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Let me pray for us. Lord, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for a time of coming together as a body and being able to sing, being able to worship you, doing that freely. I pray that you would help us to listen, you help us to understand what you have in your Word, what that says to us today. That's your name that we pray. Amen. Okay, we're going to be in Romans chapter 2 again. Last week, we covered Romans chapter 2 verses 1 through 5, and then we skipped a bunch, and then we went 17 through 29. Today, we're going to cover the bit that we skipped in Romans 2, and also cover a little bit of Romans 3. So as you turn in there, last week we touched on something, although we are going through Romans, Romans, we touched on a parable from Luke. Luke 18 has a parable, a very famous parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And if you're not familiar with the parable of the Pharisee and the tax

collector, there are two men that go in to pray, a Pharisee and a tax collector. And they both pray and the Pharisee in that situation in Jesus' parable is the obvious loser. He's the one that we should not be like, and it's super obvious. He comes in and his prayer literally is, thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. So he's praying this really smug prayer. He's a Pharisee praying a really smug prayer. And he believes in that parable, this Pharisee believes that he is differentiated by his religious action because he tithes, because he gives to the poor. He believes that he is better. Okay. And we saw this last week, we saw how people in religious culture can rely on actions to justify themselves. They believe that because of their religious action, because I go to church, because I read the Bible, because

All these things, right? I am categorically different and better than other people who do not. Okay? That we essentially, that we cannot rely on just being moral that we need to rely on being the gospel. Okay, good. I want to say here in this morning, I want to say that there is yet another way that we can take that exact same parable and twist the application. Okay? So let me just say, it's a great parable. I love that parable, okay? It's one of my favorites, truly. But there's a way to read that parable and to twist the application. And so even, it's ironic, even as we are rightly condemning the Pharisee for being a Pharisee, we can become a Pharisee, okay?

In other words, we can look at our own sin and we can say to ourselves, not so humbly. Well, at least I'm not like a Pharisee, right? What I want to say is that Jesus here in this parable and then in Romans, as we're looking through Romans because they deal with a lot of the same ideas, Jesus is not setting up a system where the least religious person wins. Jesus is not setting up a system where somebody who is a hypocrite is worse than an irreligious person whose humanity is perverted. Jesus isn't trying to set up scales here to where if you're more religious, you're worse. But when we read the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, that's really easy to think. It's really easy to think that Jesus doesn't have anything to say to the tax collector, that he only has something to say to the Pharisee. But Jesus has something to say for both. And you see this a lot, like a lot today, especially with irreligious people,

there's a say, well, irreligious people can say, well, you know what, at least I'm honest about it. At least I'm honest about the fact that I don't run after God. At least I'm not trying to hide the fact that I have doubts about God's existence. At least I'm not a hypocrite. At least I'm not going to church pretending like I believe in God when I have doubts about Him. And there's this, It's weird, but there's this moral high horse that you can get on when you're irreligious that says, well, I'm being honest about it. This is a very seductive way of thinking. You actually see this a lot in movies and in TV shows where the villain at the end is kind of given this long soliloquy about the villain's trying to justify their behavior. And they'll say something like, well, look, I'm honest about the fact that I'm morally corrupt. You're trying to hide it. You're trying to be this justice warrior, but you're just as morally corrupt as me.

At least I'm being honest about it. It is very seductive because it allows people to justify their actions through honesty. And it is honesty. It's not even honesty. It's real honesty. But it allows people to kind of sort us justify their actions. And Romans actually anticipates this line of thinking. What I've just described to you is spoken of here in Romans. And it really puts forth two kind of big stubborn facts that redirect that line of thinking, okay? And so we're gonna see one in chapter two, verses six through 16, and going to see the second one as we jump to chapter 3, and we're going to head through 1 through 18. And really, we're going to just cover the first part of Romans 3. We're not going all the way through 18 because it talks a lot about what we've already discussed. So I'd encourage you to read those things, but we're going to be spending the majority of our time, the very

