The King & His Kingdom: #85 - Face The Dark Side | Matthew 18:1-9

[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. [00:00:35] Speaker A: If I've been the chance to meet you, I would love to. My name is Herrick. I'm one of the elders here of Restored Temecula and I want to welcome you to our Sunday morning gathering. And if you are new, we have been going through Matthew. I think we started in 2021. So somewhere like halfway through the pandemic, roughly, we began and we're still here. And you know what? I'm not mad about it. The Gospel of Matthew is so rich, it is powerful, it is potent. There's layers to layers upon layers to peel back, to unwind. And today's passage that I'm going to go through is no different. In fact, I can tell you right now that there's going to be stuff in this passage that's going to leave you like, huh? I'm not going to explain now. I can do that. However, if you have questions, you want to talk more, I'm easy to find. Feel free to bring them. I'm not dismissing your questions. I just don't have time to cover it all. That's what seminary is for. If you're interested, you can sign up for seminary. And they cover this at great length. And conceptually my job is I'm a pastor and I'm trying to help us follow Jesus here practically. And so there's going to be questions that I don't answer. But I don't want you to be discouraged because I think there's stuff that is very clear that is very important for you to know in this passage. So with that said, would you join me in praying? Would you pray for me? Would you pray with me that we wouldn't miss out on anything that God has for us this morning. Father, thank you. Thank you for your word. Your word is just so beautiful, so rich. I thank you for the Gospel of Matthew. Think about Matthew from the chosen and just the fiction. But there was a real person that took time to really parse out your sayings, to really think about your life and reflect on it and compile it as a discipleship manual. In a sense, for us now, 2,000 years later, to benefit from that is an act of grace. And so I thank you for this rich text that we're gonna dive into this morning, which Would you speak to us from your text, from your word, from your scripture? Would you apply your word to us? Would you help this word come alive by the power of your holy spirit? And would you make Jesus more clear to us? Sometimes our vision gets cloudy, it gets foggy, it gets hard to see. The condition of our hearts impacts the condition of our sight. And I pray that this morning that you would tenderize and soften our hearts so that we could see clearly. Thank you. We love you, Jim. We pray. Amen. Cool. Start my timer. Okay, so this morning I want to tell you guys a little bit about a science experiment gone wrong. Yeah, I heard some ooing and ahhing. It's good. You guys are ready for it. So this was 1985, 40 years ago. I see some smirks in the room. Some of you know, and there was this wild eyed scientist and this 17 year old kid. It's not weird at all. They were buddies. And there was this science experiment that went terribly, terribly wrong. So initially the scientists wanted to turn a refrigerator into a time machine and then decided why not do this with some style and instead grabbed a DeLorean and turned it into a time machine. And so for those of you that don't know, I'm referring to the plot of the movie Back to the Future. And some of you are like, again, yes, again, every piece of literature, it's like the scriptures. The scriptures are meditation literature that you're meant to read it again and again and you draw new things out of it. So it was Back to the Future. And so I want to tell you guys a little bit about what happened in that story. Doc Brown invents a time machine and he puts his dog in it, which is fascinating. So if something goes wrong, it's only his dog. Just sort of like, I don't know how that would fly these days, but in 1985 it made sense. The 80s were a fascinating time. And so he sends his dog back in time. It's a big success. However, when it's Doc's turn to get into the DeLorean and go back in time, everything goes sideways. And so there was these guys that he apparently stole plutonium from, which is another whole nother interesting side conversation we don't have time for. But they caught up to him because you just can't buy plutonium anywhere. You have to steal it from terrorists. And so this is the 80s, guys, and this is considered a children's movie. We won't even get into that. But ultimately, Doc ends up getting these guys that he stole something from catch up to him, and they actually tragically shoot him and they kill him. So, again, this is an 80s movie, kids movie, PG. But he gets gunned down. It's pretty intense, actually. And so what ends up happening is the time machine's not destroyed, and his friend, Marty McFly, trying to get away from these terrorists. He ends up going back in time 30 years to 1950, which means he puts him squarely in the path of who? His parents. Oops. That's a whole other story that we're not going to touch on today. However, here's the cool part about having a time machine. You can go back and warn a guy, right? Like you can warn a brother about what's going to happen to him in the future. And so Marty intends to do just that. He intends to tell Doc. Hey, he needs Doc's help to get back to the future. But while he's in the past, he's like, I need to tell you something about the future. You guys remember this? I actually talked about this last time I was up. Novelty is not a value in the kingdom, okay? And so he has this very important message that he has to tell Doc about. And so I'm going to play you guys a video clip of how this actually plays out. And they need to. What's going on here in the movie is they're trying to get Marty back to the future, but as they're getting him ready to go back to the future, he loves his friend, and he wants to make sure that he knows that in the future, things are going to go really south for him, and he needs to get ready. So let's play the clip. [00:07:02] Speaker C: Hill Valley area weather this Saturday night. [00:07:05] Speaker D: Mostly clear, with some scattered clouds. [00:07:08] Speaker C: Lows tonight in the upper 40s. Are you sure about this storm? [00:07:13] Speaker A: This is where. [00:07:13] Speaker D: Can weather men predict the weather, let alone the future? [00:07:17] Speaker C: You know, Marty, I'm gonna be very sad to see you go. You've really made a difference in my life. You've given me something to shoot for. Just knowing that I'm gonna be around to see 1985, that I'm gonna succeed in this, that I'm gonna have a chance to travel through time. It's gonna be really hard waiting 30 years before I can talk to you about everything that's happened in the past few days. I'm really gonna miss you, Marty. [00:07:48] Speaker D: I'm really gonna miss you. Doc, about the future. [00:07:57] Speaker C: No, Marty. We've already agreed that having information about the future can be extremely dangerous. Even if your intentions are good, it can backfire drastically. Whatever you've got to tell me, I'll find out through the natural course of time. [00:08:13] Speaker D: Dear Dr. Brown, on the night that I go back in