Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Almighty God.
[00:00:06] Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome. All right, ladies and gentlemen, go ahead and grab a seat. 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.
[00:00:34] Before I get started, sometimes God will do this with me, and I just want to be genuinely want to be obedient to Him. But as we were worshiping and praising Jesus, I just kept getting this, like, impression from the Lord. And I think it's for somebody, but the impression that I got was one of just, like, questioning something.
[00:01:02] And I don't know if it means, like, you're questioning God or you're questioning what's happening in your life or whether there's, like, an answer that you're seeking and something that you're facing, but in a really cool way. I feel like your Father in heaven wants to give you some answers this morning, and I think it's going to come through the truth of His Word, and I think it's going to come through the Spirit amongst His people.
[00:01:26] And so if that's you this morning, God's highlighting you and he loves you and he wants to communicate to you and he wants to bless you richly. And so I'm stoked about that. But I want to put that in front of you and just say, if you're seeking an answer, I think God's going to. He wants to give you an answer. And I want to invite you to press in this morning.
[00:01:45] I want to invite you to lean in and see just what the Spirit of God might be wanting to reveal to you through His Word and through his people.
[00:01:53] If you're a guest with us this morning, I want to welcome you. My name's Tom. I have the privilege of serving as lead pastor of the church on eldership with the other guys.
[00:02:00] And my hope for us this morning is that if you're a guest, that you would encounter Jesus among us. So glad that you're here. I pray that his presence and his grace and his mercy would, like it would refresh you and strengthen you in the life that God has called you to live.
[00:02:15] One of the things that we talk about often is that there's a difference between being in church and in Christ My hope and my prayer is that at the chance there's anybody in here and you're not yet in Christ, that you would experience him, that you would see him clearly this morning, and that you'd place your trust, your faith in him, and it would utterly transform the rest of your life. It would transform not just the here and now, but your eternity would be secured.
[00:02:42] It's different to be in church than it is to be in Christ. And I want all of us to experience every spiritual blessing of being in Christ, enjoying Him and obeying him, and operating like him in every single area of life. Now, this morning, you can go ahead and grab your Bible and open up to the book of Matthew.
[00:03:01] Yeah, okay. At least there's like seven of us that are fired up about going back into Matthew. So I'm jumping back into our series, the King and His Kingdom. Okay. We took a break for a couple months.
[00:03:11] We did a series on our church's values. What makes us unique as a church. What are the things that we prioritize? What are the things that we value. If you missed that, you can go back and listen to those messages. They're. They're critical, honestly, to understand who we are as a church. But this morning we finished that up, and now we're jumping back into Matthew. You can open up to chapter 23. That's where we're gonna be.
[00:03:31] And just as a kind of reminder and a refresher, we titled this series the King and His Kingdom.
[00:03:39] And so the goal here is to learn as much as we can through Matthew's account of Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ministry. We wanna learn as much as we can about the kingdom of God, or otherwise known as the kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of God. The kingdom of Heaven. It's what do things look like when God gets his way.
[00:03:58] It's his rule, his reign, his way in everything. And so every kingdom has a king, and that king is ruling and reigning. We want to learn about what the kingdom of heaven is, the kingdom of God is. And what that means for our life. And that it's. The Bible talks about how it's not just this experience you have after you die. Like, the kingdom of heaven is not just for the believer, the Christian, after they die. You can experience the rule and the reign of God here in now, the benefits of it, the privileges of it, the power of it. And that's what we've been exploring through this series.
[00:04:28] And so you can put your finger on verse one. That's where we're going to start here. But before I jump into God's word this morning, I want to pray for us.
[00:04:36] And so I want to invite you to join me in prayer.
[00:04:48] God, I thank you for your presence among us.
[00:04:55] I thank you for the opportunity to slow down just a bit.
[00:05:03] So many things battle for our attention.
[00:05:08] Some of those good things, some of those not so good things. But either way, spirit, I ask right now that you would help us give our attention over to you.
[00:05:18] We want you to lead us.
[00:05:22] Would you reveal more and more of the beauty and glory of Jesus to us?
[00:05:28] Thank you for your grace and your love and your mercy. Jesus, there's nobody like you.
[00:05:33] You're so wonderful to us.
[00:05:37] Would you teach us? Would you guide us? Would you lead us? This morning, we pray it's in your name. And all God's people said Amen.
[00:05:44] Okay, so a little bit of context for you to kind of bring you back up to speed. For some of you guys, this will be review. You'll remember this. But for others, I think it's helpful to understand where we're jumping into the story. Okay? This is the final days of Jesus life, okay? This takes place in what's called Holy Week. So Jesus has got days to live. He's going to the cross. He knows he's going to the cross. And he has various encounters with people.
[00:06:06] And in today's passage, the setting of today's passage, where this takes place is it's in the courtyard of the temple. Okay? The temple was where the Jews worshiped Yahweh, they worshiped the God of the Bible. And in this courtyard area, Jesus, he was doing ministry. He was teaching people. And these crowds, they were starting to gather around him. And these crowds, they were made up of different types of people.
[00:06:26] They were made up of faithful Jewish people. They were made up of kind of spiritual and religious leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees. We'll get to them in just a second.
[00:06:35] But these people that were kind of responsible for guiding the people of God in their religious practices, it was made up of people that were just kind of investigating, who is this guy Jesus? They heard about Jesus. He's performing these miracles. He's this radically gifted teacher. He's moving in power in ways that are undeniable for people. So there's kind of the people that are investigating, there's maybe the skeptic, there's the Jew, there's the religious kind of spiritual leader. So this crowd is kind of a diverse group of people, okay?
[00:07:03] And what started happening in this crowd, if you remember earlier in chapter 22, this crowd is made up of some of these religious leaders. And they start. They want to publicly discredit Jesus. They're not a fan of Jesus. He's a threat to their authority, if you will.
[00:07:18] And so they try to publicly discredit Jesus. And they do it by, like, kind of publicly posing these questions, right? And in their attempts to publicly discredit Jesus, it totally backfires on them. Cause Jesus is brilliant. He sees right through what they're trying to do. And he responds to their interrupting questions and their inquisitive, kind of, like, accusatory nature. He responds to them in such a way that totally exposes their lack of integrity as leaders.
[00:07:44] He totally exposes their hypocrisy and their idolatry. They're literally. Idolatry is whenever you are elevating something above God, worship is ascribing ultimate worth. So whenever a person is ascribing ultimate worth to something other than the lover of their soul, their creator, their maker, the God of the heavens and the earth. Like, whenever they do that, it's called idolatry. It's, I'm worshiping a false God, a lesser thing.
[00:08:13] And these religious leaders are kind of leading the way in that, which is really sad. So Jesus, he exposes their lack of integrity.
[00:08:20] And it says at the end of chapter 22, which is right before we pick up here in chapter 23, verse 1, it says that they stopped questioning him.
[00:08:28] They got to a point where they looked so bad, he exposed them so greatly in their kind of, like, irreverence and their ungodliness, that they were like, okay, we're done.
