Transcript

The Heart Before Behavior

We’re going to talk about the Beatitudes, which outline eight traits of the kingdom citizens. They describe the kind of heart that receives God’s blessings, a heart that knows its need and dependencies on God.

And this heart call is the focus of the kingdom of God. We then learned last week about what that looks externally when Alison taught us about being followers of Christ or salt and light.

And that followers live a life shaped by the kingdom naturally affecting the world around them. Salt preserves and adds flavor.

Light shows the way. So disciples are meant to make visible what God is like so that others can glorify the Father.

That’s what we’ve gotten through so far. The Beatitudes and the salt and the light, they set the stage for this next passage today.

And it’s a doozy as well as the rest of the Sermon on the Mount by establishing the identity of the inward character. I want us to hear that all day today.

Inward character of a disciple before Jesus demands any radical outward standards. He will always want the heart first.

The Beatitudes are an internal posture of a believer and salt and light define the outward mission of the believer. But oftentimes we want to be so outwardly good we don’t examine our inwardly lack of goodness.

And that is what this whole sermon on a mount is about. There’s a lot to cover.

I grew up in a church that was very legalistic. I don’t blame my mom and dad for it.

That’s what they knew. My mom’s always like, “I’m so sorry I kept you boys in that for so long. Mom, if you’re listening, it’s all good. I love you.”

But it was very legalistic. Couldn’t have long hair, had to dress a certain way, could not even go to movies, couldn’t go to dances, couldn’t do this, couldn’t listen to rock and roll.

No drums in the church because that’s the devil’s instrument. Anybody else can feel that with me in the room?

Anybody else experience that? But the funny thing is, it was rich in doctrine, rich in theology.

I knew my Jesus flannel graph stories from the time I was three all the way through. I had all the Bible verses memorized.

I was on the Bible drill team. I went on mission trips.

I did all those things. But internally, I felt like a fraud for years.

And it’s no different. In fact, Garrett and I talked this week as we’re looking through this passage together, and him in Young Life, me in Youth Ministry.

There’s always this question that comes up, not just with youth, but more often with youth, it’s like, “Well, what can I do? How far can I go? Can I do this? Where’s the line?” And I remember my own kids saying it to me, “Well, what is wrong, what is right?”

And I would say something that came to me later in my life that would drive people crazy and my kids crazy is, “That’s between your heart and what you think God is telling you.” “Well, how am I supposed to know that?”

I’m saying this as a former youth pastor, generations of people that can show up on Sunday shiny and clean, and yet drive away feeling like, “I am such a fraud. I can’t do this. I really can’t do it the way they think I should do it.” And we’ve made it a performance.

And that’s the Israel that Jesus is preaching to in this moment. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, really good people.

Strong intentions had made it performance and outward exhibit, while the inside, he said, were white sepulchers rotting away. Now, I’m not calling any of you white sepulchers today.

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m trying to use a little bit of hyperbole, like Jesus is going to do in this passage, to say, it is the inward heart that God wants first before the outward actions.

I want you to remember that as we walk through this today. So, I think most people look at the Sermon on the Mount, and they’re going to get a bit overwhelmed by this passage. It’s kind of like studying for a big test, and you go in, and you’re like, “I am not going to do good on this test.”

And you don’t. That was usually me.

And you’re trying to pass the test and answer all the questions right, and you’re like, “How can I keep all these laws and rules?” But I want to suggest that Jesus is asking something entirely different today.

What he’s asking and what he’s saying is, “I’m going to do this.”

What kind of person is at the center of you?

What kind of person is at the center of you? The heart of you.

The heart of you. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ most thorough teaching on what the Kingdom of God looks like.

It’s heart change before behavior change. Here’s what it is in its simplicity.

The Kingdom of God is not only about a change in our behavior, it’s about a change in our heart and will.

The Kingdom of God is not only about a change in our heart and will.

What you truly believe and align with, it’s gonna influence your behaviors.

And your behaviors are gonna create a result in the way you work and impact around the world. Behavior, beliefs, behaviors, results.

Not like trophy results, the results of your life in the world that God has given us. So it’s this outward conformity that this is not about.

We need to have salt and light living. Jesus begins by saying that he has come to, not throw out the law, but fulfill it.

And he goes through six things in here. Six of the most highly contested laws at the time.

If they had made a greatest hits album of like podcasts back in the day of what about this law, this law, these were the six highest listened to podcasts. Now, I’m not gonna have time to delve into each one individually.

