[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a Bible turned to Matthew chapter 6
[SPEAKER_00]: and find verse 31.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in a series called Becoming Like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's what the purpose of the church is, the will of God for the people of God is to become like Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is week three of Act Like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you're turning there, I just want to take a moment just to give thanks to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Students, you are an answer to our church's prayers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you being here, I like your shirts.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: What God is doing in and among the next gen ministries of citizen's church is just an answer to our prayers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so thankful to God for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I know that you've heard this from multiple people this morning and this weekend and then even before this weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: But your church loves you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your church is proud of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not an older generation's church.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is your church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're so grateful for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't take for granted that everybody here is here because citizens is your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you came to focus with a friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're not usually in church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And church is a strange place for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so just know this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not a perfect people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not a perfect place, and I am far from a perfect pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are broken, sinful people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we have is we have a perfect Savior who loves us and has saved us and cherishes us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, whoever you are, whatever your church background or story is, you're welcome here, and this can be home for you if you want it to be home for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: 18 years ago, this month, I bought an engagement ring,
[SPEAKER_00]: from a jeweler in college station.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep that energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have a chance to amen in a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Baudering from a jeweler in an unnamed city.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, the bank bought it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I was contractually obligated to pay it back with interest.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not romantic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I bought an engagement ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I bought it because I was going to propose to my girlfriend.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had dated for about two years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our first date was in September of 2005 at Chili's, where love is born.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we dated long distance for a few years.
[SPEAKER_00]: The longer we dated, the more convinced I was that she was a gift to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted to marry her and follow Jesus with her for as many years as the Lord would give us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I proposed in November of 2007 at a park by the village apartments in Dallas.
[SPEAKER_00]: And within a week or so, we said a wedding date.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carrie's love language is having a plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, we said a date real quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: July 26th of 2008 in New Bromphal's Texas work, Carrie grew up.
[SPEAKER_00]: from November of 2007 to July of 2008, was just one of the most interesting seasons of my entire life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because everything about that season of life was lived between these two really significant events, at least significant for me in our relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the proposal in the past,
[SPEAKER_00]: and then the wedding in the future, her yes, I will marry you began this season of preparation and expectation that wouldn't end until her, I do, on our wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so lots of life in between those two events could only be explained by the fact that we were living in between those two events.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we started primeral counseling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we started looking for a place to live in Dallas.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I saved money like I'd never saved money.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friends would go out to eat and I'd stay home and eat a pepperoni pizza hot pocket just to save money.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because they're amazing, so I had conversations with mentors who'd been married for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just ask them, hey, how do I do this well?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't want to just have an awesome wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to have a rich marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so how do we do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you looked at my life in between those two events, those seven months or whatever it was, you would have seen me, you would have seen carry act in ways that only made sense because we were living in between proposal and wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could have asked me, why are you saving money?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you reading that book?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you talking to those people about marriage?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say because she said yes, and she will say I do, because we got engaged, and we one day will get married.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an event in the past, and an event in the future, and I'm living the way I'm living because I'm living in between those two events.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my go-to illustration to try to capture something about the Christian life that I think if we don't know,
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we aren't mindful of, if we don't remember, a lot of what God calls us to just doesn't make us much sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you Christian, your whole life is lived between two events.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus' resurrection in the past, and Jesus' return in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: and there should be things about your life that only makes sense because you believe in those two events.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let me show you this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's helpful for me to stay with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world that Jesus stepped into had an expectation for what would happen in history that was different that one actually happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're gonna slide behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of us in our world today, we think what's going to happen is we, um, Christian are not.
[SPEAKER_00]: We think that what's going to happen is one day we die, and then we will go to whatever, you know, heaven we believe in or whatever, heaven we imagine in our minds.
[SPEAKER_00]: That wasn't quite what it was for the people that lived when Jesus first lived and taught and ministered.
[SPEAKER_00]: They believed in two ages that they were living in this age.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there was an age that would come.