time, you will be shot by terrorists. Please take whatever precautions are necessary to prevent this terrible disaster. Your friend. [00:08:34] Speaker A: Marty. What? A movie, right? If you haven't watched it yet, it will help you be a part of this church. This will just help you keep up on Sundays, at least when I'm preaching. So what's Marty doing in this moment? What's he doing? There's just. There's too many details to get into. But Doc's afraid of getting this information because it could cause a paradox that could destroy the space time continuum. Don't worry about that. The point is he has resistance to getting this information. Okay, but why is Marty trying to get to his friend? Because he wants to make sure that Doc has a chance to address what would otherwise destroy him. Today we're gonna be going through a text where you have a friend. Like a genuine friend. His name is Jesus. And he's coming alongside every one of us to tell us, hey, I wanna make sure that you address some things in your life that would otherwise destroy you. Okay, so this is what's happening. This is a letter. I couldn't find an envelope, so I taped it. It's a piece of paper. Taped. But today, like Jesus has genuinely been like you. I have something that I want you to open today. You don't have to wait until the end. Those that wait to the end to open this, you find out at the judgment how serious this is. You don't have to do that. Today you get to open the letter and address what would otherwise destroy you. So grab your Bibles. There are things that would destroy us if we don't pay attention to them. Not my idea. This is Jesus idea. Go over to Matthew chapter 18. We'll start with verse one. Matthew, chapter 18, verse one. I'm going to read out of the CSB. If you don't have your Bible with you, don't worry about it. We'll have it up on the screen. You can follow along there. So this is Jesus speaking with his disciples. Matthew, chapter 18, verse 1. This is what it says. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, so who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. He calls a small child and had him stand among them. Verse 3 Truly I tell you, he said, this is Jesus. Unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself like this child, this is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one child like this in my name welcomes me. Verse 6 But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away, it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses, for offenses will inevitably come, but woe to that person by whom the offenses come. If your hand or your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell. Fire Scene this is what happens when Tom is out of town. He assigns this to me. Love you, Tom. I'm actually really glad I got this passage that wasn't passive aggressive, by the way, like it was just a joke. Cause he's gonna be listening later. This is a really I'm privileged to preach this text. There's years past where I would have been, like anxious and nervous about preaching this because, like, who wants to get up and talk about amputations and hellfire and dark sayings that don't make sense to us upon first, second, or tenth reading, and then have to try to do that in a short amount of time on a Sunday morning? It's, you know, like it. But at the same time, there's something profound here that I wish I had learned this 30 years ago. I wish I was a child, like a literal child learning this. But I'm 40. It's not too late for me, and it's not too late for anybody that's in here to learn some of these things. It's not too late to become a child again in the kingdom now. What is happening in this text? So much, and I'm not gonna cover a quarter of it. Okay, I'm really gonna limit my focus here, so I'm gonna just talk on historical, social, and spiritual dimensions of what's happening in this text. Okay, I'm gonna take my gum out. I'm Gonna move quickly or try to. I don't want to spit my gum at you in the front row, okay? So, man, there's so much going on here that's not immediately clear. But I want to give you guys a few things to really understand. In the ancient world, not unlike ours, status was a big deal, okay? Status was a really big deal. And the status that you derived from your belonging to a social group was equivalent maybe to, in our day, the status that you derive from your achievements, from your accomplishments, from the three letters after your name, from your degree, from whatever, from the trophies that you pick up as you're an athlete or as you're a student or if you're working in the working world, Status was important. And so they were really interested in their status. And the disciples really were no different because they shared the same kind of thinking and mindset of the ancient world. And I hope you see, like, I'll get into my own story a little bit later. But you and I, we are a product of our environment, and we share assumptions with our broader culture about meaning and worth and purpose in their world. They derived it from the group that they belong to, and so they got honor from that group. The fact that these disciples were attached to a rabbi like Jesus was a great source of honor for them. That was, you know, it allowed them to walk around with a sense of, like, we belong to him. This is our rabbi. And Jesus was going around doing many fantastic and spectacular things. And so they're thinking, like, who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? They're thinking about status and rank. They're already assuming things with their culture around them. So what does Jesus do when they ask this question, which, by the way, one commentator just said something that was spectacular. And you're here. You've probably heard this preached. If you've been a part of the church for a while, you've heard this preached before. Most likely. Have you ever heard anybody say the answer to the question, the most natural one, before Jesus answers it? Who's the greatest in the kingdom? Jesus. Thank you. Jesus is the greatest in the kingdom. Like, he's the king and it's his kingdom. And naturally, anybody that enters the kingdom is seeking to be like, who? Yeah, like, he's it. He's the greatest in the kingdom. But notice how he answers the question. He grabs the child. Again, I'm touching on historical and social realities of this text. That is not what they would have expected. We live in Temecula, especially not just here, but especially here. I think we do place a great emphasis and priority on our children, right. Sometimes our kids schedule dictates our schedule and we work around the schedule that they have. Right. We have this kind of almost child centric way of thinking about things just by default. Living in the suburbs. And by the way, I'm not criticizing, I'm explaining. This is reality. Would you guys agree with this? Especially when you have little ones in the house or your kids are growing up. I think that would have been strange to them who were in Jesus presence. It's not a knock on us necessarily. It's just a reflection of the fact that they live in a very different place, very different time. And so when Jesus grabs a child, he's grabbing the most insignificant person in the room and