I wanna say this up front. It’s not about each individual law.

‘Cause what you’re going to hear is Jesus is going to say the law and he goes, but I tell you. That’s what we wanna hear today.

Are we good now? Thank you.

A little cozy there. This will be great on video out there in the world.

Let me get my train back on the track. Oh, he’s gonna have six contrast.

And he’s gonna say some version of this. You have heard it said, but I say to you.

I want us to focus on, but I say to you. That’s what I want us to focus on today.

‘Cause we could go down a rabbit hole of every one of these laws. Laws, and they are important, they are appropriate, they need to be theologically dug in.

You need to come to a resolution of how you view each one of these, but we do not have the capacity to do that all today.

Fulfilling the Law

But let’s begin with what Jesus says first in verse 17. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.”

Notice first what Jesus is clarifying. The crowd is already nervous.

This teacher of Nazareth that they’re curious, that they’re listening to, he’s been healing people, alright, with nobody’s authorization, which was against the law then. He’s been welcoming people that nobody would welcome, that they would steer away from.

And he’s speaking with an authority that even the scribes and Pharisees didn’t claim to speak of. He is already rattling the fences and they’re coming to learn more.

And they’re wondering, is he just going to tear down everything we know about God and the law and what Moses taught us? And Jesus says plainly, “No, that’s not why I’ve come. You think I’ve come to abolish the law, but I haven’t. I’ve come to fulfill the law.”

And this was radical. It’s like he was saying, the seed isn’t abolished when it becomes a tree.

The tree is just the fulfillment of what the seed was here for, and I’m the seed. And I’m going to show you what the fulfillment is.

He clarified this when he said once, what’s the greatest commandment? He goes, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.”

This is the greatest commandment. And that’s the message.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And that’s going to be infused in everything he does.

I want us to keep an analogy in mind when we go through this. Were any of you ever in charge of washing the family car?

I am old school. That was one of my chores.

We had to wash the family car. And my dad was specific about how we washed the car, you know, and you start at the top, work your way down.

And I could wash the outside of the car great, and then I’d get tired and not really clean the inside up. And he’d get in the car and he goes, “It still stinks in here.”

You didn’t wipe the dashboard down.

You didn’t vacuum here. And it made me think of this is that we can get really good at washing the exterior of the car, but we don’t do anything in the inside.

We get on, we still can smell the spilled latte from two weeks ago. What is that?

We still have dust up on the, you know, dashboard. We got the sticky stuff all around the handle that we’re shifting with.

It smells a little bit. It’s like there’s stains on the seat from the food from last week.

If you’ve got kids, you understand what I’m saying that it’s not enough to clean the car. You’ve got to clean the outside of the car.

It looks pretty. But if the inside isn’t dealt with, you’re just climbing into yourself and the filth that you’re living in all the time.

And that’s what we are. We’re filthy rags and Jesus knows that.

So when he delves into these laws, he’s saying you need to do more than just clean the outside of the car. What are you doing to clean the inside?

Because that’s what I’m after. So he’s jumps into these and what he’s trying to say is that I’m going to ask you to live a righteousness that surpasses the Pharisees.

And this is going to get people freaked out. I can’t be better than a Pharisee.

Are you kidding me right now? But he’s going to try to get us to understand what does that mean?

And he’s trying to reinforce the point of fulfilling the law through the heart, not through your actions. So let’s jump through the first one right here.

He jumps into one that everybody should be okay with. You can check the box off.

I haven’t done that. I’ve got the first one down.

Do not murder. I think we’re good with that.

But it isn’t really about murder. It’s about anger.

And he says this, you have heard it said to the people long ago, you shall not commit murder. Check, done that.

I’m not doing those things. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with the brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

Come on now. I can’t get angry with anybody.

I just wanted to check that box and move along. While the commandment is against murder, all right, Jesus is saying, but what about your anger that drives that?

Anger and Reconciliation

Always looking for the check engine light on your dashboard. ‘Cause he wants to get under the hood and shows you what’s really going on.

He goes, where does murder originate? Murder is the last stop on a long road that begins with resentment, that becomes bitterness, that festers content.

The word in that passage, raka, is like this contemptuous word calling somebody foolish or you idiot, which is a direct insult to their humanness and who they are. The problem was not just the murder, the problem was the heart that nurses grievances against people and unsettled for years.