[SPEAKER_00]: In those two ages, we're divided by this one event.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this age is the present evil age with the Bible calls it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this age is marked by sin and death and cancer and idolatry and rejection of God and wise in your own eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all these things that we know are still around us now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the age to come is the uninterrupted presence of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: and worship, and no sickness, and no death, and every tear wiped away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whatever he expected was that there would be this
[SPEAKER_00]: History, altering, cataclysmic event, the coming of the Messiah, the outpouring of the Spirit and the general resurrection of the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what everybody expected to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is what Martha believed in John 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again, and Martha said this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Lazarus dies, she's weeping, she's like Jesus, you're too late, and they're having a conversation, and Martha said to him,
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last day of what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the last day of this age.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the thought was there was a final day of the present evil age.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Messiah would come, Martha Believe, her brother, would be raised to life on that day, and then the age to come would start.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever one thought would be one event,
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus makes two events.
[SPEAKER_00]: He splits history into two different events.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have another slide to show you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're living in this age, and Jesus comes, and brings the Spirit in there's resurrection.
[SPEAKER_00]: But is the age to come here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's here already, but it's not yet completely here.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus comes, he does things that belonged only to the age to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he heals a little girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he forgives people of their sin, and he silences demons, that's all age to come stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he does it in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they kill him, and they discover that death could not hold him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He raises again to the Aggies Miss an opportunity to amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the one you owed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They kill him and they discover that death could not hold him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He raises from the dead and when he raised from the dead, because that's something everyone thought would happen at the end of the age.
[SPEAKER_00]: The disciples asked this question in Acts 1, 6.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they came together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we're done, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The world's ending.
[SPEAKER_00]: You rose from the dead, everything's going to be right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, that's not for you to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to wait for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tells them to be faithful to make disciples where they are around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he has since the heaven, and then they just stand there staring up into the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Acts 111, an angel has to come and tell them what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?
[SPEAKER_00]: And this Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every single follower of Jesus since this moment has been living in this kind of reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus rose, He ascended, and He one day will return.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live in between those two events.
[SPEAKER_00]: The present age has already begun.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're forgiven of all of your sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christian, past present in future.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have the spirit of God that has come at Pentecost because Jesus promised it and delivered on his promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are ways that we get to be confident and who God is and God's love for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are all age to come realities that you get to experience right now because the age to come is already.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: You struggle with the sins that you struggle with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see heartbreaking things that we see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do we live in this kind of tension of some of the things that we want and hope or hear and some of them just feel so delayed and far from us because we live in between?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the already not yet life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The age to come is here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not yet here and full.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's my question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is the already not yet reflected in your life the way you live, the way you act?
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody could have come to me in February of 2008 and said,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you're doing what you're doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you reading that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you saving money like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say,,,,,,,,, because she said,, yes, and she will say, I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're engaged in the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be married in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can someone Christian look at you in October of 2025?
[SPEAKER_00]: And see in you the kinds of things that only make sense if Jesus rose and will return.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you act like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you sacrifice like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you say, oh well, my Savior rose.
[SPEAKER_00]: He defeated death, and my Savior will return.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're living in this age that is marked by sin, but that's not the only age we're living and we're also living in the age that Jesus brought the moment he rose from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus preaches a whole sermon on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The most popular sermon ever preached in the history of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sermons message can be summarized by the prayer that Mr. Robin read for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole sermon is the ethics of an already not yet people.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, you cannot live.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot faithfully follow the ethics of the sermon if you don't believe Jesus' rows and will return.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this is what life looks like for an already not yet people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to name a few realities that should mark our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are aged-to-com realities that should mark our lives right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things that are only true for already not yet people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am deliberately choosing these three because I think we need them in this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: So cards on the table,
[SPEAKER_00]: I cherry picked some of these from the Sermon on the Mount because we need them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope in an age of anxiety, kingdom confidence in an age of political turmoil, resilient faith in an age of fragility.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because Jesus rose, and because He will return, there should be counter, cultural, kingdom, realities in your life that the watching world sees coming out of your life and says, how?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope in an age of anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew 631 says this, therefore, do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear for the Gentiles seek after these things?