beginning of Romans 3, and then Romans 2, 6 through 16. So let's get to Scripture Romans chapter two, verses six through eight is where we're going to begin. And again, in Romans chapter two, we have just kind of worked through this idea that the religious and the irreligious aren't different, that the Jews and the Greeks aren't different. It says, he will render to each one according to his works, to those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. Okay, so God doesn't play favorites. This is kind of the first thing we need to understand. It says there's, you know, God's not weighing it out based on like creed or worldview or heritage or race. There's nothing that that delineates us from each other

that we're all the same before God. And what he says is that everybody who does good, both the religious and the irreligious, everybody who does good is gonna receive eternal life and all who sin are gonna receive wrath and fury, okay? But we put a fine point on it, we keep going verses nine through 11, okay, fine point. It says, there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek, for God shows no partiality. Okay, do you see the fine point we're getting to here? Okay, God doesn't play favorites. God doesn't show partiality. Everybody, this is true justice, what we see here. True justice. True justice is everybody being judged by our actions. Okay, it's a meritocracy, if you will. All right, it It is what I've done speaks to what I should get, good or bad.

Okay? I'm going to earn it on my merits. And then there's still this question in Romans because, you know, we're dealing with Jews and Greeks and there's this question about the law. And it's a really interesting question. But having the law or not doesn't really make a difference if we see that in verses 12 and 13. And it becomes important. It says, so it's for all who have sinned without the law, which would be Greeks, right? The irreligious people. All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law and all who have sinned unto the law will be judged by the law." In other words, nobody gets rid of the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous for God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Okay, so that's great. Okay, that's a more refined point, but it brings up the law and it causes us to get the next two verses here, verses 14 and the first part of 15.

Read that with me. It says, when Gentiles who do not have the law, right? So this is a big deal. Gentiles, Greeks, don't have the law. They don't have the religious heritage. They don't have the upbringing that the Jews have, right? For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves. Even though they do not have the law, they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness. Okay, so we've kind of almost stumbled onto a really important thing. The really important thing is that the law is not something that just exists on two tablets over there, but the law is something that is written on everybody's hearts, whether they are Jew or Greek. In this letter, the people receiving this letter, the Jews receiving this letter, thought, understood that they had the law. I have the law, right?

They don't have the law. I, we have the law. And what he's saying here is that The law is written on our hearts that we have a conscience. It is popular to believe today, very, very popular to believe that consciences are formed almost exclusively by environment. Okay. Let me say it again. It is popular to believe today that consciences are formed almost exclusively by environment. So here's an example. That moral code that you have, that's just something that your parents put upon you. That social, that social, you know, pact, that way that you should behave in public, that's just something that society upholds because they're told to, okay? In other words, the only reason that you act on the version of morality that you act upon upon is because of how you were raised and where you were born. That's it. Okay. In other words, what you believe is right and wrong is only formed by the outside.

There's nothing inside yet all over scripture. We see that conscience, the thing that tells us what's right and wrong comes from God's law being written on our hearts. When you know that you should stick up for somebody, but do not. When you know, when you click on something that you know you should not click on, the reason that you know that, the reason that you feel that, is not because somebody told you one time that it was bad. It's because your conscience has the law of God written on it. Every human in existence has that on their heart. Conscience, sure, man, it is informed. I'm not saying your conscience is never formed by your environment, but what I'm saying is that there is a right and wrong that really everybody knows. It comes out in different ways. Sure, man, I mean, different cultures kind of explore that differently, but it's always wrong.

It's always right, even when people are not kind of jiving with that. If the law is on your heart, then here's this first kind of inescapable fact we can't get past. If that is true, then we are each accountable to the law, not to each other. This is really important for you to kind of just nail down right here. We are each accountable to the law, to God's standard, not to the standard of each other. In other words, we don't get to compare, not even to Hitler, okay? It was just a low bar, okay? If you're comparing yourself to Hitler, you should question the morality of your decision, okay? Just saying you should, it's not okay to compare yourself to Hitler and think that's okay. But there are people that do it, you know, like, well, I could be like you, I could When you begin a sentence with, at least I'm not like, whatever comes after that, I don't care, whatever comes after that, that is a surefire way to deny accountability.

