kansas. Booming tourism industry in the southwest corner. Corn. It's not corn. Kansas. Tornadoes. They're like chasing tornadoes. They're like, you gotta watch my house. So cool. It's like, I want to talk to you about that, but let's talk about your house first. Okay. You hand me the keys, or they hand me the keys. And I'm kind of like, you know what? I have ideas for this place. I have a vision for what this house could be. Why don't we knock down that wall? And they'd be like, hand me the keys back. And that would be the end of that, Right? Why? Because it's not my house. I don't get to make those decisions. I don't get to just go into somebody else's house and knock down walls. Unless they've asked me to do that. Unless they've hired me to do that and they've approved those plans. Otherwise, they're just like, hey, just try to make sure the house doesn't burn down. You know, like, just try to keep it in about as good a condition. Feed my cats, I guess. Do cats need to be fed? Should they? Is probably the better question. Oh, I just divided the room. Not the first time that's happened, but never over cats. There was a point to this house sitting. I just don't get to knock out walls because I feel like it. Right. My job as someone that's taking care of a house is just to protect it, handle it with caution because it belongs to someone else. There's a responsibility to it, but not ownership. That's stewardship. That's stewardship. As I was thinking about this message, there's a movie that I love that's called 1917. And anybody seen this movie before? A few people. Yeah. Yep. It's a fascinating story. It really follows two guys, and they are. They're British dudes and they are fighting in World War I. Hence 1917. That's the year. And so these two guys, they get called in by their superiors and they don't know exactly what's gonna be asked of them. They're kinda like, okay, we gotta go and see our superiors. And they basically are told, we have a message and we need you to get it to these people on the other. This is before cell phones. This is before the kind of communication that we now take for granted. This is before satellite phones. So you couldn't just pick up a phone and make a call. You actually had to get a message physically into the hands of the people that were impacted by it. And here's the message. You're running into a trap and you don't know it. And 1600 lives are going to be lost if I don't get this message to you. If these two people get this message over. And then it got crazier because one of these two dudes, their brother was in that 1600among the 1600 people whose lives were at stake here. And so it follows. The movie itself is fascinating. So think like you're running through mud, you're running through gunfire, you're running through chaos. You're exhausted. You're covered in dirt, in blood, in filth. Do you know what they're not thinking? How do I look right now? How's this looking? Is this Instagramable? Is this. It's just not. They don't care. They don't care. Be cut. Why? He's not trying to look like a hero. He's a steward of a message, right? This isn't abstract, this is personal. But notice this. And the reason I'm telling you this is for this reason, what drives him isn't pressure to perform. It's a focus on what matters most. It's not managing how he looks, just being faithful to what was entrusted. That's the picture. It's not impressive. It's faithful. That's your life. That's my life. You belong to Christ Jesus. You know what Christ means? Messiah. He's the Lord. He's the King of all the universe. You belong to him. You've been entrusted to something. And this passage reminds us that you and I, we will give an account. Everybody has to give an account to him of our stewardship. But it doesn't necessarily happen on a battlefield that you're running across in France. It could unlikely. Nowadays, going back to 1917 for the apostle Paul, it may not for you. It may not look like planting churches, starting communities, writing letters. It may not look like doing what I'm doing, getting up in front of people and preaching a message. But it will look like something for you. It's going to show up in everyday places. It's going to show up in your home, where faithfulness might look like patience when you're tired. It's going to show up in your workplace, where it looks like integrity when no one's watching. It's going to show up in your conversations, where it looks like honesty instead of image management, optics, pr. This is going to show up in your decisions about what it looks like to be obedient instead of being comfortable. Different contexts for every person. And I don't want to. You're a student. It's going to show up in your school, in your studies, in your relationships for you guys all the more. So often when I'm up here, I end up talking about when I was a teenager. Why? Because it was such. And this, by the way, what I'm about to share with you doesn't stop when you become an adult. But in those teenage years, I was thinking about the key questions. Who am I? Where do I belong? Why am I here? You will never get away from those questions. They're always going to be pinging around. You may not be conscious of them, but they're always going to be filling your mind and heart. And that starts in a unique way when you're a teenager, but it doesn't end. And that's why I'm often talking about my early life, because it's the beginning. It's the genesis of so much of what's come since. So if you're a teenager in this room, do not think this isn't for you. This is absolutely for you. In