This whole thing, there’s studies all over about it. Gottman talked about all the time where we get, it begins with this resentment towards somebody.

And we don’t do anything about it, we let it sit there and fester. And that will become bitterness.

And that seed of bitterness will grow and deepen and then we end up with contempt for somebody. He goes, and when you reach contempt, there’s very little hope of coming back from that.

And that’s the relationship that Jesus is trying to get us seeing here. Where is the feelings inside that would drive you to do murder because you need to deal with those first?

He’s not talking about this flash of irritation or angers we blow up with now and then. He’s talking about anger that we keep, that we cultivate, that we justify, and it settles in our hearts.

I am right to be angry at that person. I’ve been there, folks.

And what do we do? We try to suppress it and be nice.

And God says, no, we’re gonna get under the hood, we’re gonna take care of it. In fact, he talks about, here’s an example, under the hood, verse 23 and 24.

If you’re at the altar in the middle of worship, and you remember that someone has something against you, leave your gift, go, be reconciled, and come back and offer your gift. He’s basically saying, you come to the altar with sacrifices and you’re holding on to resentment, anger, and bitterness toward his people, don’t come to my altar.

Go get that fixed first. Do you understand how radical that was?

Because the Jewish culture thought the sacrifice was going to clean me before God. He goes, I don’t want you coming to get clean before me before you go clean up your own mess.

That was radical. That’s the whole reason that a lot of institutions have confessions.

I go do that and I can go live my life, but they never resolve the true issue in their heart, all right? If you have something against somebody or you think they have something against you, we are called to resolve that before it roots into bitterness, resentment, and contempt.

He jumps again forward to something next.

Here’s another fun one. Lust, all right?

I know we got some heavy things going on here today. Verses 27 and 28.

You have heard it when it’s said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Wow, that was not fun to read as a teenage boy.

I’m like, that’s not true. That can’t be right.

I’m not committing adultery. I’m not even married.

The law forbade adultery, but Jesus goes to the root. He is not condemning the noticing of beauty.

He’s not condemning like, oh, that’s an attractive person. That’s not what he is saying.

He is talking about the deliberate look with a purpose and the gaze we choose and keep. The cultivated fantasy, the willful feeding of desire, the grammar points to looking in order to lust.

It’s this imagination turned into private theater where another human being becomes an object for our consumption. It’s not the recognition, it’s the rumination.

And that is a far deeper injury to one another than we could ever imagine. It poisons relationships long before it’s possible to imagine.

It’s a far deeper injury to one another than we could ever imagine. It poisons relationships long before any outward betrayal.

Lust and a Whole Heart

Any outward betrayal This is where the betrayal happens. By making the person across the table disappointing to the one that I am lusting after.

It creates a comparison table that God never wants us to go into. And then he says something radical.

If you’re struggling with this and you can’t get a hold of it, he says, cut off the hand, pluck out your eye. Again, an exaggeration of a teacher to make a point.

He goes, if you cannot manage this aspect of lust, it will destroy you. It will destroy you.

And I can say from personal experience, I can say from friends, from family, it has destroyed lives that I know of. And again, it’s not about the law of do not commit adultery.

We get that. We can say, I haven’t done that and give ourselves another checkmark.

And God’s like, what about the interior? What’s going on up here?

And we need to give each other grace in that. Listen to this, because that is not easy for a lot of people.

There’s been things trained into our young men today. The access that young men and young women have to things to see and the things that they observe is creating a diabolical warfare in their minds.

And I say that that strongly intentionally. And we need to pray and weep over that and think about this.

And I want to speak to those of us who may carry shame around this and hear me. The point of this teaching is not to make you hate your desires and feel shameful about them.

It’s about calling us to a heart that is whole and pure. So we can see that every person is someone to honor and not consume, not a subject.

And if that is not relevant to the world we live in today, I don’t know what is. You talk to anybody that work with youth today.

This is an issue. And it is tearing people’s lives apart.

Marriage and Divorce

Here’s another light Marriage and divorce. It has been said Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce, but I tell you, anyone who divorces his wife causes her to become an adulteress.

Do you get what I’m saying here? Do you feel how heavy this message is?

You can hear it in the room. Can you imagine the audience there?

What is this guy, who is this guy? He’s a carpenter.

What’s he telling us all this stuff for? As a person who’s been through divorce, I’ve had to wrestle with this verse.

