Let Me See the Boss - Unsettling Times | Unshakable Faith

I think a lot of people would not have very pleasant chapter titles across the country and around the world. People have been, we have been tribalized by this thing into little tribes. We have been, some people have weaponized the whole uh the whole pandemic thing. We have been traumatized in a lot of ways, a lot of people have. I tell you one thing we all lost. Some people lost loved ones, some people lost their businesses. There's been a l almost everybody lost something in the process. I think everybody lost certainty There's a word now in the a new word in the obsolete word dictionary. It's the word plan. Yeah, yeah, that's in the obsolete word dictionary. How I mean how how can even now it's kind of tentative to have to plan anything. So it has been a turbulent time. It has been, as I uh suggested, unsettling times in the title. We're going to come out different. I am. I'll share a little of that at the end. But The world, I think, has been ready in a superhero time when Marvel has gotten very wealthy doing superhero movies. It'd be nice if those were real But I think the world is ready for a real superhero. Because everybody we've kind of, all the places we put our hopes have kind of went. Yeah. Just really didn't deliver. Not not with not in this not in this kind of intensity. So there was a book written 2,000 years ago. that introduced the ultimate superhero with the long-anticipated arrival of one who had long been called Messiah. There had been many false messiahs. There had been many prophecies about the real one. And I will simply say that if our world and if we ever needed For an uncharted future, if we ever needed the Messiah, the King, the Anointed One, it is now The book we'll be spending our time in that I've spent the last six months in, it's really funny how this happens. I start out, sometimes I'm kind of wandering after I finish a book and I'm like, let's see, where should we read today? And then all of a sudden I get led to a certain verse in a book and I'm hooked. That happened with Matthew. All 28 chapters. I have filled, I'm on my second journal with Matthew and I having spent some time together. And one of our first timers here happens to be the architect for the building site that you will visit tomorrow His name is Matt. Matt? Matt, we did this for you. Okay? Just uh we're doing your book here. Here was a social outcast Because of his, what he had done to his people. He was a traitor to his people. The Jews already oppressed by the Roman government Now get a man like Matthew to collect taxes for them. He can skim once he once he pays who he has to what he has to pay to Herod the Great, he can keep whatever he wants to keep, and he does. So you have the social outcast who ends up following a revolutionary rabbi who is driving organized religion and the and the or and the and the the leaders of religion of the day crazy And he writes a book. And the purpose of this book, each of the four Gospels, has a specific target. And for Matthew, it is this. To prove to God's people that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is the King, and that they no longer have to wait for their King, they no longer have to look for him. He has come among them. And Matthew will be chosen by God to spell out a divine agenda that the Messiah brings with him. That really does turn the world upside down. And once we take a look at it together, I suggest it will call for change But at the same time, it is the greatest source of hope you could possibly have for a world that seems to be blown apart, unraveling, and so unpredictable. This is about encouragement. And so let me give you a little background on the book. God had over the years spoken through prophecy send one prophet after another and uh or one leader after another and And there was a steady series of messages from God. Suddenly God stops for 400 years. That little page in between your Old and New Testament, that's 400 years, that one page Because God is so fed up by the time we get to Malachi or for my New Jersey friends Malachi, by the time we get to that last book in the Old Testament You've got God saying, shut down the temple, quit having your services, it's pointless. Don't you bring me sacrifices, blind animals that you don't need anyway, and have no use for. God has not spoken for 400 years. And suddenly at the end of that 400 years, we have Matthew and the other gospel writers. Mark probably the first one. Matthew probably not long after that. And it's interesting that who has chosen to do this is a societal outcast, Matthew, now a disciple of Jesus It is set, most of it is set in the wild west of the Middle East, a place called Galilee. Josephus, who was the leading historian of that day, once was the governor of that province, and he said there were about three million people who lived there. The people from Galilee were not appreciated in Jerusalem. They were not wanted in the temple. They were thought to be rebels. And they were. They didn't do kosher. They did it if they felt like it. There were many nations represented. If you see Galilee, I've been there. Galilee is up at the northern end, right next to Syria. Here's the Golan Heights, right there. You're in Capernaum, you're looking at the Golan Heights, and over there is Syria Many nations were represented. It was a place of conflict. It was a place of prejudice. It was a violent place. There's always ugly stuff going on. It was not a it was a place seething with tension. That's where most of