Matthew, the book of Matthew chapter number 13. The book of Matthew chapter 13. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. who healeth all thy diseases, who purges all your iniquities, who crowns your life with goodness. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts to the children of Israel. Matthew chapter 13, and we're looking at the end of the chapter, page 1199, if you need it in the Pew Bible. I wanna just say how I know proud is like a bad word in Proverbs, so whatever you can say to a group of people that you're really just pumped about how you did the right thing today. We're becoming a really strong, rugged, tough church. It's 30s, it's raining, here we are. Praise be to God. He is certainly worthy of it, isn't he? Pray for rain and then curse him by staying home on the Lord's day when he gives it. I think not. So God has been kind to us and I'm so thankful. Easy lesson this morning, starting a new journey at, this morning we're gonna end up in the book of James and we're gonna make it about four words into the book. Matthew chapter number 13, you're gonna notice towards the end of the chapter, verse 53, it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables, that he departed from there, and when he had come to his own country, he taught them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his, here we go now, is not his mother called Mary and his brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things? So they were offended at him." The short story here, friends, is that Jesus speaks like a man who has an inside track on what he's just said. Like he knows something or something. Like he's not going to learn anything. And when he asks questions, it's not so that he can obtain information. I find that to be entertaining, but I'm so thankful that our Lord doesn't have to quote his favorite commentator. He quotes himself. And here, it says that they said, who is this cat? He grew up with our kids. Isn't this Joseph's kid? That's what the verse says, right? Where did he get this? He went to the same school as our kids did. They played stickball out in the alley. Where did he get this? Don't we know his brothers and his sisters? Now, there are some that would prefer that Jesus not have any brothers or sisters, and so they say these are cousins. Well, that takes care of the brothers, but what do you do about the fact that he had sisters? That's awkward. So brothers means cousins, and what does sisters mean? Second cousins? So you can see that the plain issue here in this passage is that Jesus had siblings. Yes or no? That's what it says. It's plain as this big German nose on my face. And if that's true, if that's true, then we have to deal with that. And then the question comes, well, are they step-siblings or half-siblings? And again, there is a full swath of professed Christianity. Might be headquartered somewhere near in Europe. Won't name any names, but it's on that country shaped like a boot. They want to say that Jesus had step-siblings so that Mary can stay a virgin her entire life and be taken to heaven without dying. When you hear the doctrine of the assumption of Mary, they believe not only did she have immaculate conception, it's not referring to Jesus in that religion, it's referring to her. They believe that she was conceived without sin. And that she lived her whole life as a virgin and then didn't die, but taken to heaven directly without dying. Are there any former people, any former RCC people in here? Okay, we got one waving at me. Am I lying? That's the truth, isn't it? All right. So here you have a choice. Do you believe what men say or do you believe what the book says? And here, it says that Jesus has brothers, and one of them's name is James, and you're going to notice another one's name is Judas. This is the third James mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew. There are two among the disciples. You might call them apostles. One is James, the son of Zebedee, the son of Thunder, the brother of James, the son of Zebedee, the son of, or the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, the son of Thunder. The second James is known as James the Less, or James, son of Alphaeus. But there are two Jameses among the 12 apostles. This is not one of them. This is a third James, and it is the brother of Jesus. And he must therefore be a son, this James, and this Judas, shortened name of Judas is Jude. These two blokes must therefore be half siblings of Jesus. That is to say, that after Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin, her and Joseph actually were together as a married couple as it says in the last verse of Matthew. They did not come together and he did not know her until she gave birth to Jesus. So that preserves both the virgin conception and virgin birth of Jesus and makes sense of this passage. Jesus had half siblings and he had at least four brothers and then some sisters. So Mary and Joseph, we're supposed to get from this, had about at least, if sisters