[00:08:41] That's where we pick up here in chapter 23. And what's gonna happen here is that crowd that I just told you about, Jesus is now gonna address the crowd in a pretty powerful way. Let's check it out.
[00:08:51] Matthew 23, starting in verse one.
[00:08:56] Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples.
[00:09:00] This is what he says. He goes, the scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. Okay, pause for a second.
[00:09:08] Gotta understand, scribes and Pharisees, they're just spiritual religious leaders. Okay? That's all you need to know for now.
[00:09:14] They're the Jewish religious leaders, and they're present in the moment. So one of the things that I love about Jesus is he doesn't really pull any punches. He loves us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves. He's never a jerk, but he doesn't withhold the truth.
[00:09:28] He Speaks the truth in love. And sometimes love is confrontational, is it not?
[00:09:33] That's what we see here with him. So Jesus goes, these guys are present, these scribes and Pharisees, these Jewish religious leaders, they're present. And he goes, these scribes and Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. You gotta understand what he's meaning by saying that they're seated in the chair of Moses.
[00:09:48] What he's saying is that these guys, they were handed God given authority to teach the writings of Moses, okay? So think the first five books of your Bible, okay? It's called the Torah. Moses wrote those, okay? It's filled with all sorts of instruction and guidance about who God is and what he's done and what his kingdom, what his rule and his reign, what his way is like. And so Jesus is saying that these scribes and Pharisees, these Jewish religious leaders, they had God given authority to teach the writings of Moses. They had a responsibility, hear me, to interpret the scriptures to people.
[00:10:30] It's kind of similar to like what I'm trying to do right now is hopefully faithfully interpret the scriptures.
[00:10:38] And so I want you to get the idea that these guys had a responsibility to be Bible interpreters.
[00:10:46] Anybody in the room keeping up with playoff baseball, raise your hand if you are. Okay, handful of you, okay, for those of you cultured and classy individuals in the room, you dodge your fans. I'll just talk to you guys for a second.
[00:11:00] Big game today.
[00:11:01] I know, I know.
[00:11:04] If you follow the Dodgers, you know, one of the cool things about the Dodgers is that it's kind of a diverse team. Guys from all sorts of places on the planet and oftentimes they speak different languages. There's a couple of Japanese players, really gifted Japanese players on the Dodgers, and whenever they would interview these guys, there'd be somebody else there. Do you know who that other person would be?
[00:11:24] An interpreter? Absolutely. So that person's there to literally go back and forth to interpret English to Japanese and then Japanese to English so that both parties can clearly understand each other. Okay? There's an interpretation happening. There's a professional interpreter for Shohei and for Yamamoto and these guys, these Japanese guys that are trying to speak. Okay, now I want you to just imagine for a second, imagine if that interpreter, if he kind of decides to share whatever he wants to share.
[00:11:54] If, you know, he asks question, hey, so what do you think about LA and the Dodger fans? And you just hit this game winning home run show, hey, like what do you think about the fans reaction to that. And what did that feel like for you? What was your experience like? And you know, he speaks in Japanese and the guy goes, okay, okay, okay. And then he goes, I hate Dodger fans.
[00:12:12] They have disgusting body odor, they smell, they're rude. And I wish that I was on another team.
[00:12:18] You can imagine the kind of damage that that might do unnecessarily through just a simple misinterpretation.
[00:12:26] Okay, Silly, stupid analogy, but I want you to see how much power and influence these scribes and Pharisees had in interpreting the Bible to people.
[00:12:39] It was a significant responsibility. Okay?
[00:12:43] Interpreters, they have a lot of power and influence.
[00:12:46] These religious leaders are no different. Okay?
[00:12:50] And I want you to consider for just a second, wherever you are on your faith journey, wherever you are on your journey in a relationship with Jesus, I want you to understand something. How you interpret the Bible will shape your life.
[00:13:05] Even if your interpretation of the Bible is, this is all a joke, this isn't real, this is a myth, this is stupid.
[00:13:11] That's one end of the spectrum. Or you're like, this is the word of God.
[00:13:16] Like there's nothing more true, there's nothing more powerful, there's nothing more potent to transform the human mind and the human heart. So wherever you are on this journey, you need to understand that you have an interpretation of the Scriptures. How you interpret the Scriptures, it is massively important in how it shapes your life. Okay? That's why there's different denominations in Christianity.
[00:13:35] It's cause people interpret the Scriptures a little bit differently. Different streams, different traditions. How a person interprets the Bible, hear me, is one of the most important aspects of their whole life.
[00:13:49] That's a hot take, but it's real, it's true.
[00:13:52] Either for the better or maybe even for the worse. For positive, for negative. So I want you to see, I'm gonna get back into our passage here, but I want you to understand what Jesus says when he goes, these spiritual leaders, these religious guys, these guys, they're seated in the chair of Moses.
[00:14:05] He's saying they have God given authority to be Bible interpreters. You tracking with me? Okay, let's keep going. Verse two, read it again. The scribes and Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. And Jesus continues in verse three, he says, therefore do whatever they tell you and observe it. That means obey it, but don't do what they do because they don't practice what they teach.
[00:14:30] They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and they put them on people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them.
[00:14:40] They do everything to be seen by others.
[00:14:43] They enlarge their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. And they love the place of honor at banquets, the front seat in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called rabbi by people.
[00:14:57] Verse 8. But you are not to be called rabbi because you have one teacher and you are all brothers and sisters. Do not call anyone on earth your father, because you have one father who is in heaven. You are not to be called instructors either, because you have one instructor, the Messiah. Messiah means promised Savior.
[00:15:15] Verse 11. The greatest among you will be your servant.
[00:15:21] Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Okay, so that's our passage. I want to spend a little bit of time breaking this down because there's some really important things here for us, okay?
[00:15:34] So I want you to get the picture in your mind.
[00:15:36] Jesus, he's addressing this crowd, okay? And he publicly calls out these spiritual leaders. Why he calls them out publicly for their. Listen to me. Ungodly leadership, okay? God given authority, God given responsibility. And their leadership was ungodly. So Jesus publicly calls him out. Now, you cannot read this passage without coming to the conclusion. My first point for you this morning, if you're taking notes, is this. Jesus takes leadership seriously.
[00:16:06] It's not a flippant thing like it matters to him.
[00:16:11] Jesus takes leadership seriously.
[00:16:14] And listen, I want to say this too, because I think it's super important what Jesus is getting at here, what he says. It doesn't just apply to, like, spiritual leadership, like for pastors and elders and staff members at churches and vocational ministers. And it certainly applies to them. But it's not exclusively for spiritual leadership. It applies to leadership of any kind.
[00:16:38] It applies to leadership in the home.
[00:16:41] It applies to leadership in the workplace. It applies to leadership at school or in your community or in the church. Hear me what Jesus talks about today. It applies to leadership anywhere and everywhere, friends.