If you start a sentence with, well, at least I'm not like, in other words, if you're being cruel and you say, well, you know, at least I'm not wishy-washy. Well, sure, you're not wishy-washy, but you're still being cruel. And that's still wrong. It doesn't justify being cruel. If you are soft on injustice or soft on sin and you say, well, you know, at least I'm not a fascist, well, congratulations, you're not a fascist. But it still doesn't justify you being soft on injustice. Does that make sense? But it's a really, look, man, I mean, if you, I mean, turn on a TV, put on YouTube, listen to a talking head for four seconds and you're going to hear a comparative justification construct. You're going to hear, well, at least it's not like, well, it could have been as bad as, or, you know, this, you know, this, and it's frustrating. It's frustrating because what it does is, what it does is it just mires us into a batch

of nothing. We don't have a way to compare what we're doing. We don't have a way to declare things are right and wrong. If you say that something is right or something is wrong that is bigoted, and that is somehow morally superior to claim that you have the true truth, you know that it's not just somebody's truth, but here's the reality. God stops all of that comparison because everybody has the law, they have it on their hearts, and they answer to that, not each other. And so both the hypocrisy of religious culture and the perversion of their religious culture, fall short of God's law. Okay? Now that should help us begin to kind of dismantle the, at least I'm not like a justification, kind of this off-handed way to baptize whatever you did as okay, or not as bad as Hitler. Okay? But this leads to a deeper question, and it doesn't seem to be related, but it's a little indirect,

but we must deal with it. And that question is kind of brought up in chapter 3 verse 1. And it looks like this in Romans 3:1, we're going to kind of talk about it differently. It says, then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? And I know you were waking up thinking about this question today, this burning question in our society. What advantage has the Jew? OK. Well, what is the virtue? What is the value of circumcision? Okay, I get it. So to really understand it from a Romans point of view, right, we need to read this with a bit of exasperation, okay? That essentially half the church that has this Jewish heritage is kind of throwing their arms up and going, well then, okay, but then what's it for then? If you're saying then count, then do we have anything?

What good is it? In other words, and let me just kind of like translate that to today. If hypocrisy and perversion are the exact same, if it is just as sinful for me to pretend like I'm a goody two shoes whenever I'm harboring secret sin, if that's just as sinful as going living a life of debauchery on the Vegas Strip, then why am I not on the Vegas Strip? What does it count? What is it for? Why not? You guys want to go? I was like, did I just make a compelling argument? Good, good, I hope I did. That's kind of the point. Why try? Why bother with trying to be a hypocrite? Why bother with standards, right? It's a compelling case. Here's an illustration. If we were at an archery range, okay, if you still kind of don't know what I'm talking about, we're in an archery range and I tell you, hey man, look, there's a target right there, okay? But in order for you to hit the target at all, you have to hit it perfectly.

Perfectly. Otherwise, it won't count. And you spend 45 minutes, and you are, and you're a good archer, let's just say in this illustration, you're a great archer. Maybe you're the best archer. You spend 45 minutes trying to try and make you control your breathing. No, you can't get it perfect. You intense your focus. You remember your training. You adjust for the wind. You are missing every time. And sometimes you think you got real close and you're looking, you're like, I think I got it. It just wasn't perfect. No, it doesn't count. In fact, getting that close to the target is the same as missing. Well look, I don't even know if it's going to take you 45 minutes, but you're going to give up in frustration. It's going to be completely annoying. And you're like, why am I trying to be an archer at all? And you're going to throw away the bull and the arrow. And in religious culture, in religious culture, when this thought takes hold, this is when

things get really ugly in someone's life. This is the religious kid who grew up in a religious culture. They go to college and they run their lives into the ground because they think it doesn't matter. They give up on everything that they were raised with and they just say, you know what? Might as well just go to Vegas. What's the point of trying if I'm never going to get it right? And that, look, that's an extreme example. That's the religious kid who goes out to college and freaks out. This is where it comes out in our everyday, right? It's this question, what is the value in making commitments to Jesus? What is the value in making commitments to Jesus? Why attempt to have five quiet times a week if we're going to fall short? Why start a family Bible reading plan if we're just going to fail? I hope I did not hit you too hard with that. Just saying. That is a question though, it's a question that we ask.