some ways, you get the benefit of not having 30 years of mistakes that I've made. You. You get to think about this stuff now. You get to think about this stuff today. Faithful stewardship. That is what your life, if you're curious about why am I here on this earth? That's why. According to King Jesus, the Messiah, the king of the world, it's not about how you look. It's not about what people think about you. Those things aren't bad. They're not necessarily wrong. And there's gonna be people in your life that have things to say about you and your character that you really need to listen to, because they're trying to call you back into alignment with the kingdom. But there's also going to be people in your life that are trying to call you into alignment with cultural values. We have to be able to make the distinction between those two. Being a faithful steward doesn't mean I ignore people that are telling me things that I need to hear. That's unwise stewardship. That's unfaithful stewardship. How do you steward the voices that God has put in your life? Is a legit stewardship question. Faithful, not impressive. And it shows up in everyday life. That tension is there, isn't it? How did that conversation land? What do they think of me? Did I come across well but faithfulness asks a different question altogether. What would God, by his spirit, have me do right here? You know what's wild about this? No one decides to drift that I know of. Unfaithfulness and stewardship. No one just wakes up one morning like, you know what I want to do? I want to end up off track. It's more like Mike when a few weeks ago, he used this picture of him and his brother surfing. Do you guys remember this? If you were here, you're surfing, you're having a good time, two, three hours later, you realize I am miles away from where I started. Was that intentional? No. Was that what they set out to do? No. Did it happen? Yeah. Because drift is the natural, ordinary state of affairs. Have you guys ever been in a house that hasn't been entered into in a while? That ever happened? Yeah, I did that once. It smelled like gas, and there was dust everywhere. It was literally like a gas leak happening. It's like, oh, we should call someone about that. This is the stuff that happens. Just inattentiveness, just take our eyes, our attention away. And before you know it, you got a room that's not been looked out for, cared for. And it is not what you. It is not where you want to be. It's not where you want to land or end up. We don't just decide to drift. We slowly shift from faithfulness to impressions, from stewardship to performance. Not because we're trying to be unfaithful, but because we want to be seen and because we're afraid. But ultimately, here's what ends up happening to us. We live under a scorecard that God never gave us. We live under a scorecard that God never gave us. And yet, stewards must be faithful to their master. If you're a note taker. Here's my second point. Here's my second point. And we see this in verses 3 to 5. Human judgments are partial and premature. Human judgments are partial and premature. Paul says this. It's a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. Did you guys catch that when we were reading through it? It's a small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. Why? This is a temporary courtroom, y'. All. You guys ever thought about Jesus? And obviously, right now we're heading up to Easter. If in a more liturgical space, like certain churches that really follow a church calendar, you might be reading right now about the final week of Jesus life, the Gospels really slow down on that. If you've ever Kind of read through the Gospels, these biographies of Jesus life, they really slow down on the last week of his life. Why? Because they're critical for us to understand what he did and why he came. But I also believe that they are critical for us to understand his disciples. Because ultimately, God's plan is to make us like, who? Jesus. So what happened to him, y'? All, you can expect that it's gonna happen to us. The exact details differ. We don't have executions like they used to on a cross. They don't do that. However, it is shocking. It never ceases to amaze me just how many times I wind up in tough spaces. And then there's this nudge or this voice or something that's like, hey, take a look at the life of Jesus. And it was like, oh, yeah, that's what happened to him, too. So what happened to him on that? Last week, he comes in this triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem, where everybody's like, yeah. Hosanna. Hosanna. You know, like the. If you watch. If you're a fan of the Chosen, you know, that scene, it's really powerful. Everybody's like, ho. You know, into the son of David, all that stuff. And if you're like, this is why this guy's not up here to the left, why he's here. Correct, Correct. But I'll have my day. I do. I really want. I legit want. I always had this dream of being, like, a front guy, a frontman for a band. And when that game came out, that was Guitar Hero. I had my day. I guess my day's already in the past, but it may come again. Mark. All right, well, now I'm lost. Great Easter. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Hosanna. That's right. That's right. So the people are like, yeah. Jesus. Oh, my. Yes. Come and rescue us from Rome. This oppressive taxation rule over us. That's what. That's what they're saying, effectively. And you know what happens by the end of that week, what they're saying? You can say it a little louder. This is correct. Bible trivia, 100%. Nailed it. Which is it? Anybody else confused? Is it Hosanna, or is it put him on the rack, crucify him? Right. What am I saying? Public opinion is a little fickle, isn't it? It's just a touch. Those power rankings can go like this quite quickly. And Paul then says, it's a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. And he was being judged, but it's a temporary courtroom. It's a limited perspective. And Paul knew what Jesus knew, which is that ultimately the decision making that really matters, the evaluation that matters, doesn't come from horizontally, it comes vertically. That doesn't mean though, that things won't go horribly wrong for you and me because it took Jesus to a cross. But how do we know that the evaluation that God gave was favorable to Jesus? There was a picture on the screen here. Did anybody catch it a few minutes ago about Easter. A really cool visual. What was the visual? It was a stone that was where rolled away. And if you don't know what that is a reference to, that's Jesus tomb. And Jesus tomb after three days. Well, thank you. Right on. That's what it looked like on Easter Sunday. Why? Vindication baby Faithful steward vindicated the courtroom of human opinion. That's fickle. Overruled. Overruled. And Paul knew that. Do you. Do I? Do we know that? Do we believe ultimately that this is the end result of faithfulness, resurrection. The Corinthians were evaluating Paul on what they could see. And Paul says, out of bounds. You're a soccer fan that's out of play or a football fan that's out of play. What do you say in football? I don't know. Not inbounds out. They were handing out final verdicts with partial information. And we can do the same thing. We can do it to ourselves. Right? You walk out of that conversation and you have a verdict of how you did. Or you send an email and you don't respond. Nobody responds to you. They must be mad at me. Their disappointed verdict. It's like judging a whole movie from a 10 second clip. Can't recommend it. Can't recommend it because you know. Or like shutting off a game because your team is down after the first quarter. You ever done that before? You play the game for a reason. Because the best games ever don't go the way you think they do until the very end, typically. And the best movies are the ones that seem to be pointing you one direction that then change and it's like, oh, it's that. Usual suspects. If you guys have ever seen that, which by the way, this is not a recommendation or an endorsement of everything in that movie. If you were born in the 80s or before, you probably have watched this and you've been like, yeah, yeah, you see things from one angle and then before you know it, the truth emerges. And every disciple has to have an understanding of that. That there is going to be a flawed human, limited judgment that will be placed on you and me. But God knows where the movie ends and he will reveal the truth. A moment is not a verdict. A snapshot is not a story. Maybe for you, you've had a moment or a situation that felt like it defined you. Maybe you lived through something that you wish you could redo. Maybe you made a decision that you regret. Or you lived through a season that did not turn out the way that you hoped. Paul reminds us like, I don't even judge myself. Not because reflection is bad, but because he acknowledges even I don't see clearly. I don't see all the things. It's the Lord who judges. People don't get to have the final word. I don't get to have the final word. You don't even get to have the final word over your own life. God does. Which by the way, blows up a lot of stories and narratives that are in the culture. You get to define you. You get to decide. It's like actually Jesus is the Messiah, he's the Lord, the King. It's like what he says ultimately is what's true. So remember, it's not about being impressive, it's about being faithful. And you're not evaluated in the courts that you think you are. That court of public opinion, those snap judgments, they're partial. So the question becomes like, why do they have so much power over us? And here's why. When we live under the verdict of others or even our own harsh self judgment, we stop serving and start performing. We become so concerned with the verdict that we forget what we've actually been called to. And whose verdict are you living under? Someone else's? Your own? Or you're living forward towards God's? That question really matters. Not just for today, but for eternity. So here's my last point. If you're a note taker, I encourage you to write this down. Why does this matter? Here's why it matters. Because living under human judgment distorts faithfulness. Living under human judgment distorts faithfulness. If you live for the verdict of other people, you will slowly stop living faithfully to God. What's this look like? You may hold back in certain ways because you're afraid of failing. What if you stop taking risks because it may not turn out the way you want it to? Or you had a failure, you had something happen that didn't go the way that you wanted it to. How easy is it to pull back and self protection just be like, I'm not gonna put myself out there anymore. And it may not be this big thing that's public in front of everyone. It may be a moment of vulnerability that's not met with what you want or what you think should happen in that moment. Maybe on the flip side, there are things that you're called to as a disciple, hard conversations that you're called to step into that you might step past because you're concerned that they might go poorly. That