[00:16:54] Now, leadership is kind of one of those buzzwords that people sell a lot of books. Cause there's a lot of opinions about what leadership is. There's different philosophies about what good leadership looks like and bad leadership look like. And how do you become a more effective leader, a more powerful leader, a more potent leader. All those types of things, okay? There's so many books written. You can get a college degree in leadership. Maybe some of you in the room have a college degree in leadership. So there's all Sorts of opinions out there on what makes a good leader and what makes a poor leader. Okay, I want to propose to you, you've heard me say this before.
[00:17:31] I am convinced that Jesus is the greatest leader of all time.
[00:17:37] Okay?
[00:17:38] Let's just talk organizationally. The organization that he started 2,000 years ago is still going, still flourishing. There's billions of people who are part of the church. Okay? Jesus is the greatest leader of all time. I don't know of another organization that has continued in, in both potency and actually just kept going for 2,000 years.
[00:18:00] We could learn so much about leadership from Jesus.
[00:18:04] He's the greatest leader of all time. And he has a ton to say here in this passage that we just read about leadership. Okay? Now before I go any further, I just wanna, I wanna use this passage to help define what I mean when I say leadership.
[00:18:20] Because in your mind you're probably going, you have a definition going in your mind right now of leadership, whether you can articulate it and write it down or not. I want to bring us on the same page of what do I mean when I say leadership. Let's define this really quickly. I'm going to do it by looking at verses 2 and verse 3. Look back at verse 2 and verse 3.
[00:18:37] Verse 2 says, as the scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. You guys know what that is now? Okay? Therefore do whatever they tell you and observe it, but don't do what they do do because they don't practice what they teach. Okay? So I want you to see Jesus highlights two things here in regards to leadership, okay? Verse two, he references their responsibility.
[00:19:00] Do you see it?
[00:19:01] Right? They're the Bible interpreters. It's a God given thing.
[00:19:06] They're responsible to do that. So he's highlighting ingredient number one of leadership is responsibility, okay? To interpret the Bible. And then verse three, he gives, he highlights what I'll call influence.
[00:19:18] He highlights influence, okay? That those scribes and Pharisees, those spiritual religious leaders, they were influencing the people with both their words and their actions, okay? So what I want you to see here is that, and this is my definition, I believe it's biblical. I believe it's rooted in God's word. Leadership is a combination of two ingredients, okay? It's a combination of two ingredients. Responsibility, responsibility and influence.
[00:19:46] Responsibility and influence, okay? Leaders, they assume a responsibility, in this case being Bible interpreters, okay? And leaders influence people.
[00:19:59] Now it's funny because Jesus says that those leaders here in this passage, they were responsible for interpreting the Bible, right?
[00:20:06] He goes, those guys, he goes, that's fine. He goes, but don't do what they do.
[00:20:11] Don't do what they do. In other words, don't allow their actions to influence the way that you live. So I want you to see. Here's my definition of a leader. Someone who takes responsibility and influences others.
[00:20:23] You see that in the passage. Someone who takes responsibility and influences others.
[00:20:30] Now consider this for a second.
[00:20:33] There's some implications here, okay?
[00:20:37] One of the implications is my next point. It's this. Notetakers. Everyone is a leader, and everyone is being led.
[00:20:48] Everyone's a leader and everyone is being led, okay?
[00:20:53] Everybody to some degree is taking on responsibility.
[00:20:58] Even the youngest people in the room, Even the most seasoned people in the room.
[00:21:04] Everybody to some degree is taking responsibility. Here's some examples. For you parents in the room, there's a pretty significant responsibility.
[00:21:11] Those of you who work a job or have a career, pretty significant responsibility. Those of you who serve in different areas in the church, not just on Sundays, but rest of the week and the community, the ways that you serve, pretty significant responsibility.
[00:21:24] Something as youth in the room, something is as simple as being someone's friend.
[00:21:30] That comes with responsibility.
[00:21:32] That comes with responsibility of, like, close relationship and trust and understanding.
[00:21:40] Each of these things, they come with responsibility. So that's ingredient number one, right? Ingredient number two is just influence over other people.
[00:21:48] So I want you to understand something.
[00:21:51] Anytime a person is being influenced in any way, leadership is happening.
[00:21:58] Anytime you or me or our neighbor is being influenced in any way, leadership is happening, okay? They're being led.
[00:22:07] Whether they connect the dots or not, influence is happening. You're tracking with me.
[00:22:12] Some of you are.
[00:22:15] I remember when I was in high school, I had a good friend and he.
[00:22:22] Gifted athlete, good dude, and he was a jock. He was football player, like, typical kind of stereotypical guy, but he was a gifted athlete. And I remember over summer, I think it was summer going into sophomore year. So coming out of freshman year, going into sophomore year, we were the same grade. And I remember over summer, he started hanging out with this other guy that was like just a different kind of, kind of a weird kid. Kind of like, this guy's kind of weird.
[00:22:52] And literally over the course of like a month and a half, he went from, you know, letterman's jacket and just the jock vibe to, like, he dyed his hair black.
[00:23:05] He did the, like, what's it called, the eye makeup.
[00:23:09] Like, he went from jock to goth in like, six weeks.
[00:23:17] And it was, sorry, if anybody in the room, you know you grew up high school and you were goth, whatever, but I'm not trying to throw shade at you, but it was shocking because he came to school and everybody who knew him was like, what happened to him? Like, he's dressing totally different, he's behaving totally different. And it's not like a, a simple like kind of like metamorphosis. It's like a full on transformation very, very quickly. And I remember thinking, like, what happened to this guy?
[00:23:50] And I'll tell you what happened to him.
[00:23:52] Leadership happened to him.
[00:23:56] He had a new friend who was goth and he looked up to this guy. He was older, he was a senior. He looked up to this guy. And leadership was taking place. Influence was taking place.
[00:24:07] That's a component of leadership. That's unavoidable. Leaders influence other people. Okay, so listen, all of us in the room, you, me, the person sitting next to you, we all, to some degree or another, take on responsibilities and we all have influence over other people. And all of us, hear me, are being influenced.
[00:24:32] So the reason I say that is because if you're sitting here, whether or not you consider yourself a leader, everyone is a leader and everyone is being led because everybody to some degree takes responsibility for things. And everybody to some degree is influencing others and being influenced by others. Everyone is a leader and everyone is being led.
[00:24:55] Now if you read this passage and you're anything like me, I'm going to, I'm going, dude, like Jesus, why is he getting so worked up?
[00:25:04] Like, why is he publicly calling these guys out?
[00:25:09] We talked about my first point. He takes leadership seriously. Why then? There's a reason, right? There's a reason that Jesus takes leadership so seriously. There's a reason why he doesn't like, downplay their ungodly leadership. There's a reason why he doesn't just kind of look away and go, you know, the bygones be bygones. There's a reason why he doesn't brush it under the rug or dismiss it.
[00:25:28] And the reason is my next point for you. It's because you will become like the people you allow to lead you.
[00:25:38] Like, it's inevitable.
[00:25:41] You and I, we will become like the people we give permission to lead us, to influence us.
[00:25:50] Like, make no mistake, you are being influenced all the time.