saying, this is who you need to become. Like, from the perspective of society, this is radical stuff. This is radical stuff. What's the context? They're talking about status. And what does he do? They come like this little human. What characterizes and marks little humans? Children. Sometimes commentators will feel like, I guess this is. Guys that don't have kids will be like, they're innocents, right? And they're okay. I love kids. I was once one myself. I have three of them. I stole my first car at five years old. I did. I boosted my neighbor's Batmobile when I was five. I remember it clear as day. I saw it, I wanted it, I planned it, I waited for my moment. I took it, I put it in my pocket. Gone from his perspective, secure in mine. Five years old. Nobody taught me to do that. My parents were like, hey, let me teach you about carjacking. And we'll start like real small, you know, with something that you can manage so that you can then work up to, you know, more profitable pursuits later in life. No, but that wasn't a conversation that we had. Sin was in here and it worked its way out. And I didn't even have to do that. I could have just been like Papi Batmobile, you know, like that would have been enough. That's dad in Puerto Rico. He would have happily bought me one, but I took it. And by the way, I don't think I'm some weird off case. Sin is in here just as much in the heart of a child as a grownup. The difference in some ways is that as grownups, we've had decades of practice of how to hide this stuff. And we've gotten more sophisticated. We've learned the beauties of passive aggression and obfuscating. And beauty is it's really I'm being facetious here that it's not beautiful at all. But we've learned things. We've learned how to hide what's true. But children are no more innocent than anyone else. So what is Jesus talking about? He's talking about their identity as the most insignificant person in the room. So check this out. I'm gonna read this real quick. Jesus is saying to his disciples. Now we're talking about the historical and social components of this text. Jesus is saying to his disciples, his representatives, that they are to rece and so serve a child such as the one present for his sake. In serving the child, they are in fact, serving who. Jesus. He identifies with the child. It's quite a beautiful thing, actually, when you think about it. Jesus identified with children with those that were deemed insignificant. But it wasn't just children. In fact, in the original language, you could use the same word that's translated as children, very closely related to the word for slave. So Jesus, when Jesus does this, what he's doing, he's reversing things. He's flipping things upside down from the perspective of the world. In reality, he's turning them right side up from the perspective of the kingdom. And what he's doing is that he's saying, hey. This ancient protocol that we have where slaves and children who are subordinate members of the household were to serve the male head of the household. That's the way things normally were done at that time. Jesus is identifying with the most helpless and vulnerable member so that they may be helped. And he's also trying to get his disciples to humble themselves, to rid themselves of the usual hubris, pride and power struggles for dominant position. And instead to do what? Instead of focusing on status, to focus on service, which was a humiliating task in the minds of some ancients, to serve a child. And that's from Ben Witherington and a few other scholars. Since children are objects, and this is another quote of our undying devotion in our culture, I wonder whom Jesus would have put in front of us today to help us see what it means to humble ourselves. It would have been somebody completely vulnerable to a hostile world. So use your imagination right now. Who's completely vulnerable in our world? Someone dismissed as insignificant, perhaps even despised and unwanted. Who is that? Picture that in your mind. Someone completely dependent upon others. And here's the hardest part. Someone none of us would want to become. That's Rodney Reeves from his Story of God Bible Commentary. That is who Jesus is calling us to become. Do you guys feel this? This is radical stuff. We don't quite get it because of the way that we think about children today, but it would have made instant sense to them as ancients in Jesus time. This is radical stuff and I've been thinking about this this week and the word that stood out to me the most was the word insignificant. Read a bunch of different takes on this passage and that's the one that I kept coming back to over and over and over again. Who here wants to be insignificant? Genuinely, not a single one of us raised our hand. Thank you for your honesty, I guess I raised mine. But this is just as an example of what you do. If the answer is yes to this question, I would put mine down. Who here wants to be insignificant? Is this settling? Jesus is calling us to become nobodies. And not in a way that plays into our self pity, but to be confident nobodies who are even willing to serve a child. Does this bother anyone else? I read this and I was offended when I really started to get this. Offended because I long for, if nothing else, significance in this world. Man, I hope this is sinking in for somebody else besides me today. If Jesus was to say, you gotta become homeless in order to follow me, you feeling me now? He told a rich man, sell everything you have. He's meeting us right where we're at and he's flipping the store, he's flipping the script right on us. This is radical stuff, by the way. I'm not saying that today you need to go and sell your everything. These were custom fit, follow me, come and die moments for these people. But I think Jesus is inviting us to die to our need to be significant today. Some of us, if we're honest with ourselves, have built our whole life on this. We've built businesses, we've been to school, we have built our families, we've operated in the world with the assumption that I must seize significance through whatever means necessary. If I have to overwork, I'll do it. If I have to sacrifice my family, I'll do it. And Jesus is saying, release, release. And there is more on the line than you know. If you guys wouldn't mind throwing up the picture of King Edward viii. It's the guy who's in front of the mic from 1936. There it is. Does anybody know who this guy is? Right, because I just told you. Good, good, good, you're here. It's great. Sam, say it again. He abdicated. He abdicated. For those of you that didn't hear, over on this side of the room, he abdicated. That's what he's known for. Does anybody know what it means to abdicate? Let's go one at a time. Raise your hand and I'll call on you, Tim. To give up. To give up. Very good. Anybody want to add anything to that? To give up. That's good. Okay. To deny responsibility. To deny responsibility. Yes. Okay, so this guy right here is King Edward VIII. And this is the year 1936. And this is one of the most staggering moments in the 20th century. And so I'm just going to read some things to kind of catch you up to speed on this. If you haven't watched the Crown recently, or if you're not a big history buff or