this takes place. And yet, the story of the Messiah on earth starts there He is born in Galilee. All of his guys come from Galilee. And it ends in Galilee on a hill, as Jesus commissions. The men who will be his leaders on earth. That's the background of the book. And as for Matthew, whose name means gift of God, basically. Here's where he's fulfilling his purpose. If you look at Matthew chapter 1, it'd say, well, I'll skip this. This is a genealogy. Don't skip the genealogy. Because it is it traces God's grace. And you want to see how you want to see the marks of Matthew? Now when people wrote the Bible, God took them over Peter said they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, but he didn't obliterate their personality or their vocabulary. You can see the mark of a guy who's been keeping records his whole life I mean his his income, his job depended on his ability to be a good record keeper. So if you look at this, he divides, in the first chapter, he divides the story of the descent of the uh ancestors of the Messiah into three groups of fourteen. Sound like an accountant? Nobody else does that And so he's got a nice mathematically orderly rendition, and he goes back over the grace of God in the life of people like Rahab and Ruth and people you would not necessarily brag about if you found them on ancestry. com. And uh then there and in each case he says at the end of every set of fourteen He says that this was in each case he identifies the Messiah And at the end he says, Mary was the mother of Jesus who was called the Messiah. 14 generations times three. Over and over again he says this, that he is the Messiah. And finally, Simon Peter blurts out. In chapter 16, when Jesus says, thank you for giving me the results of the latest Gallup survey on who you think people think I am. He said, who do people say I am? Oh Jeremiah, you are you're John the Baptist, come back. How about you? Jesus always gets to that, doesn't he? How about you? What do you say? How about you? And Peter says, you are the Messiah. The Son of the Living God. So the leader has come, the King has come. And the agenda that this king will bring with him and articulate in the book of Matthew, which we will look at together is the very same radical, life-transforming, often upsetting life agenda that was brought into by the first believers, the most powerful Christians who ever lived starting with a handful, spreading across the world, because of these passions. And we're going to look at six passions that one time changed the world. These passions drove the Book of Acts Christians. But this is not about them They they simply lived what the Messiah said, what his kingdom was supposed to be like. And it rocked and changed their world. It could do it again today. It is that powerful, but it is radical. And it's exciting. So And you know one thing I love about uh Matthew, you can you'll be able to see that he is the mathematician. For example All four of the gospel writers tell about the feeding of the 5,000. They say 5,000 men were there. 5,000 men were there. Matthew adds something that nobody else adds. He says, not including women and children. All the others just kind of like, we had there were 5,000 guys there. He's like, that's not accurate, guys. Hold on, John, Mark, listen. There were women and children there too, but he makes sure he catches that. Guess who's the only gospel writer who is the only one who describes two incidents that involve taxes? One is when Jesus is asked about about uh Caesar's tax, the other about the temple tax. Only Matthew describes that Isn't that interesting? Guess who's the only gospel writer who describes Judas' deal with the temple leaders? And goes into the finances of it with the 30 pieces of silver. Only the accountant. He's the one. He's the guy that will do it. Who is the only one? That tells the story of the guards of Jesus' tomb who go back and say, what are we going to do? He's gone. And that's where the whole deal with Pilate and they get paid. They get bribed. Of course, to lie about a story that the body was stolen. So all the way through, you just see Matthew carried along by the Holy Spirit. But isn't that I just think that's so cool that you see his personality and his career still expressed in the gospel that he wrote. Now The Gospel of Matthew, as you see in your notes, introduces us to these three powerful hope factors that are for such a time, not just as that, but as this. And they are the agenda of a king whose kingdom is the human heart. I said that if we ever needed the kingship of Jesus, it is now. Let me give you some examples why. The head of the Black Psychiatrists of America said he believes that the stress of the pandemic helped trigger the George Floyd protests. He says when people feel hopeless, they feel they have nothing to lose, and caution goes to the wind. And it has in so many quarters, not just related to that. And meanwhile, the atomic energy bulletin scientists say it's time to reset the doomsday clock for how close they feel we are. to a cataclysmic world-ending event. They've reset their clock to three minutes to midnight. And in September, addressing the General Assembly The head of the United Nations, the Secretary General of the United Nations, said this, the world has never been more threatened. And more divided. We are on the edge of an abyss. They don't talk like this at the UN. We are on the edge of an abyss. We face the greatest cascade of crises. in our lifetimes. If we ever needed a Messiah, if we ever needed King Jesus is