Why even start if I'm going to fail? Why do that? Isn't it better not to begin in the first place? Why not just skip the guilt, skip the anxiety, skip the effort, right? Because if I would have never started it, I would just be where I'm at right now, still having failed at it, but feeling much less guilty. Okay, I think I'm making a compelling argument. We're gonna have a bunch of people quit the Bible reading plan here in like a minute and a half. Let's keep reading and we're gonna learn a little bit more and we're gonna answer the original question, what advantage has the Jew? Okay, verse two, here's answering that question. What if angels has the Jew much in every way? Jews have a lot of advantage, he says. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracle of God. Now that's a funny beginning of that sentence to begin with because it kind of tells us there's a longer list coming

but the longer list never comes. Actually, that's not true. The longer list does come but it doesn't come until like Romans nine. So let's fast forward to Romans nine. Romans nine, four through five. It actually gives the list then, okay? So if you're waiting for it, You know, you've got six chapters. It says, they are Israelites. And to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises. To them belong the patriarchs. That's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. And from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. OK. Here's his point. His point is that religious culture still has value in and of itself. It is still good. I pointed this out last week. It is good to know that my children were raised up until this point without being hooked on crystal meth. Okay? All right?

That's a good thing. I mean, I'm kidding a little bit, but I'm really thankful. I'm really thankful, right? It's actually incredibly, it's an incredible burden upon a family when one member is hooked on crystal meth. And I'm not even trying to make light of it. I'm just saying like when you have an addict in the family, it tends to flush your family down the toilet. It is hard, it is painful, and it ruins a lot of things for a lot of people, okay? So we can actually sit there and be thankful that yeah, like, you know, like we're, We have people that try to live morally in our families. Okay, that's good. So that's a good thing.

Let me just give you two more examples. First, it's good to know Christian songs. Let's just take Christian music, for example, okay? Because Christian songs commit truth to memory, okay? So they can be good. In college, my wife, then girlfriend, and I would listen to Cabman's Call. And I learned a lot of theology through the albums of Cademan's Call, okay? And artists that you may not know, Stephen Curtis Chapman, Chris Rice, Fire Iron Frenzy, Michael Card, Margaret Becker, right? All these people, you might not have known any of what I just listed, but all of those artists had a profound effect. They heavily influenced the way I thought about God. That's a good thing. That's not anything to lament. That's something to bemoan, that's a good thing.

Let's just take another example. Let's talk about parents in churches, okay? Look, I had, you know, my parents were not perfect, my church was not perfect, but they helped me thrive. They protected me, man. I was stupid. I mean, my kids are very aware of the fact that I was, I was dumb when I was in high school. Really dumb, like way dumber than my kids are right now. And I needed protection. I needed people to look out for me and go like, hey, if you do that, that's not gonna be okay. Like, that's gonna hurt a whole lot. So in my youth group, man, a guy named Roger Palmer, like I did not like him when I was in 10th grade, but that man was the best thing that ever happened on my walk, because he prevented me from doing some really stupid things a lot, okay?