whatever, this guy, right, He's a real person. This is a real picture. What do you notice about his face? What do you see on his face? Sour. Solemn. Yes, he's solemn. What else? He's looking down. Yeah, he's solemn. He's looking down. What else, Antonio? He's conflicted. Yeah, good. That's exactly what's happening here in 1936. I'm going to read this. King Edward VIII faced a decision that no British monarch had ever faced as king. He was not only ruler of England. Did you guys know that the King is also the head of the Church of England? It's a real true fact. If you're the King of England, you are the head of the Church. But Edward fell in love with a woman named Wallis Simpson, an American. Hey, in this story, Wallis Simpson, an American who had been divorced twice and the Church of England would not allow him to marry her and remain King. Things have obviously changed quite a lot since this time. You can see that now. But in this time, that was something that they did not allow. And it was clear that he didn't have the support of the Church of England, but he also didn't have the support of Parliament or the Palace. This guy was on his own, as it were. In fact, the Prime Minister of England just told him straight up, you could have the Crown, you could have your independence. You cannot have both. And so Edward tried to find a middle way. He did. He tried to find a third way through this. He wanted to keep the throne and the relationship. And he came up with kind of an idea where, hey, like, I can marry this woman, but you won't be called Queen, and my children, any heirs that I have, will not be heirs to the Crown. That was his idea for how he could keep both. Mm. Mm. That didn't work. So this conflicted, anguished man one day Stepped up to the microphone, which back in the day, everybody had radio, these things called radios in their house. And you could tune in to the right frequency, and then you would hear what people were saying. That's how a radio worked. It's sort of like a podcast, but it's not. But it's the same idea. And so people had radios in their house, and they tuned in, and it was the kind of thing where everybody listened, which is kind of crazy to think about. Now. Everybody's got their own thing now with the iPhone. Back then, it was like, we're all. I think there was, like, three channels. You know, either way, everyone's hearing this, everyone's listening. And this guy was well loved by the British people. People, by and large, supported him. He stepped up to the mic there, and he signed a short. He signed a short letter that he had delivered, and he began his abdication speech with, I have decided to renounce the throne. Or he wrote that in his letter. He gave up his kingdom to have his freedom. He moved to France, where he spent the rest of his life really trying to feel the ache of having everything that he wanted, but losing everything he was made for. And you might be thinking, man, Eric's been really hard on this guy. Haven't you ever been in love? Yes. Yes, I have. Still am, huh? Yeah, I actually. My heart's broken for. This guy died decades ago. And I feel like after reading his story, like, I have nothing but just sympathy for him. I feel so, so bad for the man. And his story is really my story. When Jesus called me to follow him, I wanted to be king. If you like, there's some legitimacy to that. Let me explain. When God makes mankind, what he does is he makes them in his image. Yes. Now, what does that mean? That was actually a term that was really well known in those ancient days, and it was actually a term that was used for a representative of a king. It could be like a statue, even what we might call today an idol. It's the same word. It's the same idea. Israel was not supposed to make any images of God because who were they? The image of God. And so this is royal language in the ancient world, actually, the only people that were made in the image of God were the kings who sat on earthly thrones. And so how did I wind up on this side of the kings who were on earthly thrones? And so what. So what does that mean? God was basically telling Israel, really, humanity, hey, you're all kings and queens, and you're all here to Represent me on this earth. It's not just for the chosen few. This is humankind's calling. This is what we were made for. But like our King Edward here, like Adam in the garden, we decided that we wanted to be kings and queens on our own terms. And this is my story. And if you think about it for long enough, you'll find echoes of this in your story as well. I know that in my own story, I tried to keep both the crown and my independence, but that always ends in Sam. Abdication. Abdication in Matthew 18, which is where we started. The passage that I've really been reflecting on, as I've been sharing with you, Jesus warns us that the very things that we cling to, our pride, our need for control, our right to be first, will destroy us if we don't cut them off. We will take the crown that we were created for and cast it aside for something lesser. Something lesser. And so if we can go to the slide about the character flaws, this is what I believe we're being called to do. If you're taking notes, if you're a note taker, I think what we're being called to do is to become a student of our own character flaws. Here's a quote from Dr. Tim Mackey. Here's the full quote. There's a little bit of it here. Dr. Tim Mackey, as he was reflecting on this, said this passage was calling us to become a student, become a student of your own character flaws and how you hurt people without knowing it. If you'll notice, in the passage, it talked about how we hurt people and how we impact them. Jesus used really strong language, like the reality that we could cause people to trip up and to stumble. And some of you in this room, you know what this is, because in the context of the church, that's your story. You've had other disciples who, through the way that they operated, tripped you up. And Jesus takes that really seriously. I think for some of you that are here that are carrying pain, especially for those whose pain isn't healed yet, just know and understand. Like Jesus takes what happens to his disciples seriously. When other disciples don't pay attention to what's going on, when we don't study the character flaws within, it can cause really negative impacts for other people. And Jesus takes that really seriously. Jesus cares about how I impact others. So the question to me today is, do I? Do I? And the question for you is, do you genuinely, do you care about how you impact other people as you seek to follow Jesus? Maybe if you're here if you're a follower of Jesus. If you're not, the same thing still applies to you. We're being called to this to become a student of our own character flaws. Okay, what's a student? A student's a learner. It involves observation and contemplation. It really involves a sustained consideration and application. If you become a student of something. This week we're having some people over at the house. And I have been a student of how people hang out in my house when they come over. And they tend to congregate in this one specific part of the house where there's a little countertop. And I told