is plural and it is, they had six children after Jesus. And if you want to say, well, maybe they had some kids, well, that makes things very awkward. in Luke chapter two, when Joseph needs to go to census in Bethlehem, and there's no other kids in the picture. It's just him and Mary, and she's pregnant, right? Very awkward that you leave six kids back at the ranch. Who's watching them? Do we care about that? I care about that. Who'd you leave your six kids with? What are they doing? So it's very unnatural. And then, how about in Matthew 2, on their return trip, when the wise men come see, and then they run to Egypt. So did he just compound his folly as a dad, left six kids in Nazareth to go to Bethlehem, and then, I think we're gonna add on here and take a little excursion into Egypt. I'm sure Uncle Ned won't care to watch the kids for another two years. So we're saying it makes good biblical sense that these are half-siblings, not step-siblings. They have the same mother, but not the same father. Jesus being virgin-born has the heavenly father as his father. He was sired by the Holy Ghost, according to Luke 1. Not Elohim, like some religions say. That's important to point out. In a world that's filled with voices, you need someone to not only speak clearly, but also to tell you when you've been hearing a voice that is not from heaven. And so there's two sides to being a pastor. One is feeding sheep and the other is beating wolves. I don't like beating wolves, I like doggies. But not when your health is at risk. I have to call out the wolves. And that's what we're gonna keep doing if God will let us. So this gets really awkward when Jesus is 12 years old and there's still no mention of children that Joseph already had. That's really awkward. So we're saying that it makes the most sense that these are half-siblings, not step-siblings. We'd love to think that they were all on the inside, but if you go back one chapter in Matthew, look at chapter 12 of Matthew, which oddly enough is just one page back, If you're going back three or four pages, you've lost your mind, and that's okay. You'll fit in well here. Matthew 12, verse 46. Every now and then we all feel a little fruity or nutty, right? So we have room for one more in the cornucopia. Matthew 12, look at verse 46. While Jesus was still talking to the multitudes, his mother and brothers stood outside seeking to speak with him. One said to him, look, your mom and your brothers are outside seeking to speak with you. And he said to them, the one who told him, who is my mother and who are my brothers? He stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, here's my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my mother, sister, and my brother, my sister, my mother. Implication, at least at this time, Jesus' family was not sold on the idea that he was speaking for God. Let's look at the book of Mark. Go forward in the book of Mark, and we're looking at chapter number three. So if you're new to the Bible, you're flipping forward to the next book, and at the top of the page, it will say Mark chapter three. You're looking for page 1,229. I wanna draw your attention to Mark chapter number three. Specifically verse number 20. Now, what we're looking at in this passage is the Mark version of what we just read in Matthew. But there's something I want you to see. What led to Jesus saying, my brothers aren't really my brothers because they don't serve the father. Because you see that that happens here in verse 33. Look at it, take time to review it. It looks just like what we read in Matthew. This is Mark's version. What was causing them to be on the outside? How did James and Jude and Mama, how did they feel about Jesus? And notice Joseph is not in the picture. Probably he passed away since Jesus was a child. Well, you're gonna notice in Mark 3 verse 20, the multitude came together again so that they could not so much as eat bread. But when his own people heard about this, they went to lay hold on him, for they said, he's out of his mind. So not only, now get this, not only was James the half-brother of Jesus, not only was he not specifically a follower of Jesus, he was actually the opposite. He was antagonistic. He was spreading word that big brother Jesus was loony. It says in verse 21, they said he's out of his mind. That might not have hurt so much if it didn't lead to other people coming to the conclusion that Jesus was demon possessed. In verse 22, you see the scribes who came down from Jerusalem added comments. And who started these comments about Jesus being, you know, from the nuthouse? His family did. James, his mom, they thought he was crazy. In fact, maybe demon possessed. And so the scribes from Jerusalem in verse 22 add to it. And that's what leads to Jesus talking about a divided house. I mean, would it hurt you if your brothers and sisters thought maybe, actually, you know what? Maybe your brothers and sisters do think you're about this way. But it leads Jesus to warn everyone in attendance