Skip to content Mark 11:12-25 || The Book of Mark || Pastor Aaron Levy Jul 25 · 38 min ...more
July 25, 2024 · 38 min · Patria Sermons
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Adam Mesa is Lead Pastor of Patria Church and speaks to a congregation of 12,000 about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings purpose to every life. Patria
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The Distant Disciple 0:00 My name is Aaron Levy. I get the honor of being the campus pastor here and the honor of being a part of this Mark series. Who is ready to squeeze the scriptures tonight? Anybody love the bible here?0:11 Anybody love the bible online? So if you're newer to our community, at the top of the year we bought these Mark journals. We have them in the Patriot shop, and it's 1 page of scripture, and0:23 1 page so you can put your notes in. If you have 1, just put it in the air. Let me see if you have 1. Man, that's good. That's good. That's good. Let's say, like, you're you know, it's July. It's not too late, and0:35 you're like, you know, I'm still planning on getting 1. Raise your hand. Still planning on getting 1. Okay. Well, we're a generous church. I'm going to have 1 of our elders come up. The first 4 people that come up will0:47 get the Marked Journal for free. The first 4. Okay. What? No. My God. My God. My God. Okay.1:00 Did everybody get a pen? Yeah? Okay. Now make sure you use them tonight, and then we have plenty more in the shop. Got plenty1:12 more in the shop. Hey, let's pray and then let's jump right in. God, you're in control. Thank you1:25 that you've given us your word and it's true. So I pray that you use your word to strengthen us, to empower us, to convict us, to challenge1:37 us, but to make us more like you. I thank you that tonight, somehow, someway, you'll use me as if we're having 1 on 1 conversations with people. In Jesus' name we1:48 pray. Amen. Amen. Man, it's so cool going through 1 book for the entire year. So we've been in Mark, we're in Mark chapter 11. Pastor2:00 Sanaz killed it last week. Mark 11, 1 through 11, the triumphal entry. Made it so clear. But you know, it's so cool because we rotate as communicators, and the2:12 last time I was up here, I preached on Mark chapter 5 verse 21 through 43, and tonight I'm going to be preaching on Mark chapter 11 verse 12 through 25. So I thought2:24 it would be fitting, because we love the Bible here. Right? We have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and both passages that I had the opportunity to teach use a literary2:35 structure that Mark does. It's called the Markin' sandwich. Like Christian, Markin'. So it's the way that he writes in story form. So this is what he does. He uses2:47 1 story as the bread, and then there's the meat of a middle story in the middle that helps give interpretation of the first story. I'll give you an example with Mark chapter 5, verse2:59 21 through 43. You have a guy named Jairus, that's the bread, and he has a daughter that's 12 years old and needs to be healed. At the end of that story, that daughter ends up getting resurrected3:11 from the dead, but in the middle of that story, there's that tension where Jesus gets interrupted by that woman that said, if I touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed. So the spiritual truth is if you have3:23 faith that Jesus will heal, he will do so. That's that marking sandwich. Jairus' daughter is sick. Jairus' daughter is resurrected from the dead, but what is the meat of the passage that we need to talk about3:35 tonight? So I want to do that at the very beginning, because we're going to get in the Scripture, and we're going to look at context. So if you look at Mark chapter 11, 12 through 25, the bread, you'll first start3:47 seeing is that Jesus curses a fig tree, because there's no fruit in it. At the end of the story, the disciples see, wait, you cursed that fig tree, and it actually3:59 withered to its roots. But the meat of the passage that we're going to talk about tonight is the temple, and there's certain things about the temple that we're going to learn to help us interpret4:11 what Jesus was doing with the fig tree. Does that make sense? Okay. Let's all stand to our feet, and we're going to read the first couple of verses. We stand to honor the word of God,4:23 and I'm going to be reading from ESV. It'll be on the screens or in your Mark journal, and if you have a journal, I'd encourage you, highlight, write notes to yourself, write prayers, etcetera, etcetera. I'm4:35 going to read Mark chapter 11 starting at verse 12. It says, Jesus curses the fig tree. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry, being Jesus,4:47 And seeing in the distance, please say distance. Distance. A fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. And when he came to it, he found4:58 nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, may no 1 ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples, say disciples Disciples.5:11 Heard it. The title of the message tonight is Distant Disciple. Distant Disciple. Distant Disciple. You may be seated.5:23 We're looking at this tension because Jesus is the master teacher with this fig tree. From a distance, he sees a fig tree because he's hungry, and he gets closer, and he finds out it5:35 wasn't what he was looking for. Distant disciple. We're going to talk about 3 enemies of discipleship tonight, and they'll be on the screen. Verse5:47 12 through 