It’s a sensitive and difficult text, and I want to handle it with care because some of us has experienced this. But I want to begin with the world in which Jesus was speaking.

In that culture, a woman who was divorced had almost no way to survive. The certificate, the woman is free and is not an adulteress.

She can go live life and remarry. But by Jesus’s arrival, they had turned this whole certificate in thing into a lighthearted way to get out of a marriage for any reason.

Whatever the men wanted, they got. And the woman had no voice and was disregarded.

The certificate had become a convenient bit of paperwork that let men discard women. Now, we are thousands of years removed from that, and we could debate all day about the divorces that are going on in our world.

But once again, Jesus refused to let legal technicality stand in the way of the heart. He says, all right, I love the covenant of marriage.

It’s a promise made before God, and it carries the weight of another human being’s whole life. The question for a disciple is not what can I get away with on the paper, but what does faithful love require of me.

That’s what Jesus is saying here. Now, I will say this for the sake of those here who’ve been wounded and have walked through this or are living this.

Jesus is not here writing to crush those who have been abandoned or abused or been through a divorce. Throughout scripture, God is on the side of the vulnerable.

The people Jesus is confronting are those who use the law to harm the powerless. If you’re in a difficult marriage, he is not asking you to be silent in the face of any difficulties or harm.

What he is asking of us is to hold covenant love as sacred and refuse the casual cruelty that treats people as disposable and dismissible. Again, where is the resentment?

Where is the bitterness? Where is the contempt in our marriage relationships?

Are we addressing that or disposing of the whole sacred union too quickly and too easily? I’m going to pause here because it’s getting heavy in the room and I’ll just be vulnerable.

I don’t talk about my story much, but you know, many of you know, I’ve been through a divorce. I would say I understand why it happened.

That doesn’t mean I agree with why it happened. And yet I still have three amazing kids with the person I was married to.

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do that. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do that.

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do that. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to And in those years following that divorce, I had to settle in my heart.

How do I hold on to being a dad and parent with this other person that I was married to when we do not agree on how this fell out? What I had to examine in my heart is, am I trying to have retaliation, resentment, bitterness?

I had every right to maybe feel that way, but so did I. And so I did.

My ex-wife, in the way she viewed me. And at some point we had to get to a place where like, and I remember we’re like, we’ve got three kids together.

We are going to raise these kids. And do we want to show them a path of bitterness or betterment?

And it is not easy. It is a pride swallowing, gravel eating existence to figure out how to navigate.

And it’s not for everybody in those situations. I’m not talking about dangerous, abusive situations.

We didn’t have that. But what I’m sharing with you personally is we found a way To set aside the perceptions and views of each other to work on how do I be a dad, how does she be a mom, and how can we work together on what we see in common moving forward.

That was not always easy. And I share that not to brag.

I share that with a broken heart to tell you all these things we’re talking about, we could debate all day, but God’s like, “Where’s your heart?” Are you seeing the bigger picture?

Three kids had their lives forever altered by a choice made by two adults. And don’t think because they’re amazing, wonderful, grown children that they still don’t carry baggage from that.

We talk about it, honestly and openly. And I share that with you on these first three that we just went through to give you hope that if you’re struggling with those things, do not be beating yourself up.

God is calling you back to him.

Integrity

Now he moves to the next chapter. The next three, which are more like these outward things that we do with others.

The first three are very intimate inside of us. These other three are more involving other people that we have to work with.

The first one is oaths. He says, “Do not swear at all. All you need to simply say is yes or no. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Is God saying we shouldn’t go into oaths with people, sign covenants, sign contracts? No.

He’s saying this, “The culture of oaths then becomes so deception-mourning that they rank them.” If I say, “I swear on…”

The temple. If I say, “I swear on my home. If I swear on my mom, I’m good. It’s not really a promise. If I swear on God, that’s different.”

And he says, “Stop that. Where is the integrity of your heart where your yes means yes, your no means no, and people can walk away with a good old thing of a handshake?” You remember those days when people say, “Well, we shook hands on it.”

“Oh, no. It wasn’t written down. There’s no contract.” Jesus says, “I want you to go above the contract, above the oath, that whether you have to sign it or not, would you honor it regardless if you didn’t have it.”

Regardless if you didn’t have to sign it. Are you a person of integrity?

What does that mean to you? Integrity.

We as Christians should be believable. We should be trusted.