in verse 28. You can get away with this, but you cannot get away with saying that I'm doing things by the power of Satan. That will not be forgiven you. So that is hard. Now let's go forward to John, the book of John. Look to John, and if you would like to have these references again, you can get them from me. I'll give you my notes after the service, or you can listen to it again. or you can email me and I'll email them to you. Every now and then someone will say to me, I can't write fast enough to keep up with you. No problem. We have gifts and tools in 2023 that allow us to hear things twice. So be not discouraged. John 7, page 1310 in the Pew Bible. John 7, page 1310 if you need it in the Pew Bible. After these things, Jesus walked in Galilee, for he did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brothers therefore said to him, depart from here and go to Judea. His brothers told him this. His brothers told him this. And what were they trying to do? Well, if they knew what John said at the end of verse one, the Jews were trying to kill him. I hope you caught what we just said. Everyone knew that Jesus had a price on his head. And what do you find in verse three? His brothers trying to get him to go to the place where they were trying to kill him. Do you see this? Isn't that heartbreaking? The brothers not only thought that Jesus was crazy, but they thought that they might be better off if someone assassinated him. Verse number four, no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. The contextual flow that John is providing here is saying there's no happenstance relationship between what I have told you about Jesus having a price on his head and his brothers wanting him to go there. These are connected. That's literally what's being said here. These are not two details that are disconnected. They only make sense together in the same flow if his brothers are thinking that maybe their family might be better off if Jesus was dead. How sad. And this is James and Jude, right? At least James and Jude and Joseph and Simon and the sisters. He said, why don't you go on and do it publicly. Verse five, for even his brothers did not believe in him. Well, there it is. The explanation for all this is that James and Jude actually did not think that Jesus was anything divine. How did they get around the virgin birth story? That's a talk for another time. It's not a bad conversation, it's just out of the scope of this morning's message. So you've heard about how we believe these are half-siblings of Jesus that had the same mother, Mary. But something happens, because as you go now to the book of Acts, chapter number one, that is page 1335 in your Pew Bible if you need it. Acts chapter number one, you're gonna notice quite the shift, quite a little pivot here. Acts chapter number one. Next Sunday morning, it will be the third Sunday of February, and we'll eat and have the Lord's Supper again after the morning service. There will be warmers in the Gymnasium Family Life Center for you and me, and when I say me, I mean Nikki, as we bring our food to partake one with the other. Acts chapter number one. Verse number 14. Are you gonna notice verse 12? They returned to Jerusalem and found the mount called Olivet. which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey. And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying, Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas, the son of James. These all continued with one accord, here we go, in prayer and supplication, here we go, with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, here we go, and with his brothers. What are they doing meeting with the believers in Acts chapter number one? you're to be left believing that the death and resurrection of their brother changed them. That's what you're supposed to come away with. James, the half-brother of Jesus, became a believer and his life was changed. And if you're not a believer this morning, your life also can be changed. I know that we've sang a lot, that first song was just outstanding. I don't know if you caught the first stanza, the one who's omniscient is not counting your sins anymore if you're saved. I don't know how an all-knowing being can unknow something, just bathe in that mystery. The best thing a person can do this morning is just say about their sin what God says about it, and then cast yourself on his mercy for forgiveness. There's no other hope than doing that, and you can be saved today. The vilest person in the room today can be as forgiven as any apostle sitting now in heaven. Isn't that wonderful? Praise God. And James found that out. Go now with me please to the same book, chapter 12 of the book of Acts. Acts chapter number 12. You're gonna notice in this chapter, there are two James's mentioned. Something is going on with James, the brother of Jesus. You're going to notice in chapter 12 of Acts, we'll begin reading in verse 1. About that time, this is page 1352 if you need it. Chapter 12, verse 1. About that time, Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church. Then he killed James. Which James? The brother of John. Okay, well there it is. It's not James the brother of Jesus, it's James the son of Zebedee who was killed in verse 2. And strange thing, as the Lord has a way of delivering some people through the instrument of death, he delivers some from death. And in the next verses, he frees Peter from prison. And the by the way sort of lesson for you in the room today is that the Lord might take you through your trouble and he might keep you from your trouble, but he will keep you. Here in this passage, we have the Lord allowing one saint to die and another to be delivered and they're equally as saved and are equally in heaven today. One is not better than the other. One was chosen by God to be delivered. That's it, friends. And his wisdom decided who got what. I would prefer that he tell me what I have coming to me if the news is good. If not, I would prefer that he keeps it nice and mysterious. You see in verse 16, Peter continued knocking at this door in Jerusalem. And when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. I mean, he was just in prison. But motioning to them with his hand to keep silent, he declared to them how the Lord had brought him out of prison. He said, go tell these things to, here we go now, James. Now, not James the son of Alphaeus, he's not even really a big deal anymore in the book of Acts. I don't think he's even mentioned since Acts 1 when they were in the upper room. Implication, he left in chapter 8 with the persecution. But what you have here is a third James. The son of Zebedee was killed in verse two. You have another James here, and you're gonna find out it's the third James. It's the brother of Jesus. And if you'd like a reference to write down, Galatians 1.19 says that in Jerusalem, James, the brother of our Lord, became a big deal in the Jerusalem church. This is the one. This is the half-brother of Jesus that Peter said, hey, go tell James, the Lord's brother, that I'm out of prison. James is a big deal. Look at chapter 15 of Acts. Chapter 15. You're going to notice here is a debate going on in local churches like ours. They had debates then because churches are made up of human beings who don't know everything. And although they have scripture, scripture doesn't answer everything. It provides principles, and we apply them to the best that we can. Sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes, because we're made of sinners, sometimes we sin. Sometimes there are questions we don't get answered and we need some counsel. And the Jerusalem church, being the oldest church, was the church that other churches went to for counsel. And who was one of the big deals in that church? Notice verse 13, Acts 15, after they had become silent, James answered, saying, men and brethren, listen to me. Here in this passage, you see the half-brother of our Lord, who is not just a pastor slash bishop slash elder in the Jerusalem church, he's pretty much the leading pastor, the first among equals in the Jerusalem church. That's quite a change. I mean, we're talking about, I mean, that's quite a change. It's been about 15 years since the Lord The Lord Jesus went to heaven, and James went from being an unsaved man to being the leading man in the leading church. That is quite a difference. And why was it? Well, I don't know, but it probably at least meant something to the believers then that Jesus' own brother has been changed. I mean, you talk about an apologetic, a defense of whether Jesus really got up from the dead. Do you think that his brothers would follow him if he stayed in the grave? I doubt it. In fact, I wouldn't. Talk about lowering the bar. And I'll bet you, you might be a better person than me, but I'll bet you, you wouldn't follow a dead Savior either. I mean, what's the point of that? He can't give you anything beyond the grave. Now look at 1 Corinthians 15, page 1411. Pastor Bill, why don't you put all these verses on the board, where it would just be easy for me to kick back, because I don't want to. No, the reason is because I want you to know how to use your Bible. Because if they come and arrest me today, Yes, we have other pastors and we have other preachers and we have godly men in the room, but you gotta live without me. You need to love this book more than you love any personality. 1 Corinthians 15, notice verse three. This is page 1411 in the Bible if you need it. Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel. What is it? Verse three. Here it is, the gospel. I deliver to you first of all that which I also receive, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Paul is telling you what the gospel is. If you think you're giving the gospel to someone and your message doesn't include what he just said, you're not actually giving the gospel. You might be inviting someone to church. You might be influencing them well. You might be doing good things for their morality. You might be getting them closer to church, but you have not yet given them the life-changing, soul-cleansing news of the gospel. And how does it continue? Verse five, and he was seen by Cephas, that's Peter, then by the rest of the 12, basically is what he said, then by the 12. After that, he was seen of over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain in present, but some have fallen asleep." Well, that tells you how early Corinthians was written. He said a large portion of the 500 men that saw him at one time, they're still alive. Go ask them. I mean, you talk about being sure Jesus rose from the dead. He says, make me a liar. Try it. Try it. 450 of the 500 people are still alive. Find them and prove me to be a liar. I'll shut my face, find something else to do. Then he says, in verse number seven, after that he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. So the James in verse seven is not one of the apostles, it is the brother of our Lord. Jesus Christ showed up by himself with a secret audience with his half-brother James. That's pretty special. He gave a secret conference to Peter. He gave a secret conference to his half-brother in verse number seven. And then he gave a secret conference in verse eight to Paul. Last of all, he was seen by me also as one born out of due time. A lot of post-resurrection appearances. A lot of opportunities for people to say, this is just an apparition. He didn't really rise from the dead. But he must have, because all of these people saw him and said he lives in a body, in the body he died in. Okay, that's important. There's a religion today, we knocked on their door, Andy Hubert and I did, a man from a religion that believes, and it's not even one I've referenced yet this morning, that believes that Jesus was not raised from the dead in the body in which he died, but rather was raised from the dead in a spirit body, and his physical body was just made to disappear. There are religions that call themselves Christ followers that say that stuff. And it is up to us to know what we believe so that when we hear something phony, we can say, that's phony. Yeah, it's important. It mattered so much to James that we are saying that he's a different guy because all of this. All right, so James is a different man. Now, we're going to the book of James. Look to the book of James now. It's a little book towards the back of your New Testament, and it is page 1,481 if you need it in the Pew Bible. Page 1,481 if you need it in the Pew Bible. When you found it, say amen. Got about 12, 15 minutes left with you. Now it's time to begin the message. That was all introduction. It's just how it works sometimes. English teachers hate this, right? Introduction has 17 pages long and a paper of, you know, a body that's two pages, conclusion of one paragraph. They love that stuff. That's how my message is this morning. 15, 20 minutes of introduction, 10 or 15 minutes of the body. Verse one, hear the word of the Lord. James, a bond servant of God. and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad. Greetings, or in the Greek, grace to you. That's the word of the Lord. Would you pray for me? Lord, hear the prayers of your saints for this unworthy servant of yours up here behind this podium. You could have had anyone do this, but for whatever reason, in this hour, in this season, in this church, it is me. Help me, please, to not embarrass you or your kingdom. In Christ's name, amen. He could have said a lot of things about who he was. I have a brother who's pretty well known in Dallas, Texas. If you say you've been to Dallas, I've asked you if you've heard my brother. because I feel pretty important when I tell you about them. Pretty lame, isn't it? It's like, hey, one time I got Nolan Ryan's autograph, which I did. Are you impressed? See how we drop names because it makes people think we're super important? I know that I do it all the time because I have this thirst for affirmation. Potentially you do not, and that's all the more reason for you to pray for me. My brother talks to about a quarter million people every day on the radio talking about sports. It's a funny story. TV was getting kind of bad in the 80s. It's gotten a lot better. And so my parents said we were only allowed to watch sports and news. I watched the news and Bob watched the sports. Eventually, Dad gave us the nod on a couple other little shows, like the Cosby Show. Please don't meet me after the service and tell me about Bill Cosby's problems, okay? I don't care in this moment, I don't care. If that's callous, if that's treason, call your congressman, I don't care, all right? Just telling you a story. So my brother watched everything he could that was sports, and then he went to college to be a sports broadcast journalist, and he's been making his living since 1994 talking about sports on the radio. It makes me feel really important when someone says, yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that guy. And you do kind of look like him, and you do kind of sound like him. There's an explanation for that. Turns out we have the same parents. And I feel really important for a minute. Here, James could have really played this up, couldn't he? And he kind of dumbs it down a little bit, kind of like what Jude does in his book. I mean, imagine, can you go to the next slide, please? Here's how Jude opens his book. He does it even better than James, in my opinion. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, the brother of James. He doesn't even say, I'm the brother of Jesus, either. Neither one of them do, and both of them are half siblings of Jesus. James says, I'm not, he doesn't say, I'm not Jesus's brother. He says, I'm Jesus's bond servant. And Jude says, I'm with James. This is kind of a collusion together for you to know these are the half brothers of Jesus that wrote these two books. And James here does something else when he plays himself down. He says, I don't want you thinking about me because of my creds. I want you to be thinking about me because of Jesus, my master. Could have said Jesus, my brother. There are people today, you make a lot of social capital by saying Jesus is your Lord. And I appreciate that. Today, we wanna see if that's an honest assessment of your life. I hope that it is. Tonight, you'll get an opportunity to see the more of the divine side of Jesus and how he draws people to himself. But this morning, I want you to see how James, in a manner of speaking, puts Jesus on the same level with God. Now, you could say, well, James is an early book written in the New Testament and therefore doesn't have much to say about this. But I mean, in the book of James, he not only calls his brother a master, but he puts him up there with God who is his master. I mean, notice how James says it, please. He doesn't say, James, the bondservant of Jesus Christ to y'all. He says, James, the bondservant of God and of Jesus Christ, of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm the bondservant and he is the Lord. He's the master. That is a huge delineation. In fact, he is saying Jesus is equal with God. They are as much master of me as the other one is. This is important and you need to be thinking about this if you attend secular schools or have any unsaved friends, which I hope you do. because there are full books being written. Here's one, When Jesus Became God, 2014, Bart Ehrman. I think I have 10 Bart Ehrman books. I read them all because I wanna know what fools talk like. His point here, he wrote a whole book telling you that for about a hundred years, the Christians started writing more and more like Jesus was God. And then finally, by the time the Gospel of John came out, the reason it sounds like Jesus is God is because the Christians have been working a while at writing it like he was. He's not really God, but they wrote like he was because they wanted a religion that followed a God. And Jesus, well, he wasn't there. And they had to compete with the Mohammedans. They don't say that Mohammed is God. They say he's his prophet. And Christians, if they want a superlative standing in community, they need to be serving someone that kind of outranks Mohammed. So how about God? Let's make Jesus God. That's the argument of this book. and people that are liberal theologians. They say Jesus isn't God, but here is James in one of the very first books written in the New Testament, probably in the 40s AD, and he says, I'm a servant of Jesus and God. It's very interesting how he does that. So I just wanna stop for a minute and ask you, do you see yourself this morning as someone else's property? Because James is saying, I belong to my big brother. He's my master, I'm his servant. Do you see yourself as owned by Jesus? Do you see yourself as owned by Jesus as much as you are owned by God? Because that is what James, the half brother of Jesus is saying this morning. A Christian doesn't have just a savior out of hellfire, we have a master out of selfishness. We are not our own. We're bought with a price. So we have been bound under this Jesus. I like the words of a commentator. I'd like to read them to you. Here's what he says. The trouble is that we like to drag Jesus wherever we want to go instead of following where he leads as real slaves should. We're like the dear soul who said, I want the Lord to be my constitutional king, but I'd like to be the prime minister. Now, Americans, that doesn't make a lot of sense to us. But if you just watch a little British life, that makes sense to you. The king now, he doesn't really have much to say. The prime minister has a lot to say. And he says, you basically want to be the prime minister. A constitutional king has no executive power. He's a figurehead, while the prime minister is the one who actually governs. And many of us want Jesus as our figurehead culturally, but we want to continue to fill our calendar with our life. I woke up the other morning and began my prayer time with, oh dear God, thank you for being in charge. Then I thought, thanking him for being