14, what we read is the distance is an enemy to discipleship. Verse 15 through 19 will be distractions, and verse 20 through 25 will be doubts.5:59 Shout out to Alyssa for that spirit led exhortation. She didn't know my sermon point would be doubts. Long distance relationships are hard. Somebody say, Yes.6:11 I feel you. My wife and I, before we got married, there was a year span when she lived in Baldwin Park and I lived in San Diego, and we had a decision to make. Because when you have a6:23 long distance relationship, it's either we make a decision to go closer, or we just go in our separate ways. And we made, and I made 1 of the best decisions of my life outside of following6:35 Jesus, of saying, Babe, well you moved to San Diego, and we got married. But there were some things that had to change in order for us to go in from a long distance relationship to a6:47 close relationship. And you may have a relationship with Jesus, but you may find tonight maybe that you've allowed some distance between the relationship that we have with Jesus, but hopefully tonight,6:59 as we learn about these enemies, and then we learn about the friends of discipleship, we'll get a little closer and closer to Jesus. Amen? Now let's talk about this fig tree.7:11 Jesus would always use these objects to teach his disciples. He's the king of illustrations. Now Jesus wasn't being mean, and that's why we have to look at the context7:23 of the scripture. If we look at the purpose of a tree, it normally has 2 purposes. It provides shade, and it provides fruit. But what was Jesus looking for?7:36 We could talk back in church. It's Patriotic. He's looking for fruit. He's not looking for shade. Right? So from a distance, he sees the leaves, and he's like, okay, cool. I can get some fruit. Now let me tell you a7:47 little bit about fig trees. Fig trees have a have a process of they go from root, to branch, to fruit buds, to leaves, to7:59 full fruit. So when Jesus is seeing the fig tree from a distance, and seeing the leaves, he's like, Cool. I can at least get some fruit. And then he comes8:11 closer, and he recognizes, Wait a minute. This tree is out of order. It's out of process. It has these leaves, but it has no fruit. That's8:23 why it got cursed because sometimes we use leaves to hide the fact that we don't have fruit. If we look at the context of the scripture, if you go to,8:35 Mark chapter 11 verse 8, it should be on the screens. Look what it says here. Pastor Sanaz taught it last week, and many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy8:47 branches that they have cut from the fields. I got some leafy branches in my hand right now. Let me illustrate what happened just for context, so you can understand why Jesus may have been already8:59 over leaves. Before Jesus got there, they would spread these leaves on the ground. Before he got there, and as he passed by, when you pass by, that's a long distance9:11 relationship, people are praising him with leaves already dropped for him. You catch it? But what's the purpose of trees? To provide shade and provide fruit.9:22 Beware of people before you're in the room will throw shade about you, and then when you come and pass by, they praise you. Because it's the same people that praised him the next week that said crucify9:34 him. Beware of shady Christians that when you're not there, they say, I don't know about this guy. And then when you come in the room, hey, pastor. How you doing, buddy? But we need to be9:46 just like Jesus and just walk past the shade. Walk past the shade. Because a week later, the same people that praised him would say crucify him.9:58 Sometimes Christians are shady. Lip service, but not life service. I'll tell you something that you wanna hear, but when you're not around, the path10:09 that I've laid out for you may hurt you. I give us more context. If we go all the way back to the garden, Jesus had an issue with a fig tree, because a fig tree is connected10:21 to the first sin. If we look to Genesis chapter 3 verse 6 through 8, what happened was Adam and Eve are in perfect conditions with a perfect God, perfect job, and10:33 then they got tempted to take fruit they shouldn't have took. And it says, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make 1 wise, she10:44 took of his fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves10:56 together. See how the context of the Bible makes it make more sense? They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,11:08 and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So ever since the garden, fig leaves were a symbol of hiding from God.11:20 Fig leaves is a symbol of shame. Fig leaves is a symbol of I don't wanna be in the presence of God. And so Jesus sees this fig tree, it doesn't have fruit, it just has leaves. You're out of11:32 order. It's a picture of Israel. It's a picture of you and I where Jesus will want to come to us on schedule and find fruit in our lives. Let me give you more11:43 context. Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 13, when I would gather them, declares the Lord, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree. Even the leaves are withered, and11:55 what I have have gave them has passed away from them. So I'm just trying to bring a little more clarity to the fact that Jesus is not just being rude about a fig12:07 tree. Ever since the garden, he might have been triggered by a fig tree and these fig leaves. He had already had to walk over these dead leaves of people praising him that were fake.12:19 Because Jesus will come to your life when he's hungry for fruit. Just like when you're at your house, do you go to your house, and you're hungry to get something to eat?12:31 And then you go to the refrigerator, and you find that you got nothing in the refrigerator to eat? This is what Jesus had to deal with. That's why you're like, man, Jesus cursed. Well, it's the same thing12:43 you do when you go to a refrigerator, and you be like, man, I got nothing to eat. And these right here represent the leaves of the fig tree. A lot of times we have Christianese on our refrigerators.12:55 Won't he do it? Too blessed to be stressed, he gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. Jesus don't care about none of this. He wants to go on the inside of your life and say, where's the13:07 fruit? And there's so many times in my life, and maybe in your life, where we've been caught up on how we look or what we say on the outside, but out of the abundance of the heart, the13:19 mouth speaks. When God comes to your life, will he find fruit? Because Jesus is hungry for you to be discipled. That's13:31 good. So if distance is an enemy of discipleship, what's a friend of discipleship? I'm glad you asked. That's cool.13:42 Devotion. Devotion. And you know, devotion time is a lot like grocery shopping. I suck at grocery shopping. I13:54 get anxiety when my wife Hey, can you go to the store real quick? Oh, I don't want to get it wrong. Can you give me a picture of it? I don't want to get the right These meats have This meat is 68 cents more than this. I14:04 gotta make the right choice. Like, I get I don't know where stuff is. I call my wife, I don't have signal. Babe, where's the bacon at? Where's the But that's a lot of times. That's how my14:16 devotion time started. I came to ALFC when we were called ALFC. Pastor Diego, Pastor Adam, Pastor Nate, give these amazing messages, and I'm like, okay. And now it's time for me14:28 to go home and feed myself. That's why a lot of Christians said, You know, I just wasn't getting fed anymore. Oh, wait. You're still expecting the14:40 church services to be your only feeding program? Oh, you're not grocery shopping. See, here's what my wife taught me about grocery shopping. The14:52 first thing we need to do is get a grocery list. So we got to look in our life, and we got to see what My life is empty right now. We got to see the areas in our life where we need to15:03 grow, and that may be the areas of our life that we read. I'm so excited because Patriot is about to do our next discipleship sprint, and it's actually how to read the15:15 Bible for yourself. There may be a QR code that will be on the screen right now, because if this interests you, and you're looking for ways that you can improve your devotion time, or understand how to15:27 read the Bible for yourself, you want to register for this before it sells out because this is going to be a good 1. But grocery shopping starts with a grocery list. You know what?15:39 I lack a good attitude. I lack discipline in my life. I lack obedience in my life. So we need to start with the milk of the word, start15:51 shocking the shells. The only time I do this is when my wife is back in the garage, and will somebody help me? But this is what devotion time looks like, where by yourself or in your16:03 neighborhood group, you are in devotion with God, and you're storing your heart for what God may pull out of you in a future season. Then you can graduate to the meat of the word. I'm a store this meat up16:15 here for a little. This is some carne asada. Okay. Some lamb. But this is what discipleship looks like, a devotion to God by yourself, so that way when16:27 God comes to you or your spouse comes to you, you have things to offer.16:39 So we talked about distance as an enemy. Let's talk about the second enemy of discipleship, distractions. Everybody say distractions. Distractions.Distractions in the Temple 16:52 You know, there's a quote by Socrates. It says, Beware the barrenness of a busy life. You ever talk to somebody and they're always busy? I'm busy. I'm going here. I'm busy. I'm busy. I'm busy. I'm busy. I don't got time17:04 for that. I'm busy. I can't grocery shop myself because I'm too busy. I'm too busy. We may wanna just start asking, is all that busyness resulting in productivity? Is all that busyness17:15 resulting in fruit in our life? Because sometimes we use busyness as a distraction to focus on the things we really need to focus on. So if17:27 we look at Mark chapter 11 verse 15 through 19, we already have in mind the sandwich. So the bread was, dang. Okay. Jesus was a distance from a fig tree, but when he gets closer up to17:39 it, it's out of order, and he doesn't like it, and he curses it. So that's in mind, but now we're about to get to the meat. You guys with me? Verse 15 through 19. And they came17:51 to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple. Side note, whenever I see a word in the bible repeated multiple times, I lean in and get more curious. Okay? And began18:03 to drive out those who sold and those who brought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry18:15 anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, 'Isn't that written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?' That's Isaiah 56 he's quoting. 