We live in our lives that allows people to know, “I don’t think that person would say that or do that. I need to check that.” Or, “Oh, I could see that. Yeah, he’s done that to me or she’s done that to me.”

DC Talk, one of my favorite bands, Toby Mac said something once at a concert I’ll never forget. He said, “You know why most of the world are not Christians?”

He said, “Because they know one.” And this is what this is saying.

Is our integrity enticing to people or is it the opposite? Oh, they’re no different than anybody else.

Retaliation and Grace

Then he goes on to this one. “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”

This idea of a slap was this backhanded slap that was meant to injure and to call like insult and harm. And what he is saying, individuals were weaponizing this to justify personal retaliation.

Its original setting, it was not a license for revenge. It was a limit on revenge.

That’s what this verse is trying to say. It was justice and reflects God’s own concern for what is right.

But Jesus says that the citizen of the kingdom will not live by the logic of equal retaliation at all. They will be people who do not keep accounts.

Jesus forbids taking personal revenge, instead advocating for a creative grace-like way of resolving the differences. I’ve wanted retaliation before.

And I gave it once. Fourth grade, moved to Idaho.

New kid at school. Kid came up to me, started asking me all these questions, saying, I mean, And I walked inside and told my teacher and she’s like, “Well, let’s talk to him.”

And he lied, said he didn’t say that. So nothing happened.

So we went back to the next recess and he started mouthing off to me again. I took it as my point, said I’ve taken enough and guess what I did?

Black eye, bloody nose. I had a black eye, he had a bloody nose.

But I felt justified in my retaliation. I’ll never forget what my dad told me.

He goes, “I never want you not to stand up for yourself. But if you can always use your words before you use your fist, that’s the way to do it.” My dad was not opposed to us protecting one another as brothers.

But he understood that retaliation really just gives fuel to the fire.

Retaliation really just gives fuel to the fire. It never puts the fire out.

It never puts the fire out. Retaliation is often an accelerant.

Because then where does it stop? Jesus says if you’re asked to do this, do more.

If a Roman soldier tells you to walk a mile, you walk two miles. He was always saying you give when you shouldn’t have to give.

Now let me say this. These words have been misused.

They have been used to tell abused people to stay in danger and be quiet. That is a grotesque distortion of what Jesus is saying here.

Jesus himself did not run from harm or pretend that evil was good, folks. He named it, he confronted it, and what he refused to do was let evil turn him into being more evil.

So a disciple can protect the vulnerable, seek justice, set firm boundaries, while still refusing to be driven by hatred, resentment, bitterness, or contempt. The question is always what motivates my heart as I respond.

What are your beliefs? Are they informing your behaviors?

So the world can see a disciple of Christ. That’s the results Christ wants.

Not the letter of the law. Spirit of the law.

Loving Enemies

He begins with this last one, love your enemies. You have heard it all said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your father in heaven. This is the summit peaking.

We’re getting to the peak of the message here. Because what he is saying is in contradiction to what the Jews wanted.

They wanted Rome gone. They hated the Romans.

Kill them all. There’s a whole group dedicated to it called the Zealots.

What he is saying is this, human beings are very good at loving the people they like. We’ll draw a circle and we’ve got people on our outer circle, then there’s an inner circle, and then there’s a small circle.

And we treat each people in those circles maybe a little bit differently and some of that’s natural. We’re not as open and honest with people on the outward boundaries like the barista at Starbucks.

I’m not going to ask that person for life advice all the time. I’m going to get on the inner circle and ask a few people.

I know that’s not what this is saying. He says, all right, we draw the circle, the people we love, and then we draw it smaller and smaller.

We narrow it down to family, our tribe, our party, and our kind. And everyone outside of it gets filled underneath them or others.

Then Jesus makes it embarrassing practical. He says, if you love only those who love you, what is remarkable about that?

Even a tax collector doesn’t do that.

And don’t forget, Jesus is the one that hung on the cross, and his words were, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He’s not asking you to do something he didn’t do.

And then he really does it. He comes in with the, we’ve had body blow, body blow, body blow.

Here comes the right hook.

He says this, all right, verse 48, be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Scott, I thought you just said this whole passage wasn’t about performance and being perfect.

And then he says this, really? And this one stops me in my tracks.

I’m like, wait, what? I thought the whole point of the message was we didn’t have to be perfect performers.

I thought that was the whole thing I’ve struggled with and wrestled with. In my teens and early 20s with the church in Christ.