[SPEAKER_00]: and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all, but seek first the kingdom of God in His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The present ages anxious.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was then when Jesus first preached the servant, and it is now, we talk about it a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot to worry about in life because there's a lot worth caring about in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our worries are so often associated with good things that we care a lot about because we should.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus' original audience is asking really good questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: What shall we eat?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great question.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't eat you starve, what shall we drink?
[SPEAKER_00]: Without water you die.
[SPEAKER_00]: What shall we wear?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not, they're not asking a fashion question without clothes, they're vulnerable to the elements, they'll get sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then today,
[SPEAKER_00]: Many people are asking really good questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's going to happen to my family?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will I ever get better?
[SPEAKER_00]: Does anyone love me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will my parents always fight?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will I always have these doubts?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will I ever get a job?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will we ever be able to have kids?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will I always feel anxious?
[SPEAKER_00]: Our questions are not will I eat questions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they're not as life-threatening, but it doesn't mean they don't matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: people in the present age.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this age is all you have, there is nowhere to go with your anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if this age is all there is, then what do you do if what you're worried about actually happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: In this age is not what you thought it would be, what you worry that actually comes true.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like the people Jesus preached to, they might not actually know where tomorrow's food is coming from and that matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people in this room, people around us, might not actually know if anyone in this world loves them, or if they'll ever get better, or if things will ever change.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what Jesus offers is not, it'll be fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're too blessed to be stressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't offer that kind of platitude, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: What he offers is age to come reality of the present kingdom and the Father's care.
[SPEAKER_00]: And your heavenly Father knows that you need them all seek first the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: As an already not yet people, we have hope in an anxious age.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter is here when Jesus reaches the sermon, and he's later going to include these truths in his letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: The very two ideas that Jesus connects here, the coming kingdom and the Father's care, and Peter says this in 1 Peter 3, 1 through 5, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: My family's on their way to church about a month ago, and my seven-year-old in the backseat, says to my wife, Mom, I know you and Dad aren't rich,
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think you have money you don't share with us kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she has no idea how not true that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, they get all of it, especially her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's our youngest, so maybe we keep things from a brother and sister, but she gets all there we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter uses that in family metaphor, and he's talking about the wealth of the father, and the relationship of the father's riches to his children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter says, we're born again into this hope, we're separated from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all born orphaned from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Self-inflicted.
[SPEAKER_00]: The age to come is only for the family of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only for the family of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're all born into the present evil age and we're all part of it and we contribute to the brokenness because evil and sin are not just around us, they're within us.
[SPEAKER_00]: and according to God's mercy, He has caused us to be born again into His family.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say clean yourself up and we'll see.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say do better.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't compare us to people who are godlier than us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say only people who've never committed the really bad sins that some of us have committed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I will give my son my only son.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will die in your place and take all of your sin and the weight of the wrath of the present evil age will fall entirely on him so that you can come as you are and be forgiven and be accepted and be born again into my family as my forever child.
[SPEAKER_00]: Students, remember, Mike taught us this last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our identity as saints means that we are set apart children of God, members of the household of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what Peter says, and you're heavenly Father, whose rich with mercy is the kind of Father who shares all He has with His children.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never have to wonder if in the back seat if He's keeping any of the riches of His mercy from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: a father rich with mercy gives the best inheritance to his kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imperishable and defiled unfading untouched by death, unimpaired by time, unstained by evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uninheritance, you know what this, uninherit, I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uninheritance is something that already has your name on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It already has your name on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It already belongs to you, you just don't possess it yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because Christ was raised, you will be raised.
[SPEAKER_00]: because he rose from the dead, and because you by grace through faith belong in the family of God, when Christ returns, his resurrection in the past becomes your resurrection on that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what your anxious about beloved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if what you worry about will happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if what you worry about has already happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're an already not yet people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look right at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your worst case scenario is resurrection and eternal life with your risen Savior and your merciful heavenly Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have hope in an anxious age.
[SPEAKER_00]: Has an already not yet people, you have hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kingdom confidence in an age of political turmoil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew five, Jesus starts the sermon this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the poor and spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are those who mourn.