[00:25:58] You're being influenced all the time. The question is, who or what is influencing you?
[00:26:04] Who or what is influencing you?
[00:26:08] Now maybe you're here and you're like, yeah, sure, maybe for some of these other weirdos in the room, Tom, maybe They're, you know, they're influenced. I'm original.
[00:26:17] I'm an original person. Like, you know, I do my own thing. Like, nobody influences me.
[00:26:24] That's cute to think that that's not true.
[00:26:28] You're just an enneagram 4.
[00:26:33] Here's the thing. I'm an enneagram 4. So I can throw shade at you. If you're an enneagram4, it's just a personality test. It's like, oh, I'm original and I need to be my own.
[00:26:41] It's a fallacy.
[00:26:43] It's just not true. We're all being influenced all the time. The question isn't whether we're being influenced. The question is what or who is influencing us.
[00:26:51] And in this passage, we see it all throughout the Bible, too. You and I will become like the people we allow to lead us.
[00:26:59] And so I just want to, like, pastorally, for just a second, ask you a question that I feel like the spirit's been asking me all week.
[00:27:06] And it's this, who are you becoming? Like, Who are you becoming? Like, who influences you?
[00:27:23] Everyone's a leader and everyone is being led.
[00:27:30] And it's funny. I think it's easier to recognize this than observing other people.
[00:27:35] Like my buddy in high school, you know, like, whoa, dude. Like, you're clearly being led. There's clearly influence happening. And it's obvious.
[00:27:44] But I think when we undergo influence, it's not as obvious to us as it is maybe to the people around us.
[00:27:58] You're being influenced. The question is by whom?
[00:28:09] I think the Internet has had, like, a really significant effect on people.
[00:28:16] Like the rise of social media over the years and the different algorithms they use to capture our attention.
[00:28:23] And not all of it's bad. Some of it can be helpful and beneficial and all that. Right.
[00:28:28] But it's so interesting because I remember being on different forms of social media, like, as they were getting started, and it was. It just felt very different. It felt very much kind of like a. It just felt like a different thing. The thought of being like a social media influencer in the early days, like, I don't know. I can't speak for you. It didn't even register as, like, a possibility in my brain.
[00:28:52] And it's wild. Cause you fast forward however long it's been, 10, 15, 20 years, however long it's been, you fast forward and it's crazy. I saw a study from 2025, two studies actually conducted by Global Data, and I think it's wop w h o p revealed that the number one desired career among young people aged 12 to 24. Can you guess what it is?
[00:29:17] Yeah, social media influencer. Like number one.
[00:29:22] The thing that, according to these studies, the thing that 12 to 24 year olds, their number one desired career path is to be a social media influencer.
[00:29:35] And I was thinking about that and I was like, I actually don't think that's a bad thing.
[00:29:40] Like considering just the dangers of social media and all the things that we're more aware of now, our smartphones are kind of like this generation's pack of cigarettes, the health challenges and dangers involved with it, all that kind of thing. But either way, I actually don't think it's a bad thing. And here's why.
[00:29:55] Because social media influencers, they're just leaders.
[00:29:59] They're just dressed up in a different name in a modern day manifestation of leadership. But they're just leaders. I mean, think about it. People follow them, right?
[00:30:10] People start liking the things that they like.
[00:30:14] They want to go to the places they go, right? Social media is responsible for ruining the outdoors now, which, you know, whatever.
[00:30:21] People want to go to the places that the influencers go. They want to wear the things that the influencers wear. They want to say the things that the influencers say. They want to do the things that the influencers do.
[00:30:30] I just want to propose to you that social media influencers are just leaders.
[00:30:34] They're just leaders.
[00:30:36] But have you ever thought, like, what makes a social media influencer? Like what makes one?
[00:30:43] Is it just because you post a video online and now you're a social media influencer?
[00:30:50] No, I don't think that makes them an influencer. Is it just because someone gives themselves the title, like, hey, I posted this video, so now I'm now identifying as a social media influencer?
[00:30:59] No, that doesn't make them an influencer.
[00:31:02] I want to point out something to you that has had a massive impact on my life that I think is important that I think you see in Scripture, okay? And it's this.
[00:31:13] Leadership is not determined by a role or a title.
[00:31:20] It's not. It's determined by whether people follow your example.
[00:31:27] So think about this, especially young people in the room.
[00:31:31] Nobody can stop you from leading.
[00:31:35] Cause it's not dependent on you being even permitted a title or a role or a platform.
[00:31:42] Like it literally is determined by whether or not people follow your example. Nobody can stop you from leading either in a positive way or in a negative way.
[00:31:54] Hear me Jesus, he tells this crowd of people, he goes, these leaders over here, these spiritual leaders are not the kind of people you should allow to influence you.
[00:32:05] Okay? He says to the crowd, he goes, to the degree that they teach you the Bible, do what the Bible says, but don't do what these leaders do.
[00:32:15] Okay?
[00:32:16] Don't do what they do. In other words, he goes, there are ungodly leaders that you ought not allow to influence you.
[00:32:23] There are ungodly leaders you ought not allow to influence you. And then what he does is he gives them specific examples of what ungodly leadership looks like. Look at verse three. I want to go through these as quickly as I can for you.
[00:32:36] Jesus goes, here's examples of ungodly leadership that these guys are doing, and therefore you should not allow them to influence you.
[00:32:44] Look at verse three. He says, therefore do what they tell you and observe it, but don't do what they do. Why?
[00:32:51] Because they don't practice what they teach.
[00:32:55] He says, they tie up these heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people's shoulders, but they themselves aren't willing to lift a finger to move them. Okay, so the first thing here, there's a few examples that Jesus gives of what ungodly leadership looks like. The first one is this.
[00:33:09] Ungodly leaders don't practice what they preach.
[00:33:14] I don't need to spend too much time on this one because I think we've all experienced this and isn't it frustrating and confusing when this takes place?
[00:33:22] Okay, brace yourself. I'm going to talk about COVID for a second. Remember Covid?
[00:33:27] Okay.
[00:33:28] It was the worst. Yes. And I understand there's various opinions here, but I think we can all agree on one thing. Okay, do you remember that there was examples of public leaders who didn't practice what they preached? When it came to Covid, I don't know about you, that was really confusing, and that was really frustrating. Okay, you need to social distance, but I don't.
[00:33:49] You can't go to, you know, the restaurant, but I can. You can't go get your hair done, but I can like all that stuff. You don't need to social distance, but I don't. You don't need to wear a mask. But I don't. Or you need to, but I don't. It was just this, like, frustrating and confusing reality. And again, I'm not making a political statement here. I'm just saying whenever you see leadership operate in this way where it's like they're not practicing what they're telling us to do, they're not practicing what they teach, they're not practicing what they preach, it becomes very confusing, and it becomes very frustrating. Okay, not just that I'll pick on church leaders.
[00:34:27] Dude, the last few years, the amount of kind of public scandal, moral failures of men and women who will get up on platforms and preach to congregations and followers of Jesus how they ought to live and then misrepresent Jesus in, like, heinous ways that cause people to be really confused and. And really frustrated and really hurt.
