SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right. Well, let's get into the Word of God. And I'm bringing you a message today, continuing on with where we started last week, getting just continuing really with some of these foundational things of our faith that are so important to come back to again and again. Because, you know, in my heart, my heart burns for revival, my heart burns for growth, my heart burns to see the move of God. But if we don't have some of these basic foundational bedrock things in place, then we can have a flash in the pan of fire, we can have a breath from heaven and a move of God, but we will not be able to sustain what God wants to do. Amen. Amen. We are all for the move of God. We're all for the gifts of the Spirit, but we are all for making Jesus Lord of all of our life. And you know, that's really where our whole journey with Jesus starts. I'm sure we're all familiar with this passage and we go to it again and again, but I'll just start here, Romans chapter 10. Somebody probably preached a message and had you pray a prayer. I know we do it regularly around here. And the apostle Paul's writing to the Roman church, and he says this in verse 9 of Romans 10. He says, Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It's clear, it's emphatic, it's in black and white. There are two simple truths in that passage that you need to take home, take to the bank, take to heart. If you truly believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, and then you make the important step, you take the important step of saying he's not just a miracle worker, he's not just a good teacher, he's not just some savior, but he is the Lord. Amen. Jesus is Lord. Unfortunately, in our lives, Jesus seems to be in a lot of competition for the Lordship of our life. Because it's quite easy to say with our lips, Jesus is Lord. We must do it. It says it right here, right? Confess with your mouth. It's not just, you know, as Brianna was talking about earlier, it's not just something you think, not just something you believe on the inside. It actually needs to be on your lips, right? It's something that you must confess, but that confession that we make that gets our foot in the door, Jesus, you are Lord. You're the Lord of life. Death itself could not hold you back. I mean, that that's so beautiful, it's so foundational. But how many of you know you need to continue to walk every day with Jesus being Lord? And allow Jesus to Lord over every single area of your life. And I say you, and I'm talking to myself, because every day, as we said last week, is a day to repent, is a day to align ourselves to the word of God, to the lordship of Christ, and to say, Jesus, not my way, not my will, not my desires, but yours. Come on. So we're gonna jump back into the Sermon on the Mount today. And we we got into the first parts about how Jesus kind of redefines for us what the blessed life is all about. And he he is trying to make us understand that your preconceived ideas need to go out the window. Amen. We all have an idea what God should do, what it should look like, what we would like him to do. And Jesus is saying, just put that all in the garbage and allow me to tell you what life is all about again. What it really means to be blessed, what it really means to seek after God. And you know, we kind of skipped over the beginning, the setup for this uh for this sermon where it says that Jesus goes up onto the mountain and it says that he sees a crowd. He's already attracting attention. We don't get a lot of details other than we know healing's already starting to happen, deliverance is already starting to happen. So Jesus' fame is beginning to spread through the land. So crowds of people are drawing near, they're curious. There's crowds and crowds of people who are curious about God, that are curious about the Bible, that are curious about spiritual things. But how many of you know that is not the same thing as being a disciple of Jesus? It says that he saw the crowd, but then he sat down and his disciples came to him. There's a drawing closer when you're a disciple. It's not standing back and watching to see if miracles happen or watching to see, you know, what benefits can come your way. It's drawing consistently closer to Jesus and allowing him to speak to you. Not just speak to you, but to redefine who you are and what life is all about. Come on. I know a lot of us have been down these roads before. We've heard these messages, we've we've looked at these passages, and and I wrestle with them again and again. I'm like, God, how can I see this with fresh eyes? How can I hear with open ears? I don't want this to just be, that was nice, the Sermon on the Mount, you know, the Beatitudes. How many of you have seen that cross-stitched on somebody's, you know, living room pillow or on the wall or whatever? It sounds pretty, doesn't it? Blessed are the this, the that, the Jesus is rocking people's worlds as he's saying these things. He's flipping the tables over. I mean, he literally does that later in the temple, but he's already doing it at the beginning of his ministry. And I love, we're gonna jump right into verse 17, where Jesus begins to talk about how he is not come to do away with what God has been doing all along, but he is coming with greater clarity. He is coming to remove the