Heather, we gotta clear that off. People are gonna hang out there. I won't tell you what she said, but she wasn't sure. And then I said, yeah, when I get home, we'll have a little. You'll tell me. Yes. People hung out there. And what happened? They hung out there. Yeah. I realize right now we're supposed to talk about character flaws. And I'm pointing to, like, a virtue here that I possess. Just talking about being a student. Okay. I'm a student of other people. It's actually connected to my flaw, which I'll get to later. But a student is somebody who's observing and contemplating and applying what they know. What's a character flaw? A character flaw is a negative trait in someone. This quality will be in some way detrimental to them or to those around them. I was reading up on this. There's the Great Gatsby. I think we have to all read it during high school. Is this still true? If you're in high school right now, do they still make you read the Great Gatsby? No. Cool. Yes. Thumbs up. Thanks. All right. One time. I can't hear. This starts to go over time. So the Great Gatsby, you have this character, Jay Gatsby, I believe was his name. What was he kind of known for? He was known for presenting, putting on, like, a front, right? Putting on this false kind of bravado. This. He called everybody. He had a phrase that he called everyone. Sports, Right? Sports. Old sport. Naila, can you confirm this? Old sport, right? Yeah. Old sport. Why did he do this? Why did he do this? It's because he was someone who was a part of, like, the. He had new. He was wealthy, but it was like new money. And he was trying to figure out how someone with money, Old money, would operate and behave. And so he put on this front and he called everybody old sport. The longer you spent time with him you realize like, oh, this is just a front cause he's insecure. Right? That's a character flaw. It makes for compelling stories. When you read them, did you know that you have them too? If you're married, your spouse knows, if you're breathing, someone knows what those are. Whether they feel safe enough to tell you is a different story. Which is a whole other thing in and of itself. But that is the reality. We all have these character flaws. We all kind of hide and obfuscate and put our best face forward. Why do we do that? I like to say it's good old fashioned. Unbelief. It's more complicated than that. It's not less complicated than that. Who. So a student is a learner. Character flaws are these negative traits. Who here wants to become an observer and a learner of their own negative traits? Right. Got a couple. Thank you. I see those hands back there. Great. Three of us. I don't know the number in this room, but it's a multitude of three. And so here's the truth, guys, we don't like this. Even those that want to do it. Do you actually want to do this? Like really deeply? This is like a thing I look forward to. Not really. Why? Why is that? It's uncomfortable, right? Just really uncomfortable. To actually take a deep look within, to face the dark side is a really uncomfortable thing. But Jesus is calling us to do it. Can we put that up there one more time? The student of your own character flaws. Guys, the reason I put this on there is because I want it just in front of you. Like this is what it means to follow Jesus. It's not to become great in the human sense of bringing your accomplishments to the table, your skills, your gifting even. Not that those things are bad. But to follow Jesus is to become lowly and humble. To become like a child, as it were, insignificant, flawed, needy, dependent. If you become a student of your own character flaws, that'll be their first step to becoming a student of the Master Jesus, who's at work in those character flaws to bringing to himself. Like Jesus is saying, oh, my gum stuck to this, but can somebody read what my writing in the front row? Open this today. You don't have to wait 30 years. You don't have to wait until you're literally standing. We believe as Christians that every one of us will stand and give an account to God. Do you want to open this then? No, not if you can help it. Because if you open it today, what can happen? We can work on it. We can Actually work on it. So I'm going to go first. This week was a wonderful opportunity to become a student of my own character flaws. And I did not set out. The truth is, every week is a wonderful opportunity to become a student of my own character flaws. But this week in particular, I didn't set out for it, but I ended up doing it. I was actually having coffee with Paul and I started talking about my life and I realized, like, oh, as I'm talking to him, which, by the way, community is so vital for this. You can do some of this work on your own, but you need others, really, as you talk things out, as you reflect, to really start to do some character work. I was talking to Paul and I realized that there are some important things in my life that helped contribute to how I got to where I am today. I was born in Puerto Rico, and I moved to Orange county when I was 9 years old or just about to turn 9. And one of the things that happened to me was that I came from a household of high achievement. Actually, moving from the west coast of Puerto Rico to the west coast of the United States, specifically Orange county, was not a super common thing. It's a bit of what we call culture shock. We moved from. I can't even say some of the things because it's a different culture. And some things that we did there might offend having to do with animals and things like that. See, now I went there. I'll just say that my grandfather, his claim to fame was a trophy that was this tall with a little rooster on top of. Okay, that's where I come from. What would you call that here? The sticks, the backwater, the country. That's where I come from. We are a people of not noble birth. Let's just put it that way. Actually, our claim to fame is that we had this. This Italian descendant who came to Puerto Rico on a boat in the 1700s or whatever. He came because he killed someone and was exiled from Italy to Puerto Rico. So I come from a line of murderers. My family was born in blood and not literally. Well, yeah, literally and figuratively. So here we are. The fact that we didn't love and treat animals with a lot of respect is not really shocking, because this is where we come from. We are a people of no noble status. And here's the thing, though. My dad was an achiever, and through his achievement, we wound up in south Orange county. And I moved from a place where I. It was. Yeah, it wasn't much to write home about, but at least I knew who my people were, I knew who my community was, I knew my family was. I moved out to Orange county where we knew no one. And as you can imagine, I'm an English speaker. I'm an English language learner, which I like to make fun of. Now I make jokes about me being English language learning when I make mistakes in English, but it's true, this isn't my native tongue. I was born somewhere else, in a different culture, in a different place. And what got us out here was high achievement. My dad was an engineer and he got out of Puerto Rico, as it were, because of his success in his company and his corporate