[00:34:59] Listen, there's no perfect church leader.
[00:35:03] We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. We all need to practice repentance, turning away from sin and embracing Jesus. But there's a difference between, like, hiding ungodliness and keeping it under wraps and working overtime to keep this from the light. You know, walking in darkness as a leader versus someone who is with the body, rest of the body of Christ, confessing their sin and practicing repentance.
[00:35:25] But what does it do? It confuses people, and it leaves them frustrated, and rightfully so.
[00:35:32] This is when ungodly leaders, they don't practice what they preach. This is when your boss at work is, like, getting on your case for showing up on time, and they're five, ten minutes late every single time. It's like, is this something we should do or not? You tell me on time. But, Yeah, if you want to confuse and frustrate the people you lead, just don't practice what you preach.
[00:36:00] Yeah, I think we've all experienced this, and I think we all are guilty of it.
[00:36:06] I mean, like, the other day, we've been. Me and Ebony have been trying our best to parent our girls in such a way where they recognize that their contributions to the house matter, to the household it matters, and that we're a team and all these things. And so they have different responsibilities that they do.
[00:36:25] And one of the things that they help contribute is the dishes in the household. And one of the things that me as their dad has done is, hey, let's make it easier on each other. When you're finished with your dirty dish, just put it straight in the dishwasher so it's easier for everybody. Right? Moms are nodding at me. Great.
[00:36:41] See, the problem with that is that the other day, their dad, he left his dirty dish out and he didn't practice what he preached. And you can imagine how well that went over in the household.
[00:36:59] But my point at that is it's confusing and frustrating for people.
[00:37:04] Okay, what about you?
[00:37:08] Is your lifestyle a life of, like, I practice what I preach or is it not? Cause Jesus says ungodly leaders don't practice what they preach. Okay, there's more. Verse 5. I need to move fast. Verse 5 says. He continues. He says there's more than just ungodly leaders who don't practice what they preach. Ungodly leaders do other things, too. He says they do everything to be seen by others.
[00:37:30] They enlarge their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. And they love the place of honor at banquets, the front seat in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called rabbi by the people. Okay, I wanna do a little bit of Bible teaching so you understand what's happening here. He says that they enlarged their phylacteries. I think I gave you guys a photo.
[00:37:49] Can you pull that up for me?
[00:37:50] Do you have it? Okay, can you guys see this?
[00:37:53] This gentleman in the middle? Me and Ebony, in 2019, we went to Israel, and this is in the city of Jerusalem. And these are.
[00:38:02] These are Jewish men who are studying the Torah. They are, like. They're in the middle of, like, deeply religious and spiritual and set apart time. And I happen to be in this room, and I'm, like, doing the sneaking, like, street photography thing, you know, with my camera capturing stuff.
[00:38:19] And I got a picture of this guy. Do you see what's on his forehead?
[00:38:23] Can anybody see what's on his forehead? Talk to me.
[00:38:27] It's not a GoPro, but I just want to. I'm gonna tell you what it is. Hold on.
[00:38:33] I'm gonna tell you what it is. But can you see? Can you visibly see or is the picture too small?
[00:38:38] Okay, that is a phylactery. Okay? It's a small box that contained tiny scrolls of paper that had passages of scripture written on them. Okay? And what they would do is they would tie these things to their foreheads and they would tie them around their arm.
[00:38:57] And this isn't like just some random thing they would do. This comes from Deuteronomy, chapter 11. Can you throw up that verse? I think it's verse 18.
[00:39:04] This is what it says. It says, so commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine, to God's word.
[00:39:12] Tie them on your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Okay, can you go back to the photo?
[00:39:19] So that box that you see on his head, it had those. Had literally tiny little scrolls with those verses written on it. And they would put it. Literally, wrap it around their foreheads and their arms. This box was an attempt to obey that verse that I just read you. Okay? Now, it says that not only would they enlarge those boxes, those phylacteries. They would lengthen their tassels.
[00:39:41] Our wardrobe is a little different than theirs. They would have an outer garment that on the four corners of that garment would have tassels, okay? And those tassels, they had, like, a really beautiful symbolic meaning.
[00:39:53] And the meaning of those tassels, the purpose of those tassels was that it would be a reminder to whoever is wearing it. It would be a reminder of the commandments of God. In other words, here's 10 Commandments. They're not just to control you. They're literally the recipe for human flourishing, right?
[00:40:09] And an opportunity to honor God and his ways. We talk about the king and his kingdom. What does it look like when God gets his way, his rule, his reign? It's the commandments, right? So they would have these tassels, and they were just to be there is like a reminder of the commandments, okay?
[00:40:23] So what Jesus is pointing out is that these spiritual leaders, these scribes and Pharisees, they would make the box bigger and the tassels longer to be seen by other people. The bigger box causes you to go, whoa, what's that? It's big.
[00:40:39] The longer tassels, everybody can see them, right?
[00:40:43] What were they doing?
[00:40:46] The larger and the longer. It was a way of broadcasting.
[00:40:51] Check out this word.
[00:40:52] Their status.
[00:40:55] It was a way of broadcasting their status. It was a way of saying, like, figuratively, I take God's word more seriously than you do.
[00:41:05] How?
[00:41:06] Cause I got more of it here on my forehead or on my arm, okay? I take the commandments more seriously than you do. Okay? So here's the idea.
[00:41:17] Instead of it being a tool for worship, it became a tool for self promotion.
[00:41:25] The next thing that Jesus points out that ungodly leaders do. Ungodly leaders use tools designed for worship for self promotion.
[00:41:34] They use tools designed for worship for self promotion. Now, you and I, we don't wear phylacteries on our foreheads or our arms, and we don't typically have tassels.
[00:41:44] But I'm here to tell you that you and I do the same things that these dudes did.
[00:41:50] It just looks a little bit different. We use tools that are meant for worship, for the promotion of self, just like they did. Can I give you some examples?
[00:42:01] Okay, the first one is this prayer.
[00:42:04] It's a tool for worshiping God. It's a tool for engaging with the lover of your soul with the most important being in the universe.
[00:42:12] It's a lifestyle. It's not supposed to be Something that we enter into and enter out of and go back and forth. It's supposed to be the John 15 remaining with him, being a friend of God, doing all of life in partnership with our maker. Right? It's a prayer. It's a tool for worship, honestly engaging with God. But how often when you pray out loud does it become a performance?
[00:42:37] Some of you, you're afraid to pray in front of people because you're still buying into the lie that prayer is a performance.
[00:42:45] And what do we do when we perform? We want to present ourselves really well, don't we?
[00:42:50] We want to present ourselves in a way that is appealing or significant or I'm not a moron and I actually have a relationship with God and I'm part of this. I'm not just you with me.
[00:43:04] We use tools that are meant for worship, for the promotion of self, all the time. Can I give you another few? How about this one? Money and all of the air just got sucked out of the room.