ambiguity for us and to show us exactly what it looks like to live for God. But before we get there, you know, I was thinking, how does this sermon end? And we just were talking about our lives in Christ start with confessing that Jesus is Lord, but it's more than just something we say once, have a religious experience and move on with our life. No, because look what Jesus warns about at the very end, or toward the very end of this beautiful sermon. Matthew chapter 7, verse 21 says, probably some of the scariest words that I have ever read in the Bible. And if I'm not a little bit scared about what they said, I need to read it again. Because Jesus is not joking. Hello? You know, we get, you know, kind of this Americanized version of Jesus, he's happy, go lucky, and don't get me wrong, God is a God of joy, but when he says something, he is God, he is Lord, and he means what he says. He is not messing around, he is not just another one of the rabbis that you can cross-reference and check off of somebody else. He is Lord. He is, the Bible tells us that he will judge the living and the dead. Keep that in your mind when you think about Jesus, by the way. He's not just your healer, thank God he's a healer. He's not just the one who died on the cross to shed his blood to forgive your sins. Thank God that he died on the cross, he shed his blood to wash my sins away. But he is also the king of the world who will come back, sit on his throne, the living and the dead will stand before him, and he will judge. And somehow in our you know, North American 21st century Christianity, we have a hard time squaring those two things together. A God of love, a God of forgiveness, a God of mercy, who is also a God of righteousness, of holiness, of righteous judgments. How many of you know it's a good thing that God will judge the world? We should be excited about the judgment of God. Read the book of Psalms. It's a curious thing. We read judgment and we're like, uh, let's put that, you know, down here somewhere. Don't want to think about that, don't want to go there. In the book of Psalms, the the writers they're excited, God come and judge the world already. Why? Because they knew what it meant to be in covenant with a righteous God, and they trusted in that covenant they had with God, and they trusted that when God came back, that he would vindicate every wrong done to God's people. But also, the Bible warns us that everything that is hidden will be exposed. Again, these are words that are in our Bibles, people. I don't know why I'm even going there, but look at what it says in Matthew chapter 7, verse 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. That kind of sounds like he didn't get Paul's memo or something. Right? Or Paul didn't get Jesus' memo. But again, Paul is writing to the church and he's saying that this is how your life of faith begins. You believe in your hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, and you confess with your mouth that he is Lord. But how many of you know that there is this fearful possibility that people can presume on the grace of God? That they can assume that they're all right with God, they can walk supposedly in God's ways, but be completely disconnected from the real Jesus. And he says this so beautifully, so clearly, so severely here. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Now, I'm not here to preach to you works righteousness. You know what that is, right? Where you got to be good enough to go to heaven. If you could be good enough to go to heaven, then Jesus died in vain. Then we should all just pull up our bootstraps and get on with the program. We need the grace of God. But what I see here is that there are people who don't really know God and yet speak the right words and appear to be living in powerful ways, even. Look at this, verse 22. On that day, many, say many, will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, or do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. The crux there, the key thing is they didn't know Christ. They didn't have that vital connection. There's a disconnect going on. And you know, there are stories, you wonder how is that even possible? Notice that Jesus does not deny, he doesn't call them necessarily false prophets. He's not saying they're full they're prophesying false things. He doesn't say that, you know, they're manufacturing a show about casting out demons. They very well might be operating in certain spiritual gifts. How many of you know that even Saul prophesied? Right? And we don't pretend to understand how that all works, but it is a sobering reminder, especially for people like us in spirit-filled churches, that evidence of the gifts at work isn't necessarily a guarantee, hello, of the reality of that relationship and life-giving salvation on the inside. Oh, come on. Don't get me wrong. I want to see demons cast out of people who need demons cast out of them. We believe in prophecy, we believe in healing, we believe in all the gifts of the Spirit, but there's something deeper, more important than that is do people really know God and does God know them? Lord, Lord. And you know, when I was reading back in Matthew chapter five, and I don't really even want to take a ton of time, but we'll see what God does here when we jump back into chapter five. You know, it's I love studying