[SPEAKER_00]: For they shall be comforted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the meek.
[SPEAKER_00]: For they shall hear the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the pure and heart, for they shall see God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the peacemakers,
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm it's hard to understand how politically charged the environment around Jesus is when He preaches this sermon, the political climate of our present age is tumultuous.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was then, just like it is now.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, Israel was under Roman occupation.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were an occupied people in their own land.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for the people, these first century Jews who lived in Gowley, who were sitting and listening to this sermon, soldiers police their streets, Roman soldiers police their streets.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were unfairly taxed, and Rome was quick to use the sword when they needed to to bring their version of peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's easy to think that our political day is uniquely divided.
[SPEAKER_00]: or uniquely tumultuous, and Jesus' first followers experienced all that, probably to a greater degree, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were surrounded like we are, these people who heard this sermon, they were surrounded by different political solutions to the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some wanted to fight, they were called the zealots.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had to retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were called the Assines.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had to make unholy alliances with political power.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were called the Sadducees, the Herodians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had to return the country to the past glory days.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were the Pharisees.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to remember those names.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's important to see is something my friends at KS1 showed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: In every generation, when humans try and solve the ache of life, we only have a handful of recurring strategies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Retreat, make alliances, recreate the past, and the people around Jesus wanted him to weigh in on which strategy he supported.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wanted Jesus to align himself with one of these political movements.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he stands up, and he starts the sermon, and he says, run for your lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Romans are gonna take everything you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stands up, and he says, it's time to fight for what you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't let them take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stands up and he says, let me tell you who side God is on and all this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stands up and he says, hey, here's who you have my permission to hate.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stands up and he says, I'm behind this political figure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have their sign in my yard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give them your unwavering, uncritical support.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tolerate their moral compromises because they're the last great hope for the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't say any of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the political discourse of his day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the political discourse of our day.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't sound like them, and he doesn't sound like us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sits down, and he says, blessed are the poor and spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure and heart, blessed are the peacemakers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even at all those people haven't common, they're all on the wrong side of the political power struggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are literally all the poor and powerless.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're meek, you get taken advantage of.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're merciful, you lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you hunger for righteousness, instead of vengeance and power, you lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of that made any sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: It definitely did not lead to a blessed life or a flourishing life or a secure life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless the kingdom has come.
[SPEAKER_00]: because the age to come will bring comfort from mourners.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the age to come will bring inheritance for the meek.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the age to come, the pure and heart will see God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace makers, we call God's children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will get everything they want.
[SPEAKER_00]: So some of that is already.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of that is not here yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, please hear me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus looks at a people and says, what the politics of the world cannot do for you, the kingdom of God will bring and no one can take it away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me lean into one, just so much to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me lean into one truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: In our divided to multiverse political moment, be confident in the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't try to get from politics what you can only get from King Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe two things are really hard to hold together right now, but I believe them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe Christians need to be engaged in influencing politics and policies.
[SPEAKER_00]: It matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: It affects people who are made in the image of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And look, if Christians retreat from that space, what's left are people who don't have the theology of the image of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't have a vision for an ordered society and the flourishing of all people, regardless of race, class, and religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlike Jesus' first audience, we live in a democracy, and we have a small measure, not a lot, but we have a small measure of power to affect change, and we, as Christians, should steward that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this country.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's the best the world has to offer as far as countries go, and I know I'm biased, because it's all I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love both top-gun movies.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love living here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that America lives up to her most God-honoring ideals and ambitions.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we are living in a time where politics has become religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Christians have given allegiance, affection, and worship to politics that only belongs to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two quotes I come back to on this, one's a pastor in New York named John Tyson.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are anxious about politics because they are insecure about the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we're insecure about the kingdom,
[SPEAKER_00]: We look to politics to be for us what only Christ and His kingdom can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think a lot of us have been fooled into thinking that what happens out there is real and what happens in here is just sentimental.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we're insecure about that, we look to politics to be for us what only Jesus can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my friend Zac asked why he says it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look to politics to meet our spiritual needs and then go to church to have our political views affirmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a time when Christians hate their political enemies and want their church to hate them, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Christians worship their political heroes and want their church to worship them, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christians are emotionally stirred by politics and emotionally flat at church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christians are over-informed on the national news and ignorant to the names and needs of their neighbors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christians care more about their church, aligning with their partisan convictions, than they care about them aligning with their theological convictions.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look to politics to meet our spiritual needs and go to church to have a political visa firm.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the longer I'm in this, the more confused I get, about how to hold these two things together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should be the best citizens of our cities in our state and our country.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to do our part to contend for human flourishing.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has appointed the government to promote good and restrain evil.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have to support that when they get it right and oppose it when they fall short.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in all of that,
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a spiritual malady of political idolatry where we live and I'm prepared to fight at the rest of my ministry, not because I don't think politics is important, but because the people of God cannot give their heart, their hope, their confidence to anything other than Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus would not say anything different today than he said then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing all the reels and all the chatter and all the videos, he would sit down and he would say blessed of the poor and spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the merciful, blessed are those who mourn.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the already not yet people who can be confident that God will do what politics can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And remember, one day, this is all that's left.