in charge implies that there was any other option. He did not choose to be in charge. He's omnipotent and can't help but be in charge. If he's anything less than in charge, or if he has to decide to be in charge, it calls into question his definition of his very essence of being omnipotent, and therefore cannot be God. So I sort of changed it to, I'm just thankful you're in charge. Thank you for not allowing me to be in charge. What do we mean when we say that he is the master and we are the servant? It means that Jehovah and his son have taken more than a provider function. They are more than just the disciplinarian of father and big brother. They are more than just the role of king and priest. And it's fun to follow a king and priest into battle as long as we know we win. And so thank God we're a good singing church. I heard you singing today and it encouraged my heart. Here's you singing to your king. But he's more than a king. A king is good and it's not less than master. It's not more than master. It's beside him being master. He is our leader in battle. He is our priest before the Father. But He's more than that. He's in addition to that. He's more than just the Creator who grants me rights and gives me expectations for my flourishing. He is that, but He's something in addition to that. Those bring emotion when we think about father, big brother, king, priest, creator, pontificate. These are emotional terms and family terms. And I just want us to say that if you want to tell yourself what it means for him to be your master, it means that he plans your labor for every day. Now, we don't like that. Here's why we don't like that. Because autonomy is our biggest concern. Self-rule is a god of this age, and we have sort of primed the pump a little bit. I'm not angry about America. I love America. I think if we leave these doors raging towards America, we have missed the point of this message. I'm worried about my heart, not America's problems. I'm concerned about our flock, not America's problems. If you wanna know why we don't take a revivalistic tone in our church and have huge events to try to get America to repent, because we got our own acreage to mow. We're trying to prove to each other that we're pro-life by caring for one another before and after birth, when mothers are expecting and after they've given birth. We want each other to be convinced of that. I do want abortion to be abolished, but in here on Sundays, my main concern is not getting a bunch of people that should already know that. My job is to make sure that we are fellow servants of the Most High King and our master. And so autonomy is a big deal. And we sort of prime the pump with providing all kinds of choices. I remember maybe three years ago, I had, no, it was four years ago. Walter has just done a great job of getting me on the lake and Gunpowder Something, what's the name of that place? Help me out there. We took a john boat. It was December. It was the coldest I've ever been in my life. What was it called, Gunpowder Something? Gunpowder Creek? Yeah. We dropped lines over the boat. for about 30 minutes and pulled in about 60 fish. All of them, this, okay, probably about this big. But I have to admit, I was using his lure, and I gave it back to him because it was important to him, so I gave it back to him. I thought, this can't be hard to go and get what I just used. So I went to Bass Pro Shop. I don't know how you make 11 aisles of lures. I don't get that. looking for one lure to drop over a boat. I spent 30 minutes in there looking, and looking, and looking, and looking, and looking, and looking, and looking, and looking, and looking. I finally just grabbed one. I said, whatever, let's just roll with it. I don't know if I'll catch any fish, but I'm getting out of this joint. So many choices that leave us with an illusion of free will. And then we do it to our kids. Do you like what mommy's making for lunch? and then you make them what they want. You are teaching them that they're the boss. No matter how hard you work to provide for them, they can just decide it's not good enough and thumb their nose at you and say, supper, not so much. Is there anything else you can make? And we're teaching them that when God says, here is your plate for the day, we just take it and say, yeah, anyone else want this thing? So we have conditioned ourselves to believe that we should have a conversation about everything we're told to do. A reasoning session where we get together with God at the same table and negotiate. So maybe here's some signs that maybe this might be about you. Number one, you rarely ask your master what you should do. You've made all kinds of plans this week. Did it ever one time cross your mind that you're not your own? It did me, I had a very disappointing moment later this week. I don't wanna tell you about it. It's not my job to be a cathartic person up here. You've had disappointments. I was feeling at the bottom, at the absolute bottom. And I'll just be honest with you, I