now. Governor John Sununu of New Hampshire said this. We are an uncharted territory. So we have to make bold choices. Yeah, we do. We'll look at some this weekend. Let's look at these three hope factors. Some how many of you have seen some of the um very creative presentation of the life of Jesus called the chosen? Let me see hands. Many of you have, some of you have not. uh kind of telling the backstories uh where the scripture does not without violating scripture uh it uh it tells you kind of their backstories as well but but there's a line in there Where Jesus simply says to his disciples, get used to different. I want you to remember those words. Because I'm going to suggest to you That for all of the upheaval of the past couple of years, if God wanted us to go back to the normal we had before, I don't think he would have had everything upheave, is that a word? Like that. No. No, you know what I've I've concluded for me? Instead of picking up where I left off and writing another chapter in volume one of my life, that what God is saying is End your volume one. This is chapter one, volume two, from this point on. That's exactly what happened when Jesus came. Was the beginning of a whole new volume And I'd suggest to you that we not say, let's just keep, kind of go back to kind of extend where we were going. Let's consider the possibility of a pretty exciting and bold new future. Get used to different. Did you know that Jesus' first sermon introduces the possibility that he brings into people's lives and into our lives? Matthew 4. 17 From that time on, Jesus began to preach, repent for the kingdom of heaven. This is a new thought. The kingdom of heaven has come near. Now that phrase kingdom of heaven and then a few times kingdom of God is over 40 times in Matthew's gospel. But what if we prayed more times than you could ever count? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done here, like it is there on earth as it is in heaven. We've prayed that more times than we realize. I looked up the word kingdom, duh Well, what would you expect? Nothing radical here. A territory subject to the rule of a king, the realm in which a king sovereignly rules. In other words, whatever the king says goes Well, um, let me see if I have it with me here. Psalm 103. The Lord has established his throne in heaven And his kingdom rules over all. Now his territory is not about land. It's about lives And our mission is to live that kingdom so people see what it looks like. Now I have a friend coming up, more than a friend. Actually, um we share DNA. This is my um, well not, I mean it took more than me, but this is the this is our grandson Caleb, and um this drum was what I got for Christmas last year. Caleb is a drummer, and uh this drum is interesting, and the drumstick says Thomas Hutchcraft on it Because my fourth great-grandfather, Thomas Hutchcraft, I held in my hand in the Maryland Archives his enlistment paper in the Continental Army, signed with an X. As a 17-year-old boy, when you were 17 and you fought in the Revolutionary War, you were a drummer. So it's kind of fun that uh that uh cannabis picked that up So um we uh what what Jesus is calling for in that first hope factor, here's a muster The first one is a different drummer. That we are going to hear a different drumbeat than the drumbeat of our culture. Even perhaps in the drumbeat many other Christians are hearing. For our drumbeat originates in heaven For we are from the kingdom of heaven, living on earth. And I just I I I had to do this. This is just too much fun. So thank you very, very much, Caleb. Let's give this guy a hand. His favorite thing is not being up in front. I know he's a Hutchcraft, but uh they don't all have that in common. Believe me, they said you just do that for us. Um See, our where's the kingdom of heaven headquartered? Well it's headquartered in heaven, obviously. So we march to the beat of a different drummer. Or do we? We're pretty strongly affected by our culture, by social media, by people's opinions, by the latest opinion poll, by cable news But it's the drumbeat of heaven. This is the kingdom of heaven. It's the drumbeat of heaven lived out on earth, as it is in heaven here on earth And the cadence of this drumbeat is like upside down from the world around us. We'll look at these scriptures at another time, but the ground is level in this kingdom There's no stars. There's no big shots. In fact, Jesus himself, the Messiah, says, I did not come. To be served. King of Kings, Messiah. I did not come to be served. I came to serve and to give my life. This is upside down. They're literally, the ground is level. No big shots, no stars, nobody more important than anybody else. Hello? That's not our world. Servants are the leaders. Well servants serve leaders. No? Servants are the leaders in this kingdom You see the scriptures that go with it. Worry is a waste in the kingdom of heaven. Worrying is literally a waste, if not a sin. Jesus will say three times, do not worry, do not worry, it is a command, do not worry. We'll talk about why that's so devastating at another time. And the future, as murky as it might look, if you turned on the news tonight, is totally secure. Matthew records this He says, for example, talking about the days near the end of the world, you will hear wars and rumors of wars, but don't be alarmed. Well, why not? Because the king is running things. The king is in charge. Then he says, then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven The Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Later