this stuff out, and every time I get into it, it's like, oh, he's speaking about anger, oh, he's speaking about lust, oh, he's speaking about divorce and and you know, oaths, vows, he's speaking about, you know, whether or not we're supposed to defend ourselves and all of these individual little things that he is addressing, and we can get lost in the weeds of what Jesus is saying and lose sight of what it really means. So today is not the day, probably, all we'll we'll look at some of this, to figure out all the ins and outs about how to deal with anger or what place anger has in our lives and what Jesus is talking about there. It's not necessarily the day to figure out, you know, lust and and all of those sorts of things. But what I I kind of took a step back from this and I said, Jesus, what are you, what would you speak to me out of this passage? What would you speak to your church? And don't get me wrong, Jesus means what he says about anger, he means what he says about lust. And just one little note there about that. I was shocked. I try not to get caught up on too many videos and things, but I ran into this one video about a guy talking about how many of the evangelical, supposedly born-again believers that they interact with see nothing wrong with pornography. And I'm like, how can you ever square that with the Sermon on the Mount? They don't view it as wrong, they don't view it as, you know, any sort of issue between them and their spouse, etc. I don't know why I'm going there, but the Jesus does mean what he says here. And so when I step back and I look at this and I'm trying to get a bit of new understanding out of it, it's not that I'm trying to say we shouldn't go there and look at what's written in black and white. But what I began to think about here is how Jesus is showing us that he is Lord over every aspect of our life. So his sermon could have been, I mean, this whole book could have been a sermon about every one of our emotions, every one of our sin issues. It could have been about every one of the sorts of relationships that we're in and how those relationships work and what God's purposes are for those relationships. And I started to see how he's just hitting on a few different key ideas to show that I am Lord and I have the final say over every area of your life. Well, that doesn't sit well with modern 21st century people. We want another interpretation, we want, you know, a second opinion, we want the opportunity to, you know, just whatever. But look at how the crowd responds at the end of this sermon. When you think about it, they don't respond by saying, Jesus, you know, he's he's just a really top-notch teacher. They put him in a whole category unto himself. It says in Matthew chapter 7, verse 28, and when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. Again, we sometimes think that what people will be astonished by are the signs, the wonders, and the miracles. Thank God for those things. We want to see those things. But I I find it amazing here that their sense of awe and wonder and admiration, they're just simply sitting and listening to what he says, to how he says it, and even beyond that, what that then means for their life, and they are completely blown away. When's the last time we were blown away by what Jesus says? When's the last time that we came in here not just for nice advice, not just for you know how to navigate a situation, but to just have an encounter with Jesus as the authoritative Lord of our life. To recognize that nothing escapes his, to put it this way, jurisdiction. There is no compartment of your life where Jesus is not Lord. You might try and compartmentalize your life that this is, you know, the things that Jesus spoke about, but no, Jesus is Lord of everything. So he's not just Lord because he moves in healing and signs and wonders, he's not just Lord when we worship him with hands raised high, he's Lord of your business, he's Lord of your finances, he's Lord of your relationships, he's Lord over your family, he's Lord over how you raise your children, he's lord over your thoughts, he's lord over your words, he's lord over your desires, he's lord over everything. So when I jump back to chapter five, and I begin to look at this, and we see he's talking about anger, I just take that as one example that he is Lord over my emotions. Amen. We mentioned how in our own soul, our own self, that Jesus, we wrestle to give Jesus that full lordship, because these are the very things that will try to lord over you. Have you ever met a person whose emotions control them? That they can have all the right convictions, all the right beliefs, but if their emotions rise up, what will dictate their actions is not their convictions, is not their right beliefs, but their emotions. Again, I'm not trying to say that he's not saying what he has to say about anger here, and we should read it just to be reminded of these realities. Jesus is showing us also through each and every one of these things that sin goes deeper than outward action. Amen. He says in verse 21 of chapter 5, you have heard it said. I love that pattern that's repeated through this section of chapter 5. You have heard it said. But then he says, But I say to you, we live in a day where there's a million opinions about everything. And you know, now we have AI to curate all of