got a text message inviting me away from here. I think that that was demonic. You better believe that I needed to have a conversation with how the Lord owns me. and I am where he wants me to be. And that's the debate. He is the master, I am the servant. Maybe this is about you. You worry about after being told something is his responsibility and not yours. You struggle with him about who's really in charge and you keep kicking doors until finally one of them opens. Maybe not you, maybe this one. You continue to fascinate after control. You have no idea what the word reasonable means. You are a dream for an insurance salesman. They love to talk to you about all kinds of coverages, all kinds of premiums, all kinds of ways to make sure that you don't lose control. I love insurance, I have it. Don't hear what I didn't say. Christians, we need the word reasonable back in our vocabulary. Four, you want guaranteed success as you define it. Lord, I'll do what you want me to do, but can we talk about how it's gonna work out for me? I will do whatever he wants so long as I can guarantee that the rest of my life will be luxury or at least comfort. This means you have not fully grasped what it means to be owned by the Lord. Five, the commands of Jesus seem heavy and graceless. When you first got saved, let's just make it easier. When you first found Sandy Ridge, you loved being here, you loved the people. And after a while, I mean, just choices of not consulting the Lord, man, your boots feel like they're 50 pounds heavier. And now it's just so hard to just do the stuff that you used to like doing. What changed? What happened to us? Six, your morning quiet time gets co-opted. You used to get up with enough time to talk to the master and check in before you head off into your day. Now we co-opt it. Now it's, let me get ready for this. Let me get the kids up. And we don't get up as early as we used to anymore because we're pretty sure we have standing orders with the master and he's not going to bug us with updated stuff. And so we don't open our Bibles and we're pretty sure that we have this thing settled. And I just want you to remember there was a time in your life when you understood this and you were desperate for his attention in your life. If you've never had that time, you're still not saved. He owns us. We're bought with a price. His blood was the payment. Lastly, you find yourself getting bitter over making life choices that reflect his priorities. You know, it's kind of like, boy, God really got a good deal when he got me. And then we're upset with him because we did what he wanted to. If that's you, there are things you can do today. I don't know to what level, but maybe acknowledge that ownership and lordship are his prize for his price. Understanding that anything other than full surrender to our master is treason against heaven. We can today exercise mental discipline to focus on things that he has put within our control. Today, in a moment, when we stand, you can actually say, God, that really bugged me. I think that I've grown away from you. I think I have become a partner in this thing instead of the servant. We should steward well opportunities that he's put in our hands. Because a servant is a steward and a steward a servant, sometimes he leaves things in our hands to manage. Five, maybe we could look for ways to disentangle ourselves from other masters. That's one of the benefits of being a slave to Jesus, is that we don't owe an allegiance to anyone else. Maybe, maybe you're in a place where you don't really sense God's presence at all in your life. I recommend that today you get with someone and ask them, do you see fruit of God's grace in my life? Because I'm not feeling his part. So maybe to the one that you were just totally caught off guard by 20,000 people dying in an earthquake, that is awful. And maybe it's time we talk about the illusion of normal. That's all it is. To the happily married, and hopefully that's all of you, seize this wonderful season as God's gift to your spouse and as God's gift of a spouse to you. To the woman in an abusive relationship, maybe serving God is serving your husband. We would agree that serving God is letting the husband lead, but that doesn't mean following a leader who's abusive. And if you're suffering this morning, I want you to see a pastor today and do not suffer in silence. To the one who feels like God hasn't answered your prayers in a long time, consider that Jesus Christ often sends his spiritual impulses in the person of his spirit to stop us from doing foolish things in the moment. And maybe the reason he hasn't answered our prayers, which are specific, are because we haven't answered his promptings, which are momentary and specific. Maybe you're feeling underutilized at your workplace. It's true. You may need to look for a new place to work, but you may need to stay long enough to demonstrate to yourself and to your co-workers that you're willing to stay even longer if your master says you should.