[00:43:15] But Jesus talks about money a lot and I think it's important for us too as well because it's just so indicative of the condition of our heart.
[00:43:21] But money, genuinely a tool for worshiping God.
[00:43:26] But how often does it become this tool of how I can acquire my way?
[00:43:32] I want to control my life. Instead of building the kingdom of God, I want to build the kingdom of Tom.
[00:43:38] Like the kingdom of self. Like, what do I want? What do I want to build? What do I want to do? Versus what does God want to build? And what does God want to do? And if I believe that God isn't a loving father who's. If I believe that he's like, he's not going to meet all my needs. He's not going to provide for me, he's not going to care for me. He's not going to. He doesn't have good and wonderful plans for my life to include me in what he's doing. I'm going to operate with a scarcity mentality going, I'm never going to be satisfied or I'm never going to be fulfilled if I don't hoard these resources for my purposes and the things that I want to do.
[00:44:10] So I want you to see a tool that is designed for worshiping God becomes a tool that is something totally different.
[00:44:19] Promotion of self.
[00:44:21] I was reading this study. Barna is this Christian think tank. They do a lot of different studies and different things, surveys and dude, I read one recently that said that only 1 in 5 Christians tithe in America.
[00:44:38] 1 in 5 In other words, 1 in 5 Christians don't worship God with their wallet.
[00:44:46] I want you to see.
[00:44:49] We can throw stones and shade at these scribes and Pharisees, these ungodly leaders, because they used tools that were meant for worship, for the promotion of self.
[00:44:56] And you're not alone. I do it with money, too. We do it with all sorts of things. How about this one? Talent.
[00:45:03] I look around the room.
[00:45:06] So many talented people in this room. You guys are a really unbelievably unique church. The talent represented in this room, the gifting represented in this room, is genuinely per capita, off the charts.
[00:45:19] You guys are so wonderful. And many of you, you steward your gifts and your talents really, really well. It's beautiful.
[00:45:25] But again, your talents, your giftings, your strengths, they're tools designed for worshiping God, okay?
[00:45:35] But sometimes those talents can become a means for us to be significant in the eyes of other people.
[00:45:45] I mean, think about the things that you're gifted at.
[00:45:50] We can use our talents to glorify God, or we can use our talents to glorify self. Like, I'm pretty good at this. I want you to notice this about me.
[00:45:57] I'm pretty good at music. You know, I can sing good. I can play an instrument good, or I can, like. Yep. I want you to know this about me. I spent many years of my life doing that.
[00:46:07] So many creative people in the room just need people to know. Just not too much, because I don't want to be, you know, obviously prideful, but I need you to know, like, I'm pretty gifted in this creative area.
[00:46:18] And you should probably be aware of this because it's a pretty impressive thing, but I'm gonna leave it there. But you just need to know enough. So, like, I'm not a loser, you know?
[00:46:27] Creatives. How about athletes?
[00:46:29] Many gifted athletes. Most in the past. But either way, sorry, gentlemen and women, business, spiritual gifts. Like, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. Okay, we can use these things to glorify God and go, like, look how unbelievably masterful he is at his creation and how he distributes gifts and how they can be used to inspire and bless others and give us a sense of purpose, that we're saying yes to the things that he wants to accomplish on the Earth. Like, all of that's beautiful and good. Or we can use it as, like, a showcase of our own significance.
[00:47:04] I just want you to see we use tools that are meant for worship, for the promotion of self, too.
[00:47:09] And the list goes on and on and on. We can talk about our bodies. We could talk about social media.
[00:47:14] Like, I don't know if you know this. Every post on social media is an act of worship.
[00:47:20] It is.
[00:47:21] The question is who or what is being worshiped? Okay, So I want you to see that we're more like these scribes and Pharisees than I think we believe about ourselves.
[00:47:31] We do the same things that they do. We use tools that are meant for worship, for the promotion of self.
[00:47:39] Ungodly leaders use tools designed for worship, for self promotion. Jesus doesn't stop there. Verse 6.
[00:47:47] They love the place of honor at banquets, the front seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called rabbi by people. Okay, the final thing I want to. I'm running out of time, but the final thing I want to draw your attention to about how Jesus these examples of ungodly leadership. He says ungodly leaderships focus on appearance, recognition and title.
[00:48:12] Appearance, recognition and title. Now, I want to do a really quick note on this concept of title because I don't know if you caught it, but in verses 8 through 10, if you just like look at that, on the surface, it seems as though Jesus is saying that titles are wrong.
[00:48:28] Let me just read. DA Carson says this quote.
[00:48:31] The point is not that Christians can never use honorific titles so titles that honor someone, but that they must not expect or demand them, much less revel in them.
[00:48:44] There's a difference.
[00:48:48] And oftentimes you can't really observe what's happening from the outside. It's what's going on in the human heart.
[00:49:00] Where does your significance come from, friend?
[00:49:04] Does your significance come from how you appear to other people?
[00:49:11] Does your significance waver based on whether or not you're recognized for things?
[00:49:19] Does your significance come from the title you either do or don't have?
[00:49:26] If so, there's a breakdown in the gospel taking root in your heart and the love of God actually being something that you're trusting in the love of God for you.
[00:49:38] Because one of the things that the gospel, the good news of Jesus makes very clear is that our significance does not come from what we do or don't do.
[00:49:49] It comes because of what Jesus has done in our place. It comes that he thought us as significant enough that he would willingly come to earth, put on flesh in the person of Jesus, live the perfect life that you and I never could die the death that we deserve.
[00:50:05] Why? Because you were significant to him. There's nothing that you could do. There's no appearance that you could present. There's no way, there's no, there's no like way that you can present yourself to appear a certain way in front of other people.
[00:50:18] There's no amount of recognition, there's no amount of, there's no title on the planet that would transcend that kind of significance. That God himself would say, I went through all of this for you. Like, you can't hold a candle to that.
[00:50:34] And Jesus here, he's saying, ungodly leaders, they focus on appearance, recognition and title. Now here's the thing.
[00:50:41] When a person is focused on appearance and recognition and title, guess what they're not focused on.
[00:50:51] They're not focused on the lover of their soul.
[00:50:55] They're not focused on the source of power that they need to be able to live the life that God's called them to live.
[00:51:02] They're not focused on him.
[00:51:06] And so they're trying to appear really good. And they're trying to get the recognition that their heart craves. And they're trying to, they think it can happen through this title. And all the while Jesus is going, the only way that's gonna happen is through me. Because you might get a title, but then what happens when that title goes away? Does your significance go away?
[00:51:24] What happens when the people that you appear really good to in one season of life now, they don't like you anymore?
[00:51:30] What happens then?
[00:51:33] What happens when you don't get the recognition that you feel you deserve?
[00:51:37] Your significance ebbs and flows as a result.
[00:51:41] And so we can throw stones at these ungodly religious leaders, or we can see the reflection of ourselves in the word of God going, I do the same exact things that they do. It just looks a little different. I don't have a GoPro looking box on my forehead, but man, oh man.