those opinions in a half a second for us. You know, footnotes, references, links, we can jump all over the place. How many of you know you can find somebody to agree with what you want? And for the record, if you haven't figured this out already, uh, and this might not be true of every AI platform and whatever, but what what I've, the little bit I've looked into it and studied, these things are created to basically give you answers you'd want. Don't trust that. Don't get me wrong, there it can be a tool, it can be useful, but just no going into it, it is trying to please you. It's trying to give you an answer that you want. It's trying, it's looking at kind of what are you interested in? Where has your thoughts and mind and imagination gone? Let's pull those things together. No, we need to come to the truth, to the bedrock, to the one who will tell us what we don't want to hear but is right. And for that matter, I'm glad that we are in a church that has always been a place that doesn't just say what people want to hear. I've heard a lot of things over the years from Faith Alive's pulpit that made me feel uncomfortable, that made me realize that I'm not as, you know, on fire for God and living, you know, just according to God's will. And it draws me in closer to Jesus to say, Jesus, what would you really say to me? I thank God for ministries like that. And let's pray to God that we always continue to be a ministry like that. We are not here to scratch that itch, right? We're not here to tickle people's ears. We're not here just to make you feel good and to get, you know, happy and to jump up and down and shout hallelujah and not change. The Bible, Jesus, this is a message of repentance, which means it's a message of transformation and change. He says, Have you heard what it was said to those of old? You shall not murder, but whoever murders shall be liable to judgment. It's one of the commandments. It's right in the Ten Commandments, right? Thou shalt not kill. But I say to you, there's more than just keeping your hands off people. There's more than just not killing somebody. He says, but I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother is liable to judgment, and whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel. And whoever says, you fool, which by the way is basically you airhead. Literally, not empty head. That's basically what the Greek there means. You fool, you will be liable to the hell of fire. Oh my. So he says, Wow, Jesus, that's that's intense. Not only do I have to control my actions, I have to control my emotions. And it's not just, and I mean there is an element to this where it is you're you're putting a defense in, you're putting kind of a barrier in that doesn't allow you to go down the slippery slope. Because how many of you know, for the most part, some you don't wake up never having a murderous thought in your life and then just walk out the door and kill somebody. So there is kind of that, let's take a step back and not allow our hearts and our minds to go to the places that we might eventually allow ourselves to go. There is that, right? But again, is Jesus Lord of our emotions? Are we dictated by our emotions, by the hour, by the day? Are you somebody whose mood is Lord? And I'm keeping my eyes closed, okay? Because I can just picture some of the spouses looking at each other, you know. Moody ones, right? We we all can have moods, right? Verse 23. So if you're offering your gift on the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly, say quickly, with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. If we allow our emotions to dictate our lives, there will be an extremely high cost that will have to be paid. Amen. And I love how the how this verse also steps in and it shows us that do not put on false religious pretenses like I'm okay with God because I worship, because I bring offerings, because I do all of these spiritual things, you know, because I come presentable to the house of God, whatever it is that you consider, you know, religious and good. No, he's saying if you're out with your brother, then you're out with God. Come on. I know we know this church, but I'm saying it by the Spirit of God this morning. You are not right with God if you are not right with your brother. And I don't say that in condemnation or judgment, and I know that there are people that can make our lives impossible. And the Bible also does say that as much as pertains to us, that we are supposed to be in peace with everyone, right? So there does there is a place and a point, and there are relationships where you have done all that is earthly and godly possible to walk in peace, and the other person will simply not be at peace with you. And I'm not trying to say that then you just need to be their doormat for the rest of your existence, right? But what I am saying is that we cannot harbor bitterness, envy, jealousies, hatred, any sort of emotion that is not a fruit of the spirit towards somebody and think that we're okay with God. We cannot. And we can have the best worship and we can get this place jumping, and we can have stuff happening at the altar, but that will never go to the depth, to the length. You know, it will never be the true move of God that we want it to be if we can't get these things right. Come on. Is Jesus the Lord of your emotions?