'But you have18:27 made it a den of robbers.' And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came, they went18:38 out of the city. Jesus comes inside the temple, and he says, What is all this buying and selling? He flips tables and so forth. Now, if you don't know context of scripture,18:51 some of you may go to the Patriot shop tonight. Raffi, stop selling hoodies. No more kombucha. No UCAG uniforms. But that's not what he's talking about.19:03 It'll be wise for us to19:16 place of worship. And then after the fall, the temple became the place of sacrifice for forgiveness. That's why a lot of times, a lot of scholars would19:28 determine that the Garden of Eden is a prototype of the temple. Because Adam and Eve would spend that quality time with God, their worship was their obedience19:39 in their job, and when they fell, and they try to sow fig leaves for themselves, what God did is he slaughtered an animal in Genesis chapter 3 verse 21, and with the skins of that19:51 animal, he made a covering for them, showing a forecast of Jesus being the lamb that will be slain to cover our sins. So that's the temple. A meeting place for God,20:03 a place for us to worship, and a place for sacrifice and forgiveness. Now, since that's in Jesus' mind, what ends up happening when he comes to the temple? I'm glad you20:15 asked. But before I show you that, before I share that, let me show you what the temple looked like when Jesus walked in. And if you really want to be a bible nerd, you could download an app20:27 called Immersive Herod Temple, and it will actually take you through the temple, like you're playing Roblox or something like that. But if you look at Herod's temple, the first thing that I see, man,20:39 there's a lot of division. There's a place for the Gentiles, there's a place for the women, there's a place for the Israelites, the place where where the animal sacrificed, then there's the place for the Holy of Holies.20:48 A lot of sectioned off, but I haven't showed you the whole thing yet. Let's go to the next picture and show you what area we would have access to. We would only have access to the outer21:00 areas because most of us are Gentiles. So let me explain what Jesus saw why he would get so upset. He sees all this division. That's why he said, this should be a house of prayer for all21:12 the nations. But he sees this division, and can you imagine coming to church? You're going through things in your marriage. You're going through things with your kids. You're burdened by sin, and in21:24 that day, you would bring your animal to be sacrificed for the atonement of your sins. But a lot of people would travel from far distances, and when they would travel from far distances, they wouldn't bring the animals.21:36 So then there's some smart marketplace leader says, oh, you don't have your animal? You can buy it here. So in those gentile quarters, you will see all these lambs available for sale.21:48 And all this ruck is going on with lambs available for sale, so now I gotta see if I have enough money to be forgiven, but I don't even have the correct money because my money's considered pagan, so now I gotta22:00 stand in another line for currency exchange. Imagine, I'm I'm guilty of sin. I wanna worship God, but I'm standing in line looking for lambs, then I'm going to the currency exchange,22:12 and these currency exchange people were robbing people like crazy. Oh, you wanna be forgiven? This is how much the lamb cost. Oh, you wanna be forgiven? This is how much this cost. And Jesus being so22:24 upset about that, it's saying, forgiveness is free. I'm the lamb that was slain. Get rid of this business model. Come to me. I'm the lamb that was slain. That's why in22:36 John chapter 2 verse 19, Jesus would say, destroy this temple, and in 3 days, it'll be built up. And people are like, what are you talking about? It's so many years to build22:48 this. But Jesus is the ultimate place of the temple, because Jesus is the meeting place between God and man. Jesus is who we worship. Jesus is why we have23:00 forgiveness. So when he sees this business model, it's such a distraction to worship. It's a distraction to the temple. I'll give you an example of that.23:12 The free forgiveness of Jesus reminds me of when my daughter comes to the house. I'm in a new season in my life. My daughter's going to come on stage. I'm in a new season in my life where my daughter moved out a year23:24 ago, and I told my daughter, Here's the key, your family come over whenever you want. But when she comes over my house, the first thing she does is go to my refrigerator. So So I'll23:36 be low key triggered sometimes because I'll have something for me, and now my daughter is shopping for it. Now could you imagine me coming up to my daughter, okay, you23:48 took the strawberries? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You took the strawberries, You took the milk. No. No. Don't don't disrespect. You took the carrots. That's that's that's gonna be 26 dollars. This is what people24:00 were dealing with back in the day. Now how would that impact my relationship with my daughter? If if I'm saying, come over whenever you want, let's hang out, and she's hungry. If I'm the father,24:11 should I have fruit available for my children? And God the father would send Jesus as fruit saying, we can come to him and freely receive from him. Amen? So it's free. You can take it. That's fine.24:24 When my daughter comes to the house, there are times she don't be looking at our decoration. There's times when she looks at my refrigerator, and she'd be like, man, ain't nothing to eat in this24:36 house. You didn't put in on it. But since I'm the father, and since I want relationship with my daughter, since I want relationship with my son,24:49 freely given. Come over at any time, and there's fruit available. And since Jesus has done that for us, he expects us to do it to others. But sometimes we get so distracted25:01 by things going on in our life that we forget that we're blessed to be a blessing. So if the enemy of discipleship is distraction,25:13 what's the friend of discipleship that counteracts this? Thank you. Discipline. Everybody say discipline. Discipline. Hebrews 1225:25 11 says, for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained25:37 by it. That's why we open up our worship set with, Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary. I'm a temple. I have the Holy Spirit. Pure and holy, tried and true,25:49 with thanksgiving. I'll be a living sanctuary for you. Jesus, you could come to my life at any time, because I have a disciplined life knowing that at unscheduled times, you26:01 will call me to be a blessing for other people. So I got a disciplined grocery list that you may just want to take a picture of. Those are some scriptures that I go to for discipline online. You could just take a26:12 screenshot of that. But there are some things that remind us, like for example, first Corinthians 6 9 through 20 says, our bodies are a temple. We house the the the Holy26:24 Spirit, and we've been bought with a price. Isaiah chapter 26 verse 3, it says, you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you. Are we disciplined26:36 with our thoughts? How often do we think about what we think about? And this is maybe some scriptures that you want to meditate on and just go grocery shopping yourself as you work out your salvation26:48 with fear and trembling. So we talked about distance as an enemy, and if you're distant, then you need devotion. If we're distracted, we need discipline.Dealing with Doubt 27:00 But our third point is what about when we doubt? And I'll give the friend on the on the front end, whenever area of your life that you doubt is an opportunity to27:12 depend on God. All the uncertainty that goes on in our life causes us to doubt, But when we doubt, maybe God is saying, that's the exact27:23 area where I want you to depend on me. Let's look at verse 20 through 25. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.27:38 And Peter remembered. Peter remembered. That was gold to me. And said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you curse has27:49 withered. And Jesus answered them, have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that28:01 what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it'll be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive.28:14 If you have anything against anyone, so your father also who is in heaven may forgive you of your trespasses. Let's talk about this with the remaining time. Peter, the28:25 next day, looks at the tree. God says something. We sang that song. If you said it, I believe it. So Jesus turned water into wine, but he can also say, hey, you're withered, and then the next day is28:37 withered. So he's like, man, it's withered to the roots. Now if we look at that at face value, we're like, dang, Jesus? Now give the tree a chance.28:49 Where's your mercy? Maybe the mercy is the tree getting a fresh start. It's on a faulty foundation, and in order for it29:01 to rebuild, it has to go back to the roots. A lot of times what we want is, okay, I got it wrong, but let me just keep adding from here. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We gotta go to the root of things, so that29:13 way if we go to the roots, the branches will be healthy, then you get the fruit buzz, then you get the leaves, and then when Jesus comes to you, you get blessed. So maybe God allowing certain things to wither away for29:24 a season, It may be painful, but also discipline is painful. It may be a blessing that may be happening in the future if God if we allow God to take us back to the roots of things.29:38 But I love the Bible because it says, Peter remembered. And there's different fouls that pop up, because Peter is 1 of my favorite characters in the Bible. And Peter would have29:49 times in his life where he doubted. And let me give you an example of this to drive it, because here's what a disciple needs to be good at. The things they choose to remember and the things they30:01 choose to not remember anymore. This is this is what happened when Jesus gets arrested. Peter tries to be the hero, cuts off Malchus ear, and then30:13 Jesus goes away to get arrested, and now, let's look at Luke chapter 22 verse 54. Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high30:25 priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. Peter was a distant disciple. Why? Because Jesus goes away to get arrested, and Peter's30:37 like, I'm doubting what's gonna happen in my life, so I'm gonna back up a little bit, and I allow distance between me and Jesus. And whenever we allow distance30:49 between us and Jesus, that's when we deny Jesus in our lifestyle. Notice that he followed Jesus from a distance, and then right after that, I don't know who Jesus31:00 is. Notice how he was really tough in front of that guy, Malchus, but then when a female said, do you know Jesus? No. I don't know Jesus. Come through.31:12 Distance from Jesus has us compromise our values. But it says Peter remembered. So that's why if we go all the way to verse 61,31:24 right after he denies Jesus, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter from the distance. Look at the same language. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he said31:36 to him, before the rooster crows today, you will deny me 3 times, and he wept bitterly. When we allow our doubts to get the best of us,31:48 we'll end up weeping bitterly, because we'll end up making decisions that aren't in alignment with the values that we sought out to have with Christ. But there's hope for us,32:00 because if we look at Peter's story, Jesus is not impartial. He's the same way he treated Peter is the same way he'll treat us. Peter stayed in community, God forgiven, ends up being the first pastor.32:13 But to conclude, this weeping bitterly on having the remembrance of our sins, the remembrance of our doubts, the remembrance of things that happened, and that's why I said32:25 Alyssa's exhortation was spirit led, because that's where I was going at the end of the message. There have been things that have been said to you, or there have been things that have been done to you, or that you have32:36 done that we hold on to that prevent us from moving forward in our faith journey. So if I go to my refrigerator, and32:47 I looks like I don't have anything Well, my daughter cleaned me fresh out. But if I look closer, there are some old things that32:59 I've stored in my heart, and I'm not ready to let them go yet. The other day I asked my wife because I have some buns in the33:11 pantry, and I was like, oh babe, can you make some burgers? She was like, that bread is so old. What was I doing? I was33:22 asking for new meat with stale bread. What do I mean by that? Prayer gives us the opportunity to open our hearts and deal33:34 with the junk that we've held onto in the past. There are certain things that have withered away, and we hold onto them just in case, because I'm doubting. I'll never33:46 trust again. And what prayer does is just exactly what my wife does when she goes grocery shopping. She gets a list together, and then she puts a trash can next to the33:58 refrigerator and starts throwing out the things that are old. Because we don't have room for anything new if we keep storing the things that are old in our life.34:12 That's why when he said, when you pray, forgive. That makes me think of the Lord's prayer. Give us this day our daily bread.34:25 Sometimes we'd be storing bread that's not good for us. If we go to God and get daily bread, the next phrase, and forgive us our trespasses, as we34:37 forgive those that trespass against us. Maybe the hard time we're having with forgiveness is because we're holding on to old bread and not going to God for daily bread.34:50 What God wants to do in this moment is saying, maybe the distance that we're experiencing is the baggage that you've been carrying. In this moment,35:03 Jesus says, hey, just give that to me. I died for it. Let's remove this from your life. So I want to do something in this moment.35:15 If you're in person, I want you to close your eyes inside, outside. If you're online, can you lock into me for a moment? What are the things in your life that when I pulled35:27 this baggage out of the refrigerator, what fowls popped up? What are the things from the past that you're holding onto in your heart that is not leaving room for Jesus to35:39 do something new in your heart? This is a moment where Jesus wants to clear out your refrigerator because he wants to bring something new to you right now.35:51 Jesus is saying, drop it. Release it, because Peter would experience that. He wept bitterly. It did happen.36:03 Peter failed, but you know what? He chose to keep following, because he chose that he chose that Jesus grace is stronger than my failure.36:15 And with everybody here with their eyes closed, the start line of our faith journey is forgiveness. Maybe you've done some things, and you haven't36:27 confessed them to the Lord. You know the information about the gospel, but you haven't moved forward because you haven't confessed them. Or it's been years. You are36:39 a Christian. You know this bible story, but there are some things that you've held on to. And you want to receive new revelation, you want a new season, but there's old36:50 baggage that hasn't been released yet. Let's do what Peter did. Let's pray, and when we pray, Jesus will meet us right where we're at.37:03 God, the father, will send his son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life we couldn't live, and die the death that we deserve. And all he's asking is, will you accept my37:14 sacrifice and surrender to me? So I want us all to repeat a prayer after me, please. To encourage those that are praying this prayer for the first time. To start their faith journey37:26 with Jesus, or to rededicate or continue your faith journey with Jesus. Say with this with me, please. Dear Lord Jesus, I believe37:38 that you died on the cross for all of my sin. I receive your forgiveness. Help me to remove the fouls that pop37:50 up. I thank you in this moment. I am free. Teach me to trust you again. Give me an appetite to be in your38:01 word. Give me an appetite to be in community. In Jesus' name we pray.In this video 0:00 The Distant Disciple16:43 Distractions in the Temple27:00 Dealing with Doubt
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