[SPEAKER_00]: No country, institution, government, principality, or power remains when the age to come is here and full.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing left standing is Christ and His church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kings and Kings must have all passed away at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and heaven on earth and under the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are an already not yet people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put your confidence in Christ and His kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have any more questions about that, email me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My email address is Adam at CitizenStruch.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Resilient face in an age of fragility.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew 5, 11 says, this, blessed are you and others reveal you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rejoice and be glad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are you and others reveal you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
[SPEAKER_00]: rejoice, and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets here before you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew 7, 24, to 27, Jesus ends the sermon with this really powerful metaphor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built this house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house but it did not fall because they've been founded on the rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built this house on the sand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a fragile age.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our age is allergic to pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: In many ways, the God of our culture is the God of comfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those who worship comfort offer the sacraments of leisure and escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't really know what to do with pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't really know what to do with difficulty and suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the passage we just read talks about two things that we try to avoid rejection and storms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are you and people persecute you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the most violent form of rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the rain falls, and the floods come, and the wind blows, the storm is a metaphor for suffering in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Painful, heartbreaking, suffering in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: If someone at the beginning of your life,
[SPEAKER_00]: came up to you and said, I'm going to offer you two options for life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Option one is a life of ease and comfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: And option two is a life of persecution and storms.
[SPEAKER_00]: We instinctively, we instinctively want option one, especially for people we love for our children, our family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the life of rejection and suffering is the life that feels like it's failing, it's not working, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And here mean, if this life, if the present age is all
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no rejoicing in persecution, and there is no way through the storm.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that's true, then we should avoid, if this is all there is, then we should avoid all difficulty at all cost, and we should store up treasures on earth because there is no heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says this, in First Corinthians, if in Christ, we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitted, but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: we don't have hope in this life only.
[SPEAKER_00]: So persecution, pain, rejection, storms, the suffering of this age, we view all of that in light of the age to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your faith is not fragile, it's resilient, it's resilient, because our faith is not in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our faith is in our Savior and the world that is to come, and persecution and storms cannot threaten the age to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I've never in my life heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never in my life heard this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, tell me about your story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And someone says, you know, there is a season of my life where everything went my way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life was easy, I got everything I wanted, took some nice trips, watched some great shows, and that easy season of life made me who I am today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never heard that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I've heard from people in this room, I've learned this from people in this room, tell me your story, my spouse died.
[SPEAKER_00]: My marriage fell apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: She left, he left.
[SPEAKER_00]: That thing, that nightmare happened to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rain fell, the flood came, the wind blew, and it hurt worse than I know how to explain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that storm, right in the middle of it, Jesus met me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he used that season to give me more of himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am the person I am today, not in spite of the storm,
[SPEAKER_00]: The storm did not rob my faith, it refined it, because it did not take Jesus from me, it took me closer to Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is resilient faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's resilient faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of story that is only possible if there is an age that is and is to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people in this room who long most for the return of Christ are the people in this room who have wounds that will only be fully healed when Christ returns.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has refined their faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has given them a longing for the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has given them a longing for Jesus to split the sky and make everything right again.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it means for instance, it means that you Christian what you have because of your faith in the empty tomb, in the soon, promised return of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your faith is resilient.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can endure the storms.