[00:52:00] Here's what Jesus is ultimately saying here, friends, is this. Ungodly leaders exalt themselves.
[00:52:07] That's what he's getting at. Ungodly leaders exalt themselves.
[00:52:14] So I want you to see this. This doesn't just apply to leadership in the church.
[00:52:19] It doesn't just apply to pastors and elders and staff members.
[00:52:23] It applies to leadership everywhere.
[00:52:28] It applies to 12 year old leaders and 80 year old leaders and business leaders and parents, educators.
[00:52:38] It applies to all of us.
[00:52:44] It's funny because Jesus spends 10 verses addressing ungodly leadership, because leadership's important to Jesus. He takes it seriously. And, and then in verse 11, look at what he says.
[00:52:55] He goes, the greatest among you will be your servant.
[00:53:02] Allow me to summarize what Jesus is teaching here about leadership. It's this. Godly leaders focus on serving. Ungodly leaders focus on self.
[00:53:12] Simple godly leaders, they focus on serving God and serving other people.
[00:53:18] Ungodly leaders are just turn inward, they're focused on self.
[00:53:23] And so the question that I feel led to ask you this morning in light of God's word is a question I've been asking myself all week. And it's this. Do you approach leadership in a godly way?
[00:53:34] Or on the flip side, do you approach leadership in an ungodly way? And again, don't buy into the lie. I'm not a leader. Yeah, you are.
[00:53:44] Whether you admitted it to yourself or not, whether you can see it or not, you are taking responsibility in certain areas of life and you are influencing other people in certain areas of life. Is your approach to leadership a godly approach or an ungodly approach?
[00:53:58] And would the people that you lead agree with you?
[00:54:03] That might be a really helpful conversation to have.
[00:54:06] Hey, how do you experience me?
[00:54:09] How do you. And maybe the leadership sounds too intense, like duh, okay, use the word influence instead.
[00:54:15] How do you experience my influence on your life?
[00:54:22] Alright, I'm going to wrap up. Jesus finishes this passage with the famous line, you've heard it before, verse 12.
[00:54:29] Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
[00:54:39] That word humility. Talking about being humble, I think it's one of the most misunderstood concepts there is.
[00:54:50] I mean, you'll watch like a sporting event and the MVP of the game will get interviewed after you just broke the record for whatever, right? You just did this unbelievable athletic feat. The whole world saw.
[00:55:02] What's going through your mind? Oh, I'm just so humbled right now.
[00:55:06] What does that mean?
[00:55:08] Or someone wins an award, Same thing. Wow, this is this huge accomplishment.
[00:55:15] I'm just so humbled right now.
[00:55:18] I think we as people, especially modern Western people, I think we don't have the.
[00:55:23] I don't think we have the most accurate understanding, especially of biblical humility, but I don't think we get it.
[00:55:29] Tim Keller is a pastor in New York City.
[00:55:33] Genuinely his ministry has had a huge influence on me, but he's been so helpful for me in understanding the concept of biblical humility and the way he describes it. And this is gold. Take this with you. The way he describes it, he says essentially that biblical humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.
[00:55:55] And I think that when the athlete is up there giving the interview, I'M just.
[00:56:01] I'm so humbled. Like somebody like me could do something like that. That's not what biblical humility is.
[00:56:06] It's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.
[00:56:11] It's when your focus is on God and other people more than it is on yourself.
[00:56:17] And think of how freeing that is.
[00:56:20] You're not held captive by the desires of your flesh. You're not like in bondage and slavery to feeding the appetites of your desire, some of which are not good for you or other people.
[00:56:33] Jesus says, listen, when people actually put on humility, when they don't think less of their self, but they think of their self less, when they're focused on God and other people more than themselves. Jesus says, when people do that, they lead and influence others. Hear me. In godly and good ways.
[00:56:52] And Jesus didn't just teach that, did he?
[00:56:55] He modeled it.
[00:56:58] He showed it. The Scriptures say he humbled himself.
[00:57:03] Not a how could somebody like me do something so great? No, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:57:09] Let me just read it to you. Philippians, chapter two, verses five through nine. I'm almost done.
[00:57:14] This is the Apostle Paul writing. He's going to describe how Jesus humbled himself. He said, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be exploited.
[00:57:31] Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity, the humility that Almighty God would take on the limitations and struggles of a human.
[00:57:48] Instead, he emptied himself, assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.
[00:57:53] And when he had come as a man, look at. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. For this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.
[00:58:09] So those who exalt themselves will be humbled. But those who humble themselves, those who focus on God and other people, the Bible said we'll be exalted.
[00:58:17] God will do unbelievable things. They'll be recognized for spectacular things.
[00:58:23] Not that gives them glory per se, but that glorifies God and his infinite wisdom and his power on display through the lives of people like you and like me. And I need you to see Jesus. He demonstrates humility. He humbled himself. His focus was on his heavenly Father and on other people. You and me. It's the good news of the gospel.
[00:58:47] The God that you serve and love, or the God that you're getting to know. He's the kind of God, who humbles Himself, who takes the focus off of himself and places the focus on his heavenly Father and on you and your condition and on what you face.
[00:59:04] That's why I say Jesus, he's the greatest leader of all time, man.
[00:59:09] And so here's what I want you to see.
[00:59:11] I want you to see that true leadership is not about role or title. It's about serving other people.
[00:59:18] So whatever areas of leadership that you're walking in currently, you can lead humbly and in a godly manner, or you can lead a different way that will be confusing for people and frustrating for people and harmful for your soul.
[00:59:37] And you won't actually be able to experience the things that your soul craves.
[00:59:47] True leadership is not about role or title. It's about serving others. And Jesus is saying in this passage that you can have a role and a title and yet be a really poor leader.
[01:00:02] Alright, I'm going to close with this. I'm going to call the band up.
[01:00:17] We started out by talking about how Jesus references that these scribes and Pharisees were seated in the chair of Moses, right? They had this responsibility.
[01:00:27] They had this God given responsibility to interpret the Bible to people.
[01:00:35] And here's how I want to land the plane this morning.
[01:00:39] If you're a Christian in the room, you're a disciple of Jesus, you need to know something.
[01:00:45] God has entrusted you with an even greater responsibility than just the being seated in the chair of Moses.
[01:00:54] Like there's a tremendous, honorable, exciting, wonderful, adventurous responsibility that God himself has entrusted you with.
[01:01:07] 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 17 through 20 says this. Really listen in, lean in right now.
[01:01:18] Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, not in church, in Christ, he's a new creation.
[01:01:28] The old has passed away. And see, the new has come.
[01:01:31] Does things differently now, leads differently now, serves differently now.
[01:01:40] Verse 18, everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. He's hinting at something here, verse 19.
[01:01:54] That is in Christ. There's that phrase again.
[01:01:58] God was reconciling the world to himself.
[01:02:02] Not please hear.
[01:02:04] Many of you need to hear this this morning, not counting their trespasses against them.
[01:02:11] Some of you need to be free this morning. Like that. God doesn't hold your trespasses against you.