world, the corporate job he had. And so for me, what got us here was achievement. And for whatever reason, I internalized that. What would keep me here was achievement. And what I needed in order to fit in was achievement. So the happiest days of my young life were we had honor roll. I realize that our kids school doesn't do this, but does anybody have honor roll at their school still? Okay, yeah, a few of you. This was the thing that was like the happiest day of the semester for me was honor roll day. Could also be the worst day of the semester depending on how I did with algebra that particular semester or whatever it was. Achievement was everything to me and I didn't even know it. I was steeped in it. In Orange county growing up, we had status symbols, Mercedes, BMWs, big houses again, the little letters after your name were a big deal. MBA, PhD, JD. Whatever it was, it was a place of significant achievement. Everybody I know and grew up with has gone on to lead a company or become a vice president of a company or ultimately do something that has garnered headlines. And that's what I was steeped in. I was actually telling Paul when I was over there, I was like, ah. I've since realized that my dad, when we moved, like we had these different moves when I was a kid. There were press releases attached to that. Like they were literally. It literally hit the PR news wire when we moved. I'm like, I'm not saying this to brag, I'm just literally telling you I'm reporting the news. This is what I was steeped in. Success was everything to us. And I didn't know it because it's just the culture that I grew up in. But I did find out about it over the course of time because there was these different things I needed to be always. I remember I used to play baseball when I was younger and I loved playing. I wasn't half bad, but I wasn't half great either. And so when I played baseball, it was like when the season ended and they did the awards. I don't know if they still do this in Little League, but our Little League had awards like Rookie of the Year. Do they still do this? I don't actually know. Yes. Okay. So that was a big day for me. It was like Awards Day. And I remember once when I was 12, I had the best season that I'd ever had. And when the Rookie of the Year voting, because that was my first year in the league, I was like, this is me. I'm going to take that long walk to the front to collect my trophy. And I'm just. I'm ready for it. And the moment comes. The Rookie of the year for 1990, whatever it was. Liso Viejo is Lincoln Salazar. And I was just, like, downcast. And it sounds silly now, but for me, that was a crisis that was existential. I didn't win. I didn't get the recognition that I needed. And I was angry. I was actually kind of bitter. If I actually slow down and think about it, I felt like I deserved it. I needed that affirmation, and I thought it was mine. Fast forward a few years in high school, I try out for my high school baseball team. It's a really competitive team. I used to sit behind a guy in my science class who was trying out with me, and I knew him from television because he had been in the Little League World Series. If you guys ever watched that before. Yeah, Little League World Series. I know. Gasp. Same thing. That was my same reaction when I sat behind him. I'm like, I've seen you on television and I'm trying out against you. And it didn't hit me like, oh, you might not make the team. Until I didn't. And then it was this sense of like, well, now who am I? I didn't realize that there was this deep need for validation and affirmation that was the core of my character flaw. And it seems small. Maybe an award here, a team I didn't make there. But here's what's interesting about literature. Small character flaws. A good writer will develop them right over time. So it starts off as sort of like a seed form. It grows and grows and grows until it gives rise and birth to death by the end of the story. Those are tragic characters. And I'm realizing that my life was lived with this need to be affirmed, this need to be needed, this need to be recognized, this need to be loved. Sounds weird to say it out loud, but I'm hopefully giving you the gift of going first, because as far as I know, I am kind of an odd cat, but so are all of you. This is human, right? For me, awards, accolades, and promotions were everything. Why? Because that's the culture I was steeped in. And I would be kind of silly to assume that I'm immune from that culture. Orange county, which, by the way, this isn't a bash on Orange County. There's so much to enjoy and love about Orange County. It's just a reality of living there, especially when you're not, you know, you move there. Later in life, when those things didn't come, I became depressed. This didn't stop, though. In life, I actually, as I was thinking about it in marriage and family, I still need to present my best face to the world. And I still, in ministry, I wrote down I need to crush it, which is sad, because then it becomes more about me than about God. My performance becomes the story rather than God's grace being at work in broken vessels. That's the real story. If you look at the Bible, I want an unbiblical story where I'm the hero and God loves me too much to allow that. So he allowed me to crash. I refused to be a student of my own character flaws. And what ended up happening to me was that I, much like King Edward, I got to a point in my life where I had to choose. I can either follow Jesus or I can get the girl. And it wasn't Heather. This was before I met her. And I abdicated. Like, I literally walked away from Jesus. I couldn't have both. And so I walked away. I actually cast my crown to the side, and for you, you're like, okay, cool. Like, I'm not 22 anymore. This doesn't really resonate. What have you sacrificed on the altar to get what you need to get the affirmation, the approval? Maybe for you it's family. Maybe for you it's your relationships. Maybe for you it's your discipleship to Jesus. There's other things that are so important, so necessary, and you haven't done the work yet to become a student of your own character flaws that. That they are crowding Jesus out of your calendar. What is it for you? I'm telling you, today, Jesus is saying, open it up, Open it. See what's in there. And here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you guys a few minutes to actually do some of this work. If you guys don't mind putting up the five false needs. If you guys are note takers. I want you guys to write down these five false needs. This comes from a guy whose name is Steve Cus. That's his literal last name, Steve Cus. And he's a brilliant guy. He's a guy who's influenced people in our family of churches, leaders, helped us kind of work through our own things. And here's the five false needs that Steve Cus sees in people all the time. He's sort of a student of human nature and he talks about like, here's the five things that if you don't pay attention to, they're going to show up, they're going to wind up on someone else's doorstep, as it were. And these things could even become needs. These are things that we feel like we need or we think we need, but we don't actually need. So write them down. Control, number