[SPEAKER_00]: The options are not an easy life for a hard life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The option is difficulty with Jesus or difficulty without it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I've heard so many people say, I don't know how anyone does this without Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what else I've never heard?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never heard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I obeyed Jesus and I regretted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe in the moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've never heard someone say I spent a season denying myself, choosing Christ and others, pouring into scripture, confessing sin over and over and over again, choosing Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I could go back and do it all over, I wouldn't do any of it again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never heard that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I've never heard that because I'm a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: People don't say those kinds of things to pastors.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have heard, I have heard, I spent weeks, months, years of my life running from the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: doing what's right in my own eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hurt people, I hurt myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I could do it all over again, I would choose his way and not mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a resilient faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that resilient faith does not go chase storms.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's ready when those storms come.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't go chase them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that resilient faith does choose sacrificial painful obedience to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: and already not yet people should expect to do hard things for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Should expect to say no to things in this life because we're holding on to the promises of the life to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the quote that Colton shared in his testimony a few weeks ago by getting Greg Morse when we pass through the gates of glory how many of us will wish we had faced more trials.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like soldiers returning home, will we secretly regret not having more stories to tell or scars to explain?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will eternity unveil the ease we chose, the risks we refused, the obedience we delayed, to stand tall and glory we first been loaded carry across?
[SPEAKER_00]: When the age to come is here and full, you will not wish you had played it safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will wish, we will wish we had more courage for the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will wish we would have denied self more, standing in the back of the room last night, our students are worshiping.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just praying for them, and thanking God for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just had this moment where I thought, gosh, if I could go back and tell 15 year old jayman anything, I would tell him to buy stock and apple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it would just help things.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I could tell Jayman, anything at 15, Jesus loves you way more than you think he does, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He loves you way more than you think he does.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you will never regret obeying him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will regret, there are seasons of life coming, jaymen where you will regret living for yourself and indulging in your sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will never regret paying the cost of discipleship and giving Jesus all you've got.
[SPEAKER_00]: Students, some of you made decisions this weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: To deny yourself, to stop doing things you've been doing, to confess things that nobody else knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you may decisions to follow Jesus and obey Jesus, and those decisions might cost you popularity, it might cost you relationships, it might cost you experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will never regret your obedience to Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is no fool who gives what He cannot keep to gain.
[SPEAKER_00]: What He cannot lose.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a fragile age, we are a people of resilient faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can endure storms, and we can do hard things for the glory of King Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you pray with me?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not done.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think what's left for us to do is best done in conversation with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you just consider so many more things we could have said?
[SPEAKER_00]: For now, would you just consider your in-between life as their hope coming out of you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Kingdom confidence coming out of you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Resilient faith coming out of you, somebody observed your life, what you do, what you think, what you say, how you spend, would there be evidence
[SPEAKER_00]: that you're in already not yet Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there the kind of hope?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there the kind of kingdom confidence?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there the kind of resilient faith that can only be explained if you believe Jesus rose and will return?
[SPEAKER_00]: Search your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what's true, Beloved.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't become hopeful people by trying to become hopeful people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't become confident in the kingdom by trying to become confident in the kingdom and we don't get resilient faith by working hard for resilient faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: These things happen in us when we look back at the empty tomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we look forward at the return of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So would you pray?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you look back and pray now and give thanks for the resurrection of Jesus that secured your salvation and your eternal future?
[SPEAKER_00]: Give thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And would you look forward
[SPEAKER_00]: And would you say what our brothers and sisters have said for centuries, come, Lord Jesus, come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we're asking spirit of God is we're asking that somewhere in between our gratitude that you defeated death.
[SPEAKER_00]: and our longing for your return in between that you're making us a people full of hope and confidence in faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our lives are yours, we surrender to you, Lord Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to offer you our sacrificial obedience this morning, because you're worth it, you're worth it.