[01:02:17] They've been paid for by the blood of Jesus. You are free. You can be a new person, a new creation. No condemnation, no shame.
[01:02:25] God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has committed this message of reconciliation to who?
[01:02:33] That's Christians.
[01:02:35] Verse 20. Here it is. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
[01:02:43] Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf to the world. Be reconciled to God.
[01:02:52] Don't be separated. Don't be distant. Don't be cut off. Be reconciled to God. Okay, so listen to me. Here's my point. If you're in Christ, you're way more than just like, seated at the seat or seated in the chair of Moses. If you're in Christ, you are his ambassador.
[01:03:12] The amount of dignity in God's calling on your life as a Christian, you are his ambassador. That means you're his representative.
[01:03:20] Think of. I can't think of a higher responsibility on the planet than representing God to the people around you. This is something he's been doing forever. This has been something he's been doing from the beginning. He chose Adam and Eve, right? Made in the image of God to reflect to all of creation what God is like. And then through Abraham and Abraham's lineage, you guys are my chosen people that I'm going to bless the whole world through. I want the world to know what I'm like through my ambassadors, through you guys. And then you see it happen. Sin jacks everything up and gets worse. And then the Spirit of God comes after Jesus, ascension, right? And it gets poured out on the people of God, the church. And then there now, like Paul saying, we're his ambassadors, we're his representatives.
[01:04:03] There's leadership on your life, friend.
[01:04:07] And it's not leadership that comes from, like, being deputized by some guy or some girl who's got a cool job or an impressive resume. It's from the most important one in the world going, I got some stuff for you. I got. There's leadership on your life. And it's the most important one form of leadership that could ever be. It's being my representative to the people all around you all over the Earth. Do you live with that kind of significance?
[01:04:38] Because you can and God desires you to. It's part of your purpose. It's what he's called you to. He's called you to influence others in godly ways.
[01:04:48] And listen to me. It's a call to leadership, and it's not optional.
[01:04:57] Opting out of the call is to opt out of the kingdom of God.
[01:05:08] My heart for us this morning and my heart for myself, I don't want me or anybody else in this room to opt out of the kingdom of God.
[01:05:18] And what that looks like oftentimes is Saying yes to the responsibility and the influence that he wants to leverage through us in the simple, everyday areas of life with the people around us.
[01:05:35] Remember, everyone's a leader and everyone's being led.
[01:05:41] So how do we respond to this?
[01:05:46] Maybe you're here and maybe you're here and there really are, let's just say, poor influences in your life.
[01:06:01] Maybe there's poor influences in your life. Maybe you're in a season where you know you're receiving kind of ungodly influence from various sources.
[01:06:13] Maybe it's like, it's genuinely misleading you and you're starting to believe things about yourself that God wouldn't have you to believe.
[01:06:20] Like your values and your value and your significance and your worth is, I don't know, attached to how you look or your bank account or fill in the blank. Maybe you're here and there's poor influences on your life. I want to encourage you, like, you get to look to a godly influence, the Messiah, the lover of your soul who desires to lead you.
[01:06:43] Or maybe you're here and you're influencing others in ungodly ways.
[01:06:47] You're like, I'm doing things. I'm not really representing Jesus as well as I could be or should be.
[01:06:54] Misrepresenting God to people like the. Like the.
[01:06:58] The interpreter for the Dodgers, you know, like, I'm actually not really representing what God would have me to do in the most accurate way.
[01:07:07] Can I just. If that's you, can I just remind you the grace of God's available to you, like Jesus paying the debt of your sin willingly so that you could experience the freedom of going, I don't have to live that way anymore.
[01:07:23] I'm forgiven. I'm free. You can be forgiven this morning for influencing others in ungodly ways.
[01:07:30] Maybe you just need to hit the reset button, man.
[01:07:33] Start fresh. You can do that.
[01:07:35] The lordship of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, empowers you to be able to do that. And maybe you're here, and this is one that I felt like came in really hot this morning as I was praying that I feel like God wants to highlight is this.
[01:07:47] Maybe you're here and you've been hurt by ungodly leadership.
[01:07:57] Like, you've been led in ways that caused you harm, and those wounds are still there.
[01:08:06] And it's way more convenient to look the other way or to downplay it or to dismiss it or to just keep on trucking.
[01:08:20] But I think there's an invitation, friends, this morning from the father says, hey, why don't you let Me lead you for a little bit.
[01:08:32] Stand with me if you're able.
[01:08:35] I want to pray for us.
[01:08:45] Sa.
[01:09:12] We're in a full circle. I walked up here, I brought up some of you seeking answers. And I feel like even in this moment, I feel like the Lord's highlighting his desire to provide you with life giving fruitful answers that you're seeking and that the answer that you're seeking is the leadership of Jesus in your life.
[01:09:47] Holy Spirit, I just invite you to speak right now, all over the room.
[01:09:53] You know the language of our heart, Father. When I consider the scribes and the Pharisees and how Jesus, you said that they were ungodly leaders, like you pointed it out, but that the reason for that was because they ultimately, they rejected your leadership in their life.
[01:10:28] And I want to pray that none of us would get in the habit of doing that, that whenever we recognize that we're not yielding to your influence on our lives and your leadership on our lives, that we'd hit the reset button and we'd repent. We'd turn away from that lifestyle and embrace your leadership and lordship in our lives.
[01:10:50] And I want to pray for every single person, my brothers and my sisters in this room.
[01:10:56] I pray, I pray that they would live the life that you mean for them to live.
[01:11:04] And I just confess, Lord, that none of us can do that unless Jesus, unless you're the leader of our life.
[01:11:11] And so I want to give you permission right now, Father, that you would lead in every single area of my life. And I ask you to do the same thing for my brothers and my sisters.
[01:11:20] That you don't lead from a place of condemnation or disappointment or frustration or confusion.
[01:11:26] You lead from a place of delight in your sons and your daughters. Not because of our performance, not because of what we do or we don't do, but because of your affection and your love poured out on us, because of the perfect record of Jesus credited to our account, that when you look at us, you don't see the mistakes, you see the forgiven. You see us washed away clean by the blood of Jesus.
[01:11:49] You see us justified.
[01:11:53] I pray, Father, that we would not be men and women and young people who seek significance that is temporary or fleeting or counterfeit. I pray that we'd be men and women who, as we embrace your leadership in our lives, we would receive the kind of significance that can only come through our Maker.
[01:12:14] And so I just pray blessing over this room.
[01:12:18] Lead us, we pray, it's our desire.
[01:12:21] In your name, I pray, Jesus. Amen.
[01:12:25] Okay, so we have a few moments for the gathering. I'm going to invite the prayer team to come forward.
[01:12:30] Make yourself available. There's men and women who would love to pray for you for any reason.
[01:12:35] It could be the things that I talked about. It could be something completely different. But I believe that God wants to minister to some folks this morning. We're going to fill this room with praise. There's prayer available, and then we'll close here in just a minute, okay? I love you guys very much. Enjoy him.