he says, heaven and earth will pass away. It's going away. But he says, God's word will stay forever. So the future is secure. Here's our mission, my brother, my sister. It is to show the world What a life is like when Jesus is totally in charge. For that's what a kingdom is. A kingdom is a place where whatever the king says goes. So however much it may contradict our instincts, our training, our background, We are to be the ones who show them if Jesus is running things, I am a microcosm. of what Jesus running things globally would look like. By the way, Jesus believes the way to change the world. is with demonstrations. You go, oh Ron, haven't we had enough of those? Do I have to get a sign? No, not that kind of demonstration. It's pretty well known that I can pass up the candy store in town, I can pass up the ice cream place. Bakeries I research before I get to a town. It's it's pretty sad. Brad and I look up the donut places before the Ordnagles Wings team gets there. It's don't you guys laugh. It's sad but true Um and I remember going to our local bakery in New Jersey, and which I missed greatly, and they missed me. Boy do they miss me And and I went in there one day to couple get a couple bagels and uh you know how they have little samples cut up on the on the and they said would you like some cheesecake? I said no I just want a couple bagels. I said, no, it's free. Well, oh yeah, sure So I, you know, I tried the cheesecake. So I left with my two bagels and a cheesecake. Now, I had not planned to buy a cheesecake. But I got a taste and I wanted the whole thing. And I got it. And I look like it. So That's a good way to sell something. Jesus said what I want you to be, I want you to be a taste of what a life totally run by me looks like. In hopes that some people will like the taste and buy the whole thing. Yeah, he believes in persuasion by demonstration. And I will tell you what he is proposing is a startling alternative to the self-focus of our world today, to the stress of our world today. It's heaven's kingdom. And so that means life here is lived against the backdrop of eternity. Everything looks different. If this is all there is, you're going to look at life one way and it's going to be dark. But if it's only a chapter, and as an actually a small chapter in a massive endless book Everything looks different. Because this is the kingdom that is headquartered in heaven. We live in the kingdom of earth. But we live out the kingdom of heaven. Remember in Field of Dreams When that young man comes, sees this wonderful field and all the old players coming back, which I'm sure happened, and he says, is this heaven? And then guy goes, no, this is Iowa. Folks, this isn't heaven. This is actually Missouri, but um the fact is that um we are to be a taste of heaven. Now if Jesus is king and this is only a chapter, my friend, you can handle the pain. You can handle the suffering. You can handle the disappointment. You can handle the setbacks Because this is nowhere near all there is. When you look at things through the backdrop of eternity, because you get your drumbeat from heaven, and that's eternity. Pain looks different because it's temporary. People look different Because you don't just see them as some Republican or Democrat or independent or black or white or millennial or woke or not woke. No, that's not what you see. You see people who are going to inhabit eternity forever in one of two places. Everything looks different. People look different. Pain looks different. Your your priorities look different. Seek first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Everything, if you do that, everything revolves around what matters in heaven. If it doesn't matter in heaven, it shouldn't matter here. Because we're in the king, we represent the kingdom of heaven. It makes your sacrifices look different. Some of you sacrificed a lot. Well that question came up in Matthew. In chapter 19, finally, Peter gets around something they're probably all dying to ask. Lord, we've left everything to follow you. What's it going to be for us? What's in it for us? Way to go, Peter. Well, you is the great question. Jesus said. Everyone who's left houses or brothers or sister or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much. You don't get your payoff. Well, he said you get some. There's some here. But he said they will and they will inherit eternal life. But he said, the payoff isn't here. The sacrifices look different. Now the sacrifices look like all loss if this is all there is. But if this is the if we're in the kingdom of heaven, hey, more sacrifice, more eternal reward. There's an Old Testament picture that I I think really helps us see why we're here and what the rest of your life should be about. It's actually before David was crowned king or was acknowledged as king, Saul is still chasing him around. Saul is not going to let him become king. 1 Chronicles chapter 11, let me just tell you tell you the deal here. He is not the king. He has already been chosen by God, anointed to be the rightful king, but he's not on the throne yet. And it talks about David's mighty warriors who gave his kingship strong support to extend it over the whole land as the Lord had promised. They were betting everything they had on the guy who wasn't on the throne yet. He didn't have the army, he didn't have the palace, he didn't have all the power of the throne. But they were betting on him. Let's go on to the other verses here. Day after day men came to help David until he had a great army. Like the army of