And what I would share is perhaps that sentence scares us, intimidates us, and discourages us. It sounds like an impossible standard.

Becoming Whole

But I would want to go back and look at the word perfect. And it carries the sense of wholeness, completeness, this full maturity, much like James says in James 1.4.

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. So what do we do with a command this large?

We do not clench our fists and try harder. A transformed heart does not arrive in an afternoon.

It grows in the soil of prayer, scripture, community, practice, and the Spirit’s quiet work on us. And here is the astonishing promise.

A heart that is changed. What once looked like a heavy directive becomes something we want to do, we choose to do, rather than something we have to do because we’re told to do it.

You’ve all raised enough kids in here. Do you want compliance or do you want an understanding of the heart?

We don’t want the external compliance all the time. We want an internal change so they do the right things when we’re not around.

So let me bring this back to the question we started with. Not how can I change?

Not how can I keep these rules? But what kind of person at the center of me?

And if you’re like me, you can feel the weight of this message right now. But if you hear this, hear nothing else, the Sermon on the Mount does not begin with commands.

It begins with the blessing, the beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are those who know they cannot do this on their own. Jesus does not ask you to be perfect before you come.

Jesus does not ask you to be perfect before you come. He asks you to walk with him and let him show you a perfect way.

He asks you to walk with him and let him show you a perfect way.

And he knows it’s gonna be messy, just like our children. How long am I going to have to ask my son to make his bed in the morning?

Probably till he moves out. And then you’re going to show up at his house some day and go, “You’re still not making the bed?”

Or, you’ll be shocked. You’ll walk into their apartment one day like, “Oh my gosh, your bed’s made. The kitchen’s cleaned.”

Why weren’t you doing this at home? That’s what I’ve experienced.

The point is this, alright? He offers to share a heart with us, not by pressure, not by coercion, but by invitation, by grace, by the slow, gentle work of the Spirit in those who say yes.

Closing and Prayer

So in conclusion, here’s my closing thoughts. And I wrestled with this.

I’m being honest with you. So I’m going to read it because I wrote it down like five different times.

I still don’t know if this is the right way I want to close this. But I want to try to get back to the heart of what I was trying to say today.

As we step away from this passage, remember that Jesus is not inviting you into a life of heavier burdens, but into the radical freedom of a transformed heart. Living above the law means we no longer have to settle for the bare minimum of behavior modification.

Just trying to look good. Just trying to act like I got it all together.

Instead, we get to experience the maximum fulfillment of God’s love. Flowing through us.

When Jesus calls us to a higher standard of living, love, grace and integrity, He provides the Holy Spirit to produce that. You cannot do this on your own.

I want you to take heart today knowing that you are not striving for perfection in our own strength. But resting and relying on the one who already fulfilled the Lord’s will.

I know the pain of five years of trying to be just who God wanted me to be, I believed. Do this, do that.

And I had lost sight of the fact that He’s already fulfilled all of it for us, and we just need to step into it with Him and say, “Show me how. Help me.” And that is all we want from our kids.

That is all we want from one another. He’s weaved it into us, and yet we let the enemy in the world put up all these things around the outside of the law, all these barriers and layers that we can’t get to the heart of anymore, and we’re trying to just work on the exterior to get to the heart.

And what God wants you to say is, “Rip down everything you’ve built up around the church in your lives. Tear it down. I don’t want a temple that looks pretty. I will meet you in a mud hut on the side of the river, and I want to breathe life back into you.” Because the first thing Jesus ever did, He sat in the mud on a river and formed us out of mud, and then He put His mouth onto that mud figure and breathed life into us.

Why? He wanted relationship.

He doesn’t want a perfect saint. He doesn’t want a perfect person.

He wants a person that’s close to Him looking to be perfected. Let’s pray.

Father, we confess that we have tried to be good on the surface while leaving our hearts untouched. We have kept our grudges and fed our appetites and hedged our words and tried to draw circles that are tight. Thank you, Jesus, that you did not come to condemn us, but to fulfill what we could not do on our own.

Create in us clean hearts, God. Renew a steadfast spirit within us.

God, may you teach us to love as you love, to go the second mile, to bless those who are cursed at us, and to become whole as you are whole. We ask you, God, in the name of Jesus, that you would help us live as Jesus lived, and to see people as you see them.

God, may we at Arbor be people that live from the heart and not from the law. In Jesus’ name, amen.