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Why is my wife laughing? It's Pastor Brandt's fault, okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

So when we jump into lust, here's a fun one, right? And uh I should mention as he talks about lust and then he talks about divorce, he speaks specifically to the guys, but that doesn't let any of the ladies off the hook. Right? This is for everybody. If he's lord of our emotions, when I look at lust, I would say, is he lord of our desires? Is he lord of my desires, my passions, the things that I most long for. Lust. He says in verse 27, you have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out. This is rough, right? Tear out your eye. Now, when I I I better say this, because we can we can become like, well, Jesus said it. How many of you know that we would have a lot of one eye brothers and sisters in church, if not all of us, right? At one point and phase and stage of life, right? So as much as Jesus means what he says, Jesus, like any good teacher, also ups the ante to shock you and make you realize how important this is. So please, I am not encouraging, and I don't believe that Jesus is encouraging any maiming of oneself, self-harm, right? But he's showing you just how serious this is, and just what a severe length you should go to if you struggle with desires that are out of place. And again, I know this is talking about lust, and lust is a powerful desire. Our sexual drive is one of the most powerful things that we experience as human beings. But there are other drives, there are other desires that get a hold of us that again, they they take over, they lord us, they, you know, put that ring in our nose and drag us along, and all of a sudden we're doing things that we never thought we would do. You know, again, we have all the right convictions, all the right beliefs, but I just couldn't help myself. You ever heard that? What a cop out. I just couldn't help myself. No, you didn't stop it before it got a stranglehold on you. No, you didn't come against it in the name of the Lord. What did Jesus do when he was tempted in the wilderness? He said, uh-uh-uh. I will worship the Lord my God, and him alone will I serve. I will keep the Lord in his proper place. I will allow his words to dictate my actions, my thoughts, and my desires. So whoever looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your own members than your whole body be thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than it is for your whole body to go into hell. What are we willing to cut off to inherit all that God would have for us? And we're inversely, what are we not willing to give up because it will be painful, because we can't draw our eyes, our desires off of it, and we will give up what Jesus is offering us. Is Jesus Lord of our emotions? Is Jesus Lord of our desires? And we continue on here, and he says, he starts to talk about divorce, and you know, it kind of looks like a separate point. It's likely joined together. You know, the other statements he says, you have heard it said, but I say to you, here it's like a continuation on the lust issue, right? How many of you know that there are certain grounds for divorce, like abuse, etc.? Even Jesus talks about it in chapter 19 of Matthew, you know, infidelity, things like this. There are biblical grounds for it, but what he's saying here seems to be something connected to what he had just spoken about, lust, et cetera. So he says, I also say to you, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. And that's in Deuteronomy 24, 1. And again, Matthew chapter 19, Jesus clarifies, and they're like, hey, Moses said we could divorce our wives. How can you say that you know what God has joined together? Let no man separate those beautiful words that we say at probably every wedding, right? And Jesus is like, only because the hardness of your heart was divorce ever allowed. It was never the ideal, it was never the plan, right? It's it's not God's intention. And actually, in Malachi, it says, God hates divorce. And he says some interesting things here. He says, But what, but I say to you what that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again, this is very much the man's side of the equation. We could tackle the topic of divorce and remarriage for, you know, a whole morning. That's not what we're doing today. I'm gonna take another step back. If Jesus is Lord of our emotions and Lord of our desires, I have to ask, is he also Lord of our relationships? And there's no closer relationship on this planet than the marriage covenant, right? In other words, we have all heard it said, all of these different things about relationships, about marriage, about, you know, any number of relationships, friendships, and you know, uh parent and child relationships. But what does Jesus say about your relationship? And just like our emotions and our desires can grab a hold of us and make us do things that we wouldn't otherwise do, our relationships are one of the most powerful influences in our life that because we are connected to people through friendship, through family, through marriage, those things can lord over us instead of Jesus. And that's why Jesus says things like, Whoever doesn't hate his father and mother and follow me, is he encouraging family strife? No. What he's again saying, he's talking with this, you know, this high language and he's shocking people, like, what do you mean? How can we hate our father and mother? The very word of God says we need to honor our father and mother, which is still true. But what he's saying is, in comparison