fear of somebody else's verdict might stop you from living faithfully to God and me. How about this one? Quietly stepping away from something that God has asked you to do. Instead of asking, lord, what do you want? We start asking, what will they think? Those two things do not lead to the same place. And by the way, did you notice the hand motions I just made? This is a drift. Where you start, it doesn't actually take much. You're off by a degree. This is something that's known in. We pilots know this. You're off by a degree. Cool at first, no big deal. You fly 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, three hours, off by one degree. All of a sudden you're off by hundreds of miles. You're not even going to the same continent anymore. This is how we drift. Not suddenly, not slowly. You just kind of like a boat without an anchor. You don't notice it until you wind up somewhere you never meant to be. Charles Spurgeon, I believe they called him the Prince of preachers, lived back in the 1800s. At some point and he addressed this. He actually broke this down, I think. Do we have a slide with the Spurgeon? This is an adapted, 21st century shortened version of what Spurgeon said. How do we know when we are adrift? Check these out. He wrote down. We act like owners, not stewards. My life, my time, my call. Another one. Living to please people, avoiding truth to keep peace. I don't want to upset them. I'll just go with it. Another one. We use what's entrusted to us for us. We slowly bend time, money, or influence toward comfort, recognition, or control instead of God's purposes. I just want to feel good. I want to be noticed. I want to be validated. Another one. We can grow careless or disengaged. Neglect. Neglect is a real thing. We can neglect what's in front of us. We can become distracted or disengaged. We can overlook people we're called to love or responsibilities that we're actually given because we're distracted or focused elsewhere. Physically, you can see this as I'm physically present, but mentally, I'm somewhere else. We all know what that's like. Man, isn't that our age? Physically here, that's what we are tempted to by everything that's in our pockets, everything that's around us. Last one complaining about fellow servants. Spurgeon mentioned this. That you can be so focused on what's wrong that you can lose sight of being faithful with what's yours. They're not doing it right. There's a lot here. You don't need them all. Is there one that sticks out to you? Did one of these stay with you? Just one can make a difference for how you think about this week. Okay, so I realize this can be really hard and can be kind of heavy because here's the truth. Every disciple drifts to some degree or another. This, by the way, I think, is why moments like this are so important. I won't get too much into my own story, but drift is a huge part of it. Especially when I first heard about Jesus, I drifted hard for five years. But that's a very kind of like, that's a big drift. There could be very small drifts that take place where you don't have to necessarily be out of the church or kind of living your own life completely apart from God. The truth is we all can drift because we're bent to do that. Why do you think God says more than any other command, don't be afraid? Because we're afraid. Because it comes naturally to us. It's like breathing, which, by the way, some of you are, like, not afraid. Not afraid of anything. Well, that might be your fear, to be afraid. I'm not afraid of looking weak. I'm not afraid of anything. Nothing. Okay, man, like, just, here's your coffee. Like, we talk about something else that's not fear or that look in your eye, you know, we're all afraid. Every single person, no matter how tough, no matter how. Because guess what? Everyone's vulnerable. Everyone's actually in the process of dying. I think I'm going to end with that one. Did you know that every day that goes by, you're one day closer to dying? Man, that is a dark thought. But it's true for everybody. Everyone. And if you never think about it, stuff like today is just gonna be like, oh, that was a cool message. Or you just evaluate this thing and you keep moving. Do you believe that we're gonna stand before God and give him an account? That's the part of the question for this morning. If you don't, this morning, you can evaluate how I did or how this went. And Then you can just keep moving with your life. If you believe there's a final judgment coming, you'll perk up a little bit, because this might change the trajectory of your eternity if you get this. So all of us drift, all of us struggle. What do we do if we've been unfaithful? Before I get into it, there's some good news for you. God's not trying to destroy you. He wants to restore what's been entrusted to you. I used to work at a law firm in San Diego. Was not an attorney. I was a part of the research team. And we did really well. I don't know if interesting is the right word. We did stuff. And one of the things that we did was we had these cases. It was all publicly filed, publicly traded companies that were publicly listed on an exchange. The nasdaq, whatever, the S and P, whatever it is, and the nyse. And every so often, things would go really off track for these companies, and they would launch into something called a restatement. Has anybody ever heard of a restatement before? Okay, a couple of you guys have. Great. Okay, so let me explain this. A restatement is a company's way of saying telling the truth of what's actually there in their financial statements so that