Okay, all of these, all of these efforts, okay? Okay, we're just gonna group his efforts. All the church programs, all the songs that people wrote, all these efforts, all these things that people were doing around me, okay? They happened because people were trying despite the fact that they were going to fall short. Despite the fact that they had deep, deep flaws themselves. All of those people, just by their effort, because they were trying, because Chris Rice tried to write a Christian song, even though it was going to be imperfect, even though his motivations were probably mixed. Who knows, man? I mean, he could have been like doing drugs when he wrote a hymn. I have no idea, but I do know that that hymn blessed me. I do know that those efforts, however imperfect they were, helped me, grew me, developed me, And although we aren't going to read them, verses 3 through 8 in Romans 3,

what they talk about in a very convoluted, difficult to understand way. So just saying, it's hard to understand those verses. Verses 3 through 8, what they're kind of grabbing at is what we talked about last week, this push-pull within Christianity. It's a push-pull that every Christian is eventually going to feel, okay? So here's the push. The push is, I must teach things or demonstrate things as wrong and morally bankrupt. Okay, so to take my examples, my parents needed to set in front of me and say, hey Drew, this is stupid, don't do this, it's dumb.

You're gonna get hurt, it's gonna be real bad. I remember when I was in sixth grade, I was in Miss Sanders' science class and I forgot something was supposed to be signed. And so I just put, you know, that number, you know, put the arm around. And I tried to forge my mom's signature and Miss Sanders, the vet, the veteran, okay? She saw me, I mean, a mile away. She just like pulled my arm back, picked a piece of paper up. And man, sixth grade, I was afraid. And so I remember, I remember my mom sitting me down and saying, Drew, you're on a roller coaster ride. And you think this is fun, but you don't know how it's going to end. And I thought, she's right. And look, I don't know what else my mom said in that moment. I can't remember that whole tongue lashing. I can't. I don't want to really. But I do remember that. And I do remember, man, boom, it just got my attention.

And all I can think of is, if I'm my mom, how many times did I say that? How many times did my mom tell me, Drew, you're on this roller coaster, or some version of that. And that time my mom would tell me too. I don't remember any other thing my mom told me like on that version, but she did tell me that and I did remember that one time. And you know what man, that probably saved me from doing a lot of other stupid things. But my mom was a very imperfect person. She needed to, she needed to demonstrate that something was wrong and morally bankrupt. And for my parents, and really this is again, this is every Christian eventually, you're going to feel the weight of hitting the target perfectly. You will. You're going to feel the weight. You're going to feel the weight. If you've never felt the weight, just wait till you have kids. Then you'll definitely feel the weight then.

Or if you've never felt the weight, lead somebody, because you're definitely going to feel the weight then. Jump into a life group leadership role. You'll feel the weight, it'll come. You'll want to do it perfect. You will. You're going to want to do it the right way. And it's not bad to feel that weight. It's not a bad thing to feel that weight, but it can lead you guilt ridden if you don't consider the pull. So we just talked about the push, here's the pull. The pull is that I engage in things that are wrong and morally bankrupt. At the exact same time that I'm telling you, don't do this, it's bad, don't do this, it's bad, I do bad things, I do unhealthy things all the time, okay, because I'm a sinner too, right? When I betray my own conscience, when God standards the law, Like when it shows me to be a failure again,

this is when our basic motivations come out. Okay? And we must ask ourselves, and this is kind of the, we're starting to get to it here. We must ask ourselves, in an attempt to live a holy life, you must ask yourself, is it about me? Or is it about Jesus? And I know that's really simplistic, but it may be a different way to ask it would be, Am I trying to justify myself and make sure that I look good and make sure that I'm putting on a good front and make sure that I'm demonstrating this and make sure I'm? Or am I trying to commune with Jesus? Am I trying to walk with Jesus? Am I trying to serve Jesus? These are two wildly different motivations. There is value in knowing the law and attempting to live by it. Period. There is value in knowing the law and attempting to live by it, but not if it's in your own power and not if you're using it to justify yourself.