one. Number two, perfection. Number three, always having the answer. Number four, being there for people. Always being there for people, which is probably the hardest one. And we'll get to that in a second because that one really sounds like a good thing. And it is. And then number five, people's approval. So write these down. He says that we typically have two or three of these, not all five. And so control. It could look like you can't relax until you've controlled your environment. These are some of the things that he said. Steve Kuss, if you struggle with control, you might be anxious about how everyone is experiencing you and you might cross over boundaries and take people's agency. So that's control. Does that one resonate with you? Perfection. He says the minimum standard is excellence all the time. You don't give yourself permission to be a rookie. That is, you don't get to just be a learner. You have to be an expert, even if you've never done it before. If you struggle with perfectionism, you might struggle to receive like, struggle to receive a compliment. And mistakes might feel like Armageddon to you. It might feel like the end. It's the end of the world as you know it if you make a mistake. Number three, we'll go through these quick. Always having the answer. This one really resonate. Control and perfect. My top three are my. Actually, they resonate. They all do. They all resonate. But this one especially. Always having the answer. I need you to know that I know something. Even if someone asks another person, you might feel compelled to respond. You might always have to have the answer. Number four, always Being there for others. There is nothing wrong with being there for other people. Let me just be really, really clear. This is the trickiest one. Especially when we're talking about service, right? We're talking about letting go of status and becoming a servant and even embracing insignificance. Well, doesn't that mean that I'm going to be there for people? It does. But this is about always needing to be there for people. It's when you so need to be there for others, you can't tell the difference between their need and your need to be needed. It's a chronic need to be needed. And how do you know you over commit? You take on too many people's problems and you're not even sure where their problems start and where yours start. It's like it just becomes one thing. You might call this enmeshment or co dependence. Instead of being like, calm and present and thoughtful about how to help, which it is thoughtful, but this becomes like an anxious help. And last, but certainly not least, the one I was hinting at the most in my own reflection of my life, approval. If I know that you and I are at odds with each other, I get anxious. So I think mine is like power and approval because I needed other people to affirm me. But I think it's because I, in a weird way, love power. Which isn't. It's not something I'm like, thrilled to tell you that I'd rather tell you than you find out when it goes sideways in my life and winds up on your doorstep. I'm working on these things. A low tolerance for conflict and disagreement. Which one of these most resonates with you? Maybe it's two or three. We'll take a second. I'm gonna call, actually the band up to the front. What we're gonna do is we're gonna spend some time. I'm gonna have the band just play over us. And if you guys don't mind. Everett, if you don't mind going to the next slide where we have questions. We're gonna take a few minutes just to go through these questions. I know there's a lot of them. There's five. And you might be like, I don't know, man. Really? Right now? Yeah, we're gonna do these right now. Number one, if you have notes, I'm just gonna invite you to just write down your answers. Number one, which of these false needs control? Perfection. Always having the answer, always being there for people. And people's approval tends to show up most in your life. That's the first question. Which of these false needs tends to show up most in your life? I'm going to give you guys a minute. Ben, if you guys don't mind just playing over us. Write down your answer. If you're not sure, just say, I don't know. And then ask somebody that loves you a lot to answer it for you. And they will. By the way, if somebody comes to you and asks you, what do you see? Take that as a compliment. It means they trust you. Number two. How does that need shape the way you respond when things don't go your way? I shared in my own life that it looked like bitterness and resentment towards people that got the approval that I craved. What about you? What happens if you're a control, if control kind of controls you and the house is messy and someone shows up? What happens if you can't be there for someone? What happens when you're put in a position where you can't have two things and you have to choose? How do you respond? Question number three. What might Jesus be inviting you to release today so that you can become more like a child, humble, dependent, and free? What might Jesus be inviting you today to release so that you can become more like a child, humble, dependent and free? Number four. How would your relationships change if you no longer had to protect that false need? How would your relationships change if instead of control, you could trust? How would your relationships change if instead of approval, you could be secure, knowing that you're already approved of in Christ? And last but not least, what could it look like this week to trust Jesus instead of chasing control, perfection or approval? Man? Maybe there's a conversation that you've been avoiding because you're afraid of how someone might respond. You might be controlled by approval and might not know it. What would it look like to actually have that conversation if approval is no longer what you live for? Man? What if. What if there's something that you've been sitting on for a long time that you sense Jesus calling you to let go of, but if you did, it would feel like you're losing control of your image, of your calendar, of your. Of your wallet? What if this week there's something Jesus has called you to do, and perfection, if you were to release, it would allow you to do it at, like a B or B level instead of an A level, and, like, that's enough? What if this week at your job, you did a good enough job, but you didn't do everything you possibly could so that you could invest in your children? That sound like freedom, maybe. It sounds like dying to you, and it is. It's cutting off your arm. It's gouging out your eye. It's dealing seriously with sin. Jesus wasn't being literal, by the way. I realize I just glossed right over that one. Jesus didn't mean he's not into mutilation, like cutting off arms and limbs. He's using hyperbole. He's exaggerating for effect, but the effect is still the same. What is it that you have to address that might otherwise destroy you? What's in your card? Your letter from Jesus today, man. Open it. Open it. What's in it for you? What I'm here to tell you is if you don't do this lovingly, you're going to get one of these. This is an abdication letter. You will abdicate. It is a guarantee. Jesus says it as much in the words that he