God. Again, they're just saying this guy's the one who's going to be king. He should be king. One more. All these were fighting men who volunteered to serve in the ranks. They came to Hebron fully determined. to make David king over all Israel. All the rest of the Israelites were now of one mind to make David king. You know what these guys were? They were loyal to the rightful king, and they were committed to enthroning him. Do you know who we are? Kingdom of heaven people? We are the loyal servants of the rightful king Committed to enthroning him in people's hearts. I want to live in such a way that they will want the king who makes me like I am. Tomorrow we're going to talk about a different kind of Christian That's going to be an important one. And Jesus is going to describe for us a kind of person that sadly is not necessarily describing most of us today But this kind of Christian is a Christian people will believe. Alrighty, so there's the the the other the new drummer, the different drummer Second hope factor is what I call the revolutionary force. What's the first word in the message of John the Baptist, Jesus' forerunner? Let's ask Matthew Chapter 3, verse 1. First word. No day John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Repent Repent. What's the first word in the first sermon we have that Jesus preached? Well, we don't have that on the screen, but that's in chapter 3, verse 17. Jesus says, we read it earlier, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is here. So why is repent the open this is not a great opening line. Why is this the starting point for the establishing of the kingdom of heaven? Well, you've probably seen the Greek word metanoia is the word for uh for repent. Meta means change. Hello, Facebook. Meta means change. And noia means mind It means a total 360 turn a chain turn a chain of uh actually 180 that's because the lifestyle of Jesus is so counter to our culture And so counterintuitive the way we're wired, our natural way of choosing. It is so counterintuitive It has to begin with change. That's why the change word is the starting point for the kingdom of heaven. It has to involve change. What's kind of interesting is that when John the Baptist is preaching this way, the big religious uh pubas from Jerusalem are there. They must have been intimidating. They're like, check out this loony bin guy out here running around eating locusts and wild honey. And they're like, excuse me, do you know who we are? We are the children of Abraham. And John very reverently says to them, yeah, those stones could be children of Abraham. We worked hard. We worked hard to become. . . He said, listen, when it comes to repentance, there are no exceptions. There are no exemptions. And there's no entitlement. Well, you know, I've worked hard for the Lord and I've certainly I could. . . There are no privileged characters when it comes to the starting point for the kingdom of heaven. See, um back then and now, people have wanted what I call a me Siah I kind of spell a little different. Yeah, I want a Messiah. I want a Messiah. I want Jesus on my terms. I want him make to make things like I want them. I want him to be in favor of my agenda. There's a very disturbing and very insightful piece, and I don't normally just read from things in a message, but uh this I I found disturbing and I'm only reading a couple of excerpts It's from an article called The Evangelical Church is Coming Apart, something like that. I thought, well, that's a pretty doomsday. Listen to what he says. See if it rings true. The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace, but of grievances. This is happening in so many churches I know. Pastors are wanting to leave in droves because of this. Places where tribal identities are reinforced This is a church, where fears are nurtured and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. The result is not only wounding the nation, it's having a devastating impact on the Christian faith. And I'm going to skip to just a couple things that I highlighted a lot in the article. And by the way, this man is an evangelical professor. He says, the aggressive, disruptive, and unforgiving mindset of our culture has found a home in many American churches. How many people look at churches in America these days and see the face of Jesus Wait a minute, we're supposed to be showing them what a life is like when Jesus is in charge. One more quote. We want Jesus to validate everything we believe. There's the Messiah. The Jesus of the Gospels, the Jesus who won their hearts and who long ago won mine, needs to be reclaimed I say amen. Um you may or may not, but the point is this We want a Jesus who will endorse what we want a one who's political. That's probably what got Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus was the fact that he he was looking for a Messiah. And Jesus didn't live up to the political expectations. Or we want them to be part of, we want to get him in our kingdom, our little tribe, or to be angry like we are, or to endorse the status quo, or we want Jesus to be American. We have we want our Messiah. But it's his kingdom. It's on his terms. You don't tell the king what his kingdom's agenda will be. Get used to different. Carrying out his agenda. By the way There are times I have seen that. Not everybody is is failing the test of our times. No. Remember a few years ago at the Mother Church? In uh Charleston, when a young man came in, said um he wanted to go to the Bible study, the prayer time. After which he shot and killed nine