Then it doesn't matter what you do. It's just a whole. It will just suck you dry. In other words, I'm trying to just attack this from like, oh, excuse me, I'm trying to attack this from about 50 different ways so that you can see it. There is real power then in making commitments to Jesus, even though you know you're going to mess it up. There's real power in starting a family Bible reading plan, even though you know you're late on it, even though you know you've already messed it up. There's power there because it's the only way we can move forward in a relationship with Jesus. It's the only way forward. And so when the enemy is coming around you, and if it's in your head or if it's through another person, and they say, hey, why are you trying to live a holy life? You're just being hypocritical. Why don't you just be honest about who you are? Don't you know you don't deserve,

don't you know you're just front, don't you know you're just trying to be something that you're not? In reality, you are being very honest about who you are because you are a sinner that needs grace. You've been given grace and you have been given apostleship and the only way forward, the only way to embrace that grace, the only way to act on that apostleship is imperfectly. We don't have any other option. If the only option is to do it perfectly, then throw away the bow, throw away the arrow, go to Vegas if that's the only way forward. It's not. The only way, in fact, the only way forward is imperfectly. Let me say it just one more way. Our progress is not linear. If you were to draw me a graph of your spiritual growth over the last five years, And all you show me is up and to the right.

I do first, I don't believe you at all. And I think next I'm thinking, what are you trying to sell me? Because nobody's spiritual growth chart looks like that. Your progress spiritually is not linear. It's up, down, it's hills, valleys. It is spurts and starts. It is sometimes major lulls. It is sometimes major spiritual warfare. Sometimes you go through something for years. We grow imperfectly through failed commitments. We should embrace imperfect action and pray for good to come of it. Do you hear me when I say that? I'm not saying, look, if I tell you, well, you know, the only people that are Christians are people that act like Christians. Well, then none of us are Christians. Okay? Like, just pick a moment for me, man. I mean, you don't have to wait very long. Pick a moment for me and I'm gonna act like I'm not a Christian. I'm gonna act in a way that is not faithful to Jesus.

I'm going to, dude, yesterday, so I'll tell myself, yesterday I was moving something and there was a deck of cards, it was moving a big box, like some boxes of games, right? And there was a deck of cards right on top, phase 10 cards, my girls were laughing at me already. Phase 10 cards, right? And I was moving it over, and I didn't realize the Phase 10 cards, which is a big old stack of cards, was right on top, and it just fell over. Well, it scared me. I know that sounds dumb, but when I get scared, I just freak out. Like, I just get this jolt of adrenaline. It's not okay. I'm not baptizing this thing, but I just do. I just, oh! And so, the cards drop, I freak out, and I'm just like, whoa! I just kind of want, you know, and so the whole family, all the other five people in my home just get completely quiet and all look at me. I'm like, what's he gonna do? He's gonna freak out.

And I'm like having like breathe, you know, I'm just going, okay, all right. Now what do I do in that moment? Do I sweep it under the rug, but tell it like it never happened? No. I apologize for it. Am I now disqualified from doing anything else good that day? No. It's, I'm imperfect, man. Imperfect action. I know that might be just a really silly story to you, but for me that's a major thing. I don't like loud noises. They freak me out. Sometimes I yell, I do things, and I shouldn't do those things. And sometimes it's caused real harm in my family because of that. Not physical harm, but then it's not what I mean, but just emotional damage, man. I mean just tough stuff. But where do I go from there? Where do you go from falling for your addiction the last time or the latest time? Where do you go from there? Where do you go when it happens again? The thing you swore would never happen, happens again.

Where do you go from there? Is it just all done? You going to Vegas now? You throwing away the boat? No, you can't. That's no way to live. Just living on a cliff every time. Every time you mess up. I would encourage you to think of it this way. And this is really helpful to me. I heard this in high school and I've never forgotten it. I've used it several times. And some of you, this is recent memory for you, you ever taught a child how to walk? Teach a child how to walk, you know what you do, you grab the hands, and you're doing it. And then eventually, you just let go. It's not that fast, I understand. But I want you to imagine, I want you to imagine, teaching a little child how to walk, nine month old, right? How to walk, okay? Early, early walker here, okay, six month old. And baby takes like three steps and then falls right on his bottom.