what's off can be made. Right. Okay. They basically would have to acknowledge, ooh, something's been off in how we've managed things, how we've accounted for our. Whatever it is. There might be revenue issues. There may be all kinds of problems. And they have to restate to tell the truth about what actually happened. Because all these other statements that we previously made, they have to say, you can't rely on them anymore. Which is a wild thing for a company to have to say, Right? Because you're literally investing in them because you believe them. If you don't believe them, why would you invest in them? Right? So really, their integrity and the truth of their word is everything. And that's their way of saying, I have been off track. And a restatement is kind of a good way to put this. If you have been off track with your stewardship, it may be time to restate. It's not because God needs to know. He already knows. It's because we need to see clearly. And he wants us to live in the freedom of the truth with him. There comes a point in the life, I think, of any disciple, it'll happen to you, it'll happen to me. And hopefully it starts really small, to where it's like, you can Course correct quickly. Where we either have to save face or step into freedom. We cannot do both. These companies, when they call them internal material weaknesses over their financial controls. Now everyone's gonna go to sleep. As I explained this stuff, I should have double checked this one past my wife before. She's not here. All that just means is there are serious issues with how we did what we do and we need to go back and do it again. And so a financial restatement is like repentance for a public company. It's time to come clean. We drifted. It's their way of saying we drifted. The systems that were supposed to serve us and help us stay on track, they broke down or we went around them or whatever. Shortcuts happen, pressure build. We needed to make our earnings. Q4 earnings is just around the corner. And all of a sudden appearances replace reality. But this can happen not just to corporations. This could happen to disciples, this could happen to communities. Eventually. You choose. We either manage perception or we tell the truth. We either save face or we take a step into freedom. We can't do both. One protects your image, the other one repairs your life. So if you are off track today, it may be small, it may be big. Remember, one degree over time goes like this. And by the way, there might be really good reasons why you're off. Let me just be clear about that. I was recently watching a classic, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. One more. I'm not recommending this. If you're young, you don't want to wait on this one. Mom and dad. Talk to them. The 80s were a wild time. PG13 then meant different things. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's keep talking about it. Ferris Bueller's Day off as a classic growing up. If you don't know the movie, it's about Ferris Bueller taking a day off and he ends up he's a high school student. He creates the most elaborate, manipulative lie you've ever seen. He's actually not a great character. You really slow down and think about it. It's like, this guy's not great. However, what's interesting about him is that because he's not a great guy, if it puts everybody around him into a position to figure out how they're going to deal with him. And his buddy Cameron is his best friend. And when you start that movie, you're like, why is he a friend to him? Ferris Bueller treats him terribly. And you see it play out when they take out the Ferrari. If you've seen this movie. You know exactly what I'm talking about. They take out Dad's Ferrari. Okay? One thing you don't do if you're younger, you don't take out mom and Dad's car without permission. You definitely don't take out the Ferrari without permission. And that is exactly what Ferris Bueller got his buddy Cameron to do. They take the Ferrari out they weren't supposed to. They go on a joyride through the city of Chicago. And then things go horribly wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. And there comes a moment where Cameron, his friend, says, I can't hide this anymore. And his relationship with his dad had been really complicated, really messy. And all of his energy up to that point had been about managing the situation, keeping up appearances, trying to avoid the fallout, trying to control how it looks. But eventually he just drops it and he decides, I'm going to face my dad. Not because it's easy, not because there won't be consequences. You can't destroy a piece of irreplaceable automobile history. You can't do it. But because pretending isn't going to fix anything. That's what it looks like to step out of the wrong court. Not managing how it looks, not trying to control the verdict, coming into the light. Because pretending it doesn't fix anything, doesn't repair anything, hiding doesn't restore a thing. But bringing what's real into the light, that's where restoration happens. The difference for us is when we come into the light, we're not walking towards condemnation, we're walking towards grace. Because our Father is like, I'm so glad you're home. You don't have to know much about the Bible to know the prodigal son story. And it's just like, he'll run out to you if you just take a step and he sees you come and he's like, I will shame myself. That's what that was in that ancient world. It was shameful for a father to do what he did. He will enter into your shame so that he can remove it. So no matter