to your relationship with me, every other relationship is secondary. Every other earthly tie that you have takes second place. I am Lord over your relationships. In other words, there are things in our relationships that we might, again, we have the right convictions, we have the right beliefs, but we're gonna just do these things to make the relationship work. If it's not working in God's pattern, according to God's commandments, according to God's will, then what is working is not working. The world might say, that looks good, you know, the right emotions are there, whatever, but Jesus might look at it and say, that is not my desire for your relationships at all. Continuing on, in verse 33, again you have heard it said of those of old, if you swear falsely, sorry, it says nothing about false. Yes, it does. I better just start again. You ever read it and then you're like, that's not right. Maybe it is right, maybe I'm not right. I don't know. Again, you have heard it said though of those of old, those who swear, do not swear falsely. There you go. You shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not take an oath by your head. You know, swear on your mother's grave or anything like that. Do not take an oath on your head, for you not cannot make one hair white or black. Whatever you say, may it simply be yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. Is Jesus Lord over our words? The Bible says an awful lot, by the way, if you haven't noticed, about what we say. And the Bible is very clear that God takes it seriously. How many of you know that Jesus says that we will be judged by every word? I don't know about you. I do not like that verse. As a sarcastic Canadian, I do not like, I don't know how you were raised, but our mother tongue in my family was sarcasm. You know, that is Canadian English, if you haven't figured that out already. Growing up in our house, you know, when I got old enough to drive and use the car, if I walked into the living room and dad was watching TV or whatever, and I wanted to go somewhere, Dad, can I use the car? No. We never gave a straight answer. Never. It was how he said no that I would know if it was yes or no. It was never yes. And I don't know if that was just an escape clause for dad, if anything ever goes wrong with the car. I said no. But you know what I mean? Just sarcasm. We never really say what we mean. But Jesus says, Well, actually, out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth speaks. And you will be judged even by the idle words that come out of your mouth. In other words, the little flimpant, you know, things we don't think about. Our words carry great weight. Jesus is taking them aside from, you know, well, is it an oath? Is it not an oath? And Jesus says, if you said it, you better mean it because your yes is yes, your no is no. The fact that you said it is the same as standing in court with your hand on a Bible saying, I swear to God. Oh, come on. I didn't really mean it. I, you know, if the conditions were right, Christians are supposed to be known as people of their word. Not according to worldly standards, not when it's convenient, not when it's easy. You said it, do it. And I will say this to you the grace of God will meet you in that. I mean, there might be times you have to humble yourself and apologize when you can't, but you don't just blow it off. Jesus says, let your yes be yes, and your no. Be know our are our words, are how we speak subject to the Lordship of Christ? Or do we speak like everybody else speaks? Oh, we could go there, right? How many of you know the Bible even talks about how we're allowed to joke and not joke? There are certain jokes that get thrown around in the workplace that you are not supposed to participate in. How many of you know, and again, I find it amazing how this seems to be up for debate among a lot of Christian people. The Bible is actually very clear that vulgarity has no place in a Christian's mouth.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Should we go on?

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Verse 38. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And just for the record, I mean, I don't think in any culture or time or place, getting smacked on the face is a polite thing. But when I was studying this, it said, like, this is the highest level of insult. It's like the only thing that could be worse than this is that they are actually like attacking you with a weapon, trying to kill you. Like, this is the highest form of insult in their culture. To smack somebody in the face. So he's saying not to resist, but to turn the other cheek. And if anyone would sue you to take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. And some of you are familiar with this, right? The Romans, as the oppressor, as the one who occupied the land of Israel, every soldier had the legal right to walk up to any civilian and say, hey, carry my gear, and force him to go a mile with it, just to have a break. I don't know. That was part of how the empire worked. And Jesus shockingly is saying to the people of his day, as much as, and you gotta understand that this is this is at a time where half of the Jewish people are wanting to rise up in revolt and overthrow the Romans. And so these words really need to resonate in our hearts when we when our sense of injustice begins to rise up. Again, do I think that there's never a time or a place to, you know, fight against oppression and evil? Well, I think there are times. And that's a bigger conversation than what Jesus is just saying here. But a lot of the things that get us indignant and get us trying to defend ourselves and get us trying to rise up and right the wrong and, you know, just make them suffer as they have made us suffer. Jesus is saying, Who do you trust? Do you trust in your own strength, in your own ability to right the wrongs, or are you leaving justice in my hands? Come on. Give to the one who begs from you. Do not refuse from the one who would borrow from you. And finally, he says, You have heard what it was said, that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. That's a convenient little thing, isn't it? Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. And how many times does Jesus hit on the idea of just who our neighbor is? Because again, the rabbis and the Jews of Jesus' day were really good at, like, great, of course I love my neighbor. And they would define the neighbor as the people I love. Tell me we don't do that as Christians, right? I love everybody. Footprint, that means all the people I love, right? Everybody is all the people I love. I love everybody. Little bit of, you know, it's like, oh, but what about that guy? What about that guy? What about, you know, oh, those aren't my neighbors. That's not everybody. God couldn't have meant those people. Hmm. And of course, you know that this is not just literally your neighbor. It's your enemies. It's those who you think are least worthy of your love. You guys are quiet. I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. If you're struggling to love somebody, prayer is the only thing that's gonna change that, I would say. There's maybe people I like less than others. I'm not looking at anyone around the room. I love everybody, okay? But you know, there are people that we struggle to love, that we struggle to treat as we would treat other people. And I don't know about you, I cannot just will myself into loving people better. Have you ever tried that? Just put a smile on and love that person. How many of you know it takes prayer to change our hearts where we can actually love people the way Jesus is calling us to love him? To love them, I mean. So he's really getting down to the heart, he's getting down to our hates and our loves. And he's saying, nothing escapes my Lordship. Nothing is outside of Jesus' jurisdiction, he is the Lord, so it's more than just saying, Lord, Lord. And as much as it is, I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord, then the rest of our life is spent unpacking what does that mean? How do I live like Jesus is Lord? Not just like Jesus was the Savior who came and bled and died 2,000 years ago, but Jesus is the one who is enthroned at the right hand of the Father, who will come back, who will judge the living and the dead, who is ruling and reigning now if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. What does it mean to truly confess that Jesus is Lord? That he can lord over our emotions, he can lord over our words, he can lord over our relationships, everything in our life. That's why he gave us such a wonderful big book. You ever notice that? This is a big book. It talks about a lot of stuff. It's not just a five-page gospel track about how to get saved. That's a good foot in the door. But now the rest of our life is saying, Jesus, you are Lord and I am not. Jesus, there's a lot of opinions out there. I have heard it said this and that and the other thing. But say to me, Jesus, what is it really supposed to look like? What is the truth? I don't want to just excuse myself with the opinions of men. I want to be found, Lord, standing transparent before you. And if there's something wrong about how I love, then put your finger on my heart. If there's something wrong about how I talk, then put your finger on my mouth, my lips, my tongue. If there's something wrong about how I think, then get a hold of my mind and my heart. If there's something wrong about how I treat people, about my relationships, then Jesus, I submit my marriage, my children, my workplace, my everything to you. You are Lord. It's more than just anger and lust and divorce and these few things. He's showing that he has the final say. The final say in everything. Not me. Not even the people I respect and honor. I I've had some wonderful people excuse me of things that I've had to repent of and I realize there is no excuse for. Come before God and make sure that you're justified before Him. And it's only the blood of Jesus that can do that, amen. Why don't we stand to our feet? Bands, you can come up. And we are gonna pray today. And simply allow God to be God. And if you haven't yet prayed, as we discussed this morning, that that invitation prayer, that surrendering prayer that starts this whole thing. Maybe you're listening to this today and saying, wow, that's a lot bigger than I thought it was. That's a lot more demanding than I thought it was. It's not really demanding, by the way. And you need to understand that. Everything that Jesus commands is for your good. We just accept subparreligious realities. It can sound painful, it can sound difficult, it can sound like you're ripping your eye off, you're cutting your hand off, but it's actually life. It's actually setting you free. It's actually turning you into a child of God and reflecting his glory out into the world. Let's pray together, Lord Jesus. I do believe that you overcame death, that you rose again, and I thank you that your death paid the price for my sins. That your life changes everything. Jesus, I confess that you are Lord. Be the Lord of my life. Be the Lord of everything. I lay it all before you nothing escapes, Lord God. Your jurisdiction.