used. He talks about hellfire and those things that are pretty scary to think about. Think about it as abdicating. You have this royal calling, and you're saying, I won't do what it takes, therefore I resign. And that is one of the scariest things I could ever say from the front. But I wouldn't be loving you if I didn't tell you this is what Jesus is talking about. So for me, if you guys wouldn't mind throwing up my picture from when I was a kid. That's me on the right. That's me as a Hokomaniac, for those of you guys that can't see. Kyla back there, Big Hulk Hogan guy. And that's my brother, Big Ultimate Warrior guy, who won that one. He did. WrestleMania 6, Ultimate Warrior. Doesn't matter. Why am I putting this up here? Because when I was a little boy, I was such a huge Hulk Hogan fan. Why? Because he was successful. I loved identifying with winners. I made so much of Hulk because he was a winner. And if he won, I won. I identified with his victory. And as I got older, I remember I was sitting once in uptown in San Diego, and we were praying about coming here to Temecula. And we had a bunch of leaders from uptown praying for us. And one of them got this picture of Hulk Hogan, which I was like, ooh, tell me more. But it was a picture of WrestleMania 3, which, if you don't know, spoiler alert. Andre the Giant, who's a very famous wrestler from back in the 70s and 80s 90s, you might know him from the Princess Bride. He's the Giant and the Princess Bride. Okay. Big, fun loving guy. But in the ring, he was a fearsome. He was 6 foot 11 or whatever it was 500 pounds, just devastating opponent. And at WrestleMania 3, what happens? Hulk Hogan faces Andre the Giant. And the way that Hulk Hogan told the story, he's like, I'm not sure what's going to happen. He may have been embellishing a little bit for the sake of history, but there came a point in the match when Hulk almost lost. He fell under the weight of Andre's like 500 pound frame. And the ref counted 1, 2. And then Hogan kicks out. But by the end of the match, Hulkhead slammed Andre, supposedly for the first time. It had happened many times before, pre Internet, but it doesn't matter. For everyone that was there and was watching on television, this was like an impossible moment. This was again, I'm a child. Andre is larger than life. I don't get it. For me, it was like Hogan did it. He slammed Andre, he won. He won the title. Highlight of my childhood, right? And so I'm sitting there and my friend is praying for me. And he has this picture of Hogan slamming Andre, which is like, yeah, I'm gonna take on the Giants in Temecula. We're gonna slay whatever these different things that mark this place, which I didn't really know cause I wasn't from here. But he said, you're called to be more like Andrew. So I was like, excuse me, Andre. Do you not know what happens to Andre in this WrestleMania 3? He loses. He's like, yeah, you're called. Spoiler alert. Wrestling is scripted. Sorry to break. Sorry. I knew there was somebody. This would be a big moment. We'll talk about it offline. We'll get through it. Wrestling is scripted. Okay? Andre put Hulk Hogan over. Do you guys know what that means? It means that he became less so that Hulk could step into the spotlight. Andre was on his way out. Hulk Hogan was on his way in. And that was a moment where Andre said, it's not about me. It's about the wrestling business. It's about the next generation. I'm laying down, my unbeaten streak is over. And so here's what changed my life. And there was a moment in Uptown that I've been working out ever since where it was very clear that the point of my life is to put who over? Not me, but him. The whole point of this is to put him over. And the more that I get to know him, the more I'm like, yeah, he's the point. Who is he? He's the gracious king who sits on a throne of grace. And you know what he's doing? He's restoring broken people like me into the image of God made to actually represent him as I was. As is truly what it truly means to be human is to represent him. And so I feel like Jesus, I basically cast my crown aside in college because I wasn't willing to follow him. And I wasn't willing to cut off my arm. I wasn't willing to gouge out my eye. And what Jesus did for me is that he said, I'm gonna take the punishment in your place on the cross. He extended grace and forgiveness to me in such a profound way that I was like, I'm yours, and I'll work through whatever it takes to put you over. And that is what I am doing. We had a long conversation about this with Paul this week. Does that mean it's perfect? No. Does that mean I don't struggle anymore? No. This is a daily reality that I'm learning to put to death my need for affirmation and validation and approval so that I can make much of him, because he's amazing. He's touching lives all over the world. He's touching lives in this room. There's people who are. You guys are experiencing Jesus in profound ways. It's changing you. It's about him. And so I just want to ask you, like, what would get in the way of you putting Jesus over in your life? Whatever that is, that's what he's calling you to put to death today. I'm going to invite you to stand. I'm going to pray for us, and then we're all going to invite the prayer team up to the front. What is that for you? What would get in the way of you putting Jesus over? I'm going to pray. Father, we all have things that would get in the way of us making much of Jesus of us putting the kingdom first. Whether that's a need for control, the need for approval, the need to be needed, God or any other need, the need to be respected, the need to be loved, the need to be put on a pedestal, God, whatever that is, and all the different ways that we seek that. Would you make these things real to us so that we know, so that we would open that letter, read the contents, and address those things that will otherwise destroy us and that will trip up other people because other people are impacted by what's going on in our world inside it works its way out into our relationships. So would you give us the courage required to engage in this kind of heart work. Maybe it's gonna look like exploratory surgery for some where it's like, I don't know, but something's not right. And trust. Looks like I'm gonna start praying. I'm going to ask people to pray for me because I know something's not quite right. I don't know what that is. For others, it's not exploratory. So others know exactly what it is. And there might be things that they need to bring into the light. Would you give them the courage to do that kind of work? That feels so scary, as any surgery would. But that is the pathway and the key to healing. Father. And ultimately, Father, there's so many other things going on in this room that I have no idea about, but you do. Would you bring these things to the minds and hearts of everyone here so that everyone knows what their next step is? God, we love you. We thank you. It's your name we pray. Amen. I'm gonna hand it off to the band. If anything is on your heart and mind and you feel like God's calling, respond. Come up to the front. We don't have a lot of time. I went long. But we do have a few minutes. I'm gonna invite you to make the most of them. Enjoy.