African Americans, including the pastor of the church. Well What's interesting is how those people in a church that's wholly ground in the African-American community reacted. CNN was there that night. Um Michael Garagus um leading defense attorney. He's been on many prominent trials. He said, I have never seen forgiveness like this in my life. This is on National Cable News. And Anderson Cooper said, Amazing Grace is more than a song here tonight. It is a way of life. in their deepest, darkest, potentially most hateful hour, he said, I see amazing grace. That's the kingdom of heaven. On display on earth. I want to be like that Now he is not our Messiah. But in a way, I'm sorry, I mess with words. He is our Messiah Because he's come to clean up the mess that we have made, and that we are. So you know what that requires? Repentance. The abandonment of the me-first choices of our lives. There are more than we realize. So the revolutionary force that launches a life into a whole new depth of modeling that the kingship of Jesus begins with a commitment to change called repentance. Now here's the fun part. The ultimate game changer The invincibility of the rule of Jesus is anchored to what I consider to be one of the most mind-blowing declarations in all of Scripture and Matthew is the one chosen by God to capture it. Matthew 28, 18, Jesus came to them and said, All Authority in heaven and on earth, as it is in heaven, so it is on earth, has been given to me Let me take you for a journey into the word Jesus used there, authority. The Greek word is exusia. It has three meanings. You can't grasp it unless you get all three of them. Number one Exercia means the right to decide. The person who has the right to decide this. What's true, what's not, what will happen, what won't happen, the right to decide. Jesus says, I've got all of that. I have all of that Secondly, it's the ability to accomplish what you decide. There's a lot of things I could decide that I can't pull off I don't have the ability to accomplish them. Jesus says, not only do I have all right to decide on everything in heaven and earth, but I have all ability to accomplish it. But wait, there's more. It finally means the power to prevail. He said, only weeks after walking out of his grave, out of the billions of people who will ever walk planet Earth, one walks out of his grave under his own power. One. Only one. He says, I have all right to decide, and I have all ability to accomplish what I decide, and should there be any obstacles, should there be anything in the way, should there be any opposition, I have all power to prevail. All authority. That's the game changer. Because some of us here brought burdens And brokenness, and people we love And disease and medical issues. Future questions. We brought him here with us. That's the baggage you can't unpack in your room. Over which Jesus says, I have all right to decide. I have all ability to accomplish. And I have all power to prevail. And I can get it done in heaven. And when it gets done in heaven, it'll get done on earth Whew! Man, many of you have heard the quote that there is not one thumbbreadth of all creation over which Jesus does not say. It is mine. So Matthew is going to show us in his gospel that Jesus is in control Where we have no control. Over disease. Jesus said to the centurion with his dying servant, go, let it be done, just as you believed it would. And his servant was healed at that moment. His all authority, right to decide, ability to accomplish, power to prevail over disease. Over disaster, Matthew 8. 26, same chapter. You have little faith, why are you so afraid? He got up and rebuked the winds. Nature does what he says. Rebuke the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. He not only does that in nature, he does that in a human heart. He has all authority over demons that no man has rule over. But listen, in chapter 8, verse 16, when evening came Many who were demon-possessed were brought to him. He drove out the spirits with a word. With a word. And healed all the sick. See, no man can control a storm. No man can control a disease. No man can control demons. But the king can. Because he has all authority including over the things that we have no authority over. And finally, in Matthew 28, by the way, something like one-third of the book of Matthew is devoted to the last week of Jesus. Because that's that's the heart and soul. Look at this. His appearance was like lightning, his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men This is the Jesus who prevails over that which no one prevails over, but one, over death. And his total authority, oh I love this, is the basis for our mission to a world who hasn't crowned him king. Because look at what comes after all authority is given to me in heaven and earth. Therefore, what's the rule? Let me see therefore, see what it's there for. Well wait, let's go back. Therefore, what therefore? I have all authority. So you can dare to do something and risk something bigger with your life than you could ever imagine or make sense of or explain to anybody. Because I'm gonna have you go. And these guys had all scattered and failed him completely. Just, you know, like what, four weeks ago? Go and make disciples of all nations. We're going to do all the nations. Yeah, you are. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But it's based on our entire mission. We can dare to tell someone about Jesus. We can dare to risk our future for Jesus. We can dare to do something bolder than we've ever done before. We can dare to say yes. to the thing he's asking us to do that is overwhelming to us. Because therefore, all authority is given to him in heaven and earth. Therefore, go. So I said there were six passions that drove the early church and once changed the world that could change it again. Here's the first kingdom passion. Took us all this time to get there, but we're there. That once changed the world, fully believed and lived out by the first believers. His authority. that decides the outcomes. The government doesn't decide the outcome. The election doesn't decide the outcomes. The condition does not decide the outcomes. Jesus decides the outcomes. Now I will say this As somebody who um It's very outcome-oriented. I am. Anybody in evangelism should be. By the way, I thought, boy, if you wanted somebody to count the number of people in an evangelistic meeting, should have Matthew do it, because he included everybody. But anyway, here's the thing. When we try to manage the outcomes, and many of us here in our business In our family, in our children, our grandchildren, our marriage, in our ministry very nobly, not necessarily for selfish reasons, want to kind of help manage it to the outcome that we think should happen Here's what I have learned. That the more I try to manage the outcome, and a noble outcome, not a self-serving one. The more we delay God doing it, the more we interfere, the more we mess things up, and the more mistakes we make. Um maybe you'll hear your name in this sentence. In a wonderful way The Lord has said to me over the past two years, you're not in charge, Ron. Hear your name in that sentence. You're not in charge. On January 4th, 2021, I wrote this at the beginning of a new year. Lord, your message to me in 2020 is let me do this. Hands off. To the extent that I have done that, it has been remarkable. I said in August of this year, I'm reading right from my journal, these pandemic months have wrenched all control from our hands. and driven us to a helpless desperation and a deep dependency on you. It has not been easy Lots of hard and painful decisions. Many surrenders along the way. But also the sole unburdening freedom of letting go. and letting God. If I now choose this hands-off parenthesis, totally counterintuitive for me, an empty hands approach. It can become a new, more free, less anxious, more enjoyable way to lead and minister for the rest of my life. The results are amazing. They are awe-inspiring. Bringing me to love you more, sweet Jesus You use the pandemic to register to render our minist our ministry muscle memory inadequate, if not useless. This is only written for me, by the way. I haven't planned to read this to anybody. I've suddenly moved from veteran to rookie again From senior to freshman. It's all you from here on, Lord Jesus Watching it happen instead of making it happen. And resting instead of wrestling. That's what the authority of Jesus can free you to do. So think about this. What if Jesus has total authority over the situation That occupies a prominent place in your heart right now? What if he in fact has all authority? What if he has total authority over what's breaking your heart? What if he has total authority over what's burdening your heart? What if he has total authority over what's raising fear? In your heart. Your Jesus will decide the outcomes The famous painting of uh Faust playing the devil in chess And he has the devil has managed to totally checkmate the man he is playing. And in that painting. The man is slumped over the table, done for, and the devil is leering at him triumphantly. People come to the museum and look at the painting. They look at it and they they go away needing Prozac. I mean this is like depressing. One great chess master came one day And he stood there and barely blinked as he stared for a full hour just at that painting. And then a second hour. Then third hour. And suddenly, his voice rings throughout the museum. It's a lie! It's a lie! The king has one more move. Your king always has one more move. And it may feel like you are chuckmated, and you are, but he is the king with one more move. Yeah, I think you could applaud him for that. That is right. Always one more move. So He's gonna decide the outcomes and you know what I think that delivers to you? That should be a truckload of new hope for you, for your prodigal son. Your prodigal daughter. A grandson or granddaughter. Should be a new truckload of hope medically. Maritally. Parentally. Organizationally. That's a truckload of hope. Because the king who went to a cross for you has the final word Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise. Your brothers and sisters have been singing this for fifteen centuries. Thou mine inheritance, now and always, thou and thou only, first in my heart, High King of Heaven. My treasure thou art. High King of heaven, my victory won. May I reach heaven's joy, O bright heaven sun. Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, you know, still be my vision. Ruler of all. That's why We can be a taste of heaven to an earth that is so unraveling and so dangerous and dark What does that life look like tomorrow morning? Counterculture, counterintuitive, but amazingly powerful. In fact, you'll want it. So you see in your notes We live in the safety and the security of the loving sovereignty Of the King of all Kings. You can let go And you can let God. And may we carry his hallelujah and his praises and his life from outside of our cocoon to where the people who have not yet enthroned him as king Can get a taste of him