what you've done, restoration is for you. Forgiveness, restoration, grace. Not just for the big failures, but for the quiet drift that nobody sees. And his spirit doesn't just help you try harder. Guys, some of you need to hear this. He gives a new heart in the kingdom. It's not about a second chance. It's about a second birth. You need to experience that second birth first by putting your faith in Jesus and being given a new heart and a new spirit so that you can walk out this faithful stewardship because you cannot do it on your own. You cannot strive your way through this. You can't white knuckle. You receive love and you receive power. But that doesn't remove responsibility. It restores you to it. This was always the plan in the beginning. I'm invite you to stand. And invite the band up to the front. Stretch a little bit. All of this is well and good. I mean, I think you can decide and truly it's not that big of a deal how we think this went. Your response is what matters. All of this is well and good, but it won't make a difference until you realize one thing. On that cross, Jesus was judged in your place so that you could step into the light with the assurance of forgiveness, with the assurance of restoration, and with an assurance that he's never going to leave you nor forsake you. One of my favorite promises at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, when we finish it, we'll get to it. It's going to be great, is in the context of Jesus giving the church the assignment. The church has to make disciples, be stewards of this assignment, essentially for all of us. You know what he says after he says that he lays out this responsibility? He says, I will be with you even to the end of the age. Which means you're not alone in this. Not only do you have a people that you're walking this out with, like Jesus is walking with you in it. Jesus was judging your place so that the verdict over you doesn't have to be condemnation, but acceptance. So this isn't about being impressive. It's about being faithful. What would happen if we stopped living under these snap judgments and started living under God's word, His final word? Imagine asking, what does faithfulness look like right here? Imagine homes that are marked by honesty, workplaces marked by integrity, and communities that operate without fear. Not flawless, but faithful. That kind of life looks like relief. So I want to end with two questions to just kind of get you thinking about this. I think we have them in the back if you guys wouldn't mind throwing them up. Three questions. Where have you drifted? Have you drifted? If so, where? What is God bringing into the light for you? And what's a step of spirit led faithful obedience this week? What's that look like? Maybe even. Who might you share this with? Maybe somebody in your gospel community? If you're not a part of a gospel community, maybe somebody that's a part of this community that you know, that's a safe person, that you can unpack with that, won't judge you or condemn you, that'll just receive you and pronounce Jesus forgiveness over you. Because they're a steward of the gospel, they can pronounce forgiveness for any sinner who repents. You don't have to clean it up before bringing it to light. My appeal to you is, whatever it is that God's been working on you today, do not ignore it. If you do. Drift is inevitable. It just is. So step into the light. There's grace there. There's help there. I'm going to call the prayer team up to the front. There's men and women that would love to pray for you, that are going to be available. And if God has been stirring up anything in you, please don't miss this moment. Faithful stewardship, by the way, involves a lot of things. One of them is just being honest. Just being honest. If I'm off track, that's okay. All of us get off track. Jesus, what he requires is that step of humility to say, I'm off track. Jesus, please help me get back on track. I want to be a faithful steward. I want to do what pleases you. So let me pray for us and we'll go into a time of response. Father, thank you. Thank you that Jesus was the faithful steward that all of us want to be, but we can't quite be or we fall short of. Thank you. That there's forgiveness and grace for every person who turns to him. And I thank you, Father, that your desire is for there to be abundant fruit that comes out of faithful stewardship in this room, in this church community. And so would you give us each a step to take in the direction that you have set out for us? Father, thank you. Would you help us to bring into the light fear? Maybe for some of us, all we need to do is just say, I've been afraid. I've been afraid to take a risk. I've been afraid to have a conversation. I've been afraid to talk to this person that God keeps putting in front of me. I've been afraid to do this or that. Fear has kept me on the sidelines or on the flip side. Arrogance has kept me going too long, too far, and I'm drifted in a different direction. I've been puffed up. I've been looking down on people, judging people, thinking that I could be the judge, when in reality I can't see what you see. Father, please forgive my arrogance. God, whatever it is that you give each of us guidance on what to do, next. And would you be pleased to use this response time to further your purposes for this community in this season, at this hour, in the way that you want. We love you. Would you have your way? Jimmy, Pray. Amen. Okay. If you need to get prayer, get prayer. Otherwise, you can respond through thanking him for what he's done. Sa.