And what if you just, you're just so mad, you just kick that baby. Clutch the pearls. Kick the baby. Who would do such a thing? It's pretty astonishing, right? Some of you might even be upset right now. Of course we wouldn't do that, it's unheard of. It's stupid actually. It shows both that you're cruel, but that you're also dumb because that's not how babies learn how to walk. Babies don't learn how to walk through negative reinforcement.

Babies learn how to walk by falling down and getting up again and walking again. Some of you were super shocked that I said kick the baby, But that's exactly how some people believe God responds when you fall down. You think God's waiting to punt you into the next stratosphere as soon as you mess up one time. And yeah, it's funny. It is funny. I said punt. That is funny. It is painful though. It is painful. It is mentally exhausting to feel like you are always on the high wire of morality And that if you just mess up just once, you're gone, you're done. You don't have any more witness. You can't be effective with the kingdom anymore. You're tainted goods. It's wrong. It's very damaging to believe that lie. Children learn how to walk by falling down and getting up again. I want to end with this. In your life, with your religious commitments, and I want you to think about maybe one.

I want you to think about a religious commitment that you have. And it could be like, it could be one that you've already failed on that still worked for this example, or one that you're currently up on, either one. And let's just say you're kind of getting to the point where it's just getting really hard and you're getting behind. So my life group right now, and my life group, Levi's looking at me like, we're reading the Old Testament in 120 days, okay, cuz we hate each other. Okay. We're full on. We hate each other. So we're doing that. And it's about, I mean it's about 30 minutes reading a day for five days a week, so we get two cheat days. It's about 30 minutes of reading a day. And so when I'm behind on that, like I was two days ago, when I'm behind on that, the thought begins to come into my mind, like what's the point? Why keep going? Why not just skip this stuff?

Why not just throw in the towel? Why are we doing it? You start to have an existential crisis about your commitment. Before the commitment was just doing just fine. You were on pace, maybe you were at a pace, and you're like, hey, everything's fine. But as soon as you get behind pace, you start scrutinizing the morality of that commitment. All of a sudden, it becomes suspect. And if you start asking the question, what's the point? I would encourage you that you need to ask further, what point are you going for? If the point is to justify yourself and to get it right, then yeah, you win. There is no point. Go to Vegas. But I wanna challenge you to think a little bigger. The point, what is the point? The point of your religious commitments, the point of prayer, the point of reading scripture, the point of meeting up with your life group, the point of staying on pace.

Whatever you say that you're going to read the Old Testament in 120 days. The point of all that is not to somehow mark it off on a checklist, and I do have a checklist, and I am marking it off. But that's not the point. The point is to commune with Jesus Christ. The point is to encounter Him on the way through Leviticus. The point is to serve Him. The point is to be formed by Him. I love Jesus and that's why I'm doing these things because I want to commune with him, because I want to talk with him, I want to listen to him. If you are reading the Bible and none of those motivations are, I want to hear Jesus this morning or this evening or whatever you're reading, then close your Bible. Take a second, pray, ask the Lord to be your motivation and then open your Bible back up. Jesus is the one who is the point. If the point is you, then yeah, yeah, that's stupid.

If the point is Jesus, then that's everything. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this moment. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the ways that you are... Just the ways that you are speaking to us, that you're helping us to understand what is going on around us, helping us to understand how to make decisions, how to make commitments, what's the point of those things. All of that can be confusing, frustrating, and it can really leave us in a tough spot emotionally or tough spot, maybe existentially. We thank you for those moments. And we pray that in those moments that we would stop what we're doing, whatever that is, and ask for motivation. Ask for you. Ask for you to come to mind. I must worship you in everything that we do. That's your name that we pray. Amen. As we enter into our time of singing afterward, if there is when we are done singing and all that, I'm going to be right over here

standing awkwardly. And if you want to talk about service, you want to talk about anything, you've got a question, prayer, anything like that, you can come and see me. I'll be just sitting right over there. I