Ep.70 - When You Need a New Year's Resolution

In this episode, Kirk shares a New Year's sermon he preached back in 2011 that took a unique take on the resolution.  Enjoy and Happy New Year everyone!

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Transcript

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right and welcome back everyone to another episode of christening podcast today kind of a Unique episode as I was going through some audio files, some old audio files, like this one's 10 years old, but ran across a sermon I preached as a guest preacher at a friend of mine's church. And it was a New Year's sermon. It was the Sunday right after New Year's. And so did a little New Year's theme to it, thought it might be appropriate to share it. Now, 10 years later, took kind of a unique course. A twist on the New Year's resolution from a spiritual standpoint. So yeah, I thought I'd throw it up here for you guys to enjoy. I've got another one recorded in the docket ready to go. So look forward to 2023 kicking off with a couple new episodes back to back. So enjoy. Everybody have a good one. All right. Well, Friday, right, Tim? Got a phone call. I love getting phone calls from Tim. Just the most soothing, peaceful chat you will ever have is always with Tim. But this one was interesting. I couldn't get the first call, so he left a voicemail. Just said, well, if you could call me back, brother, it'd be great. This is the phone number, and I'm in room 262 or something like that B. And I'm like, wait a second. what's going on. So I call the number back and it's Eisenhower Hospital. I'm like, okay, something's got to be off. But got connected and so obviously you guys know Tim had some health problems over the week and I've been praying for you, brother. But what was a testimony to me, guys, is I don't know about you, but if I ever find myself in the hospital for the weekend, you'll probably notice a different tone in my voice than when i'm out of the hospital whatever you know that joyful polite thing that you see when you just see me when everything's great and everything's going well in life you know if you're to call me probably in the hospital that tone of voice is probably going to be a little more dejected and a little more discouraged and but not tim it was the exact same tim the exact same voice and i had no idea what was going in the hospital room but uh It felt like I was just talking to Tim sitting at his work, sitting in church, the same Tim anywhere. So that really was a testimony to me. But obviously he asked me to preach today, which is a tremendous honor. Anytime I get to share the word of God. at any church, but especially when it's a church that I'm not normally connected with, that they would trust me with their pulpit and their people. That's always a blessing. It's always an honor. And I said, Tim, well, what's on your heart? And he just started sharing with me basically the mission that I see in our worship guides, which is kind of the heart of C3 and loving God and loving others and And Tim was just saying, well, if I was there, he's like, I'd just be trying to really get that mission into the hearts of the people and helping them understand what loving God is and knowing God and then how that spills into others. And I said, well, he said, don't worry, you don't have to preach that if you don't want. But I'm one of those that I like to come alongside what God is doing in a body at a church. And so I spent all day just thinking about what Tim was sharing and the Lord brought me to to Matthew 22, where Jesus shares those two greatest commandments. And that's where we're going to be spending some time this morning. So if you want to turn there to Matthew 22 in your electronic Bible or your paper version, whatever you prefer. But then also, I couldn't get out of my head what the time of year that this is. I don't know about you, but last Sunday we had an awesome Christmas celebration at our church and got to hear the traditional Christmas message, which is always uplifting, always encouraging. But then what do we usually focus on the Sunday after Christmas? What's coming in the new year? And what does our mind start immediately focusing on as we start to remember how many holiday cookies we ate and how much we overate at Christmas Eve and the leftovers of Christmas and then all the family meals after that, right? We start thinking about this thing, what, called New Year's resolutions. And those, it's just awesome how New Year's is so close to Christmas because it's always easy to come up with them. You know, because you're literally sitting after Christmas, you're sitting in the, in whatever... you've done to yourself and how that feels. And so you can come up with resolutions real quick. And years ago, I was like big time into working out and go to the gym like every day. And I had a buddy that worked with me at school. He was the history teacher and the football coach. And we coached football together. And so we'd always go to the gym. And the two weeks that we hated the most was the first two weeks after January 1st. because the gym would just be packed with people, right? Just packed. Lines at every machine, every treadmill, anything that you wanted to do, you'd be like three people waiting to get on that machine. Why? Because usually half of the New Year's resolutions out there have to do with some sort of exercise program some sort of eating better, you know, all that thing, right? Because we just got done gorging ourselves. And we're just like, man, I don't want to feel like this anymore. And so we make those New Year's resolutions. But we always knew, me and my friend, we always knew. We're like, it's all right. We'd show up and be packed. Our workout would take twice as long as normal because we'd have to wait. But we'd always be like, you know what, this will be done in two weeks. Because three weeks after New Year's, the gym's empty again. You know, it's just the few really weirdos that, for some reason, get a kick out of it. You know, which isn't me anymore. I'll confess that right away. But, you know, we knew that. And, you know, I always wondered about that. Just about everybody I know makes some kind of New Year's resolution. Some sort of... decision that this year, they want this year to reflect something new about their lives. Something different they're going to do. And then I thought about the majority of those resolutions always fail. They always end before next year begins. And unfortunately, as you guys know, a lot of times they end within the first month of our attempt. Right? And I've I'm with you. I've done plenty of those New Year's resolutions where a couple weeks in and it's somehow I lost that motivation to whatever it was. I'm going to be more patient with my kids. I'm going to You know, and then school kicks back in and the kids forget to do their homework and all this stuff and you just start to get frustrated all over again and all of a sudden that patient's resolution is now gone and all this stuff that we mean so well and they're good things that we want to do. But I was thinking about that in light of what Tim was sharing with me on Friday and especially the time of year and why do New Year's resolutions fail and I think Matthew 22 kind of gives us a unique insight into that. And so we're gonna take a look. And you guys have heard the ending part of it when a lawyer comes to Jesus, not like a lawyer we understand today, but a lawyer back then was one who knew the Mosaic Law inside and out, knew, had it memorized, understood every little detail to it, and could help people obey the law better. That's what a lawyer was back 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem. And we all know that that lawyer came to Jesus and said, so what's the greatest commandment? And we know what Jesus' answer was, right? And it's what your mission is. Love God, love others. So we've heard that. If you're a Christian today, you understand that. But what really struck me as profound Tim was sharing, I was like, man, let me, I gotta dig into that scripture. I wanna see what comes before, and I wanna see what comes after. So, let's take a look at that. That question that Jesus answers towards the end of the chapter, Matthew 22 is just a series of questions. That's all it is. It's questions in response to some of Jesus' teachings. And you get three questions from man, And then Jesus poses his own question after they pose theirs. And it's incredibly telling. We're not going to get too deep in, because this is a big chunk. So I'm not going to try to break this all down. We'll be here for about four or five hours, and I would enjoy that, but the children in the room would not at all. So I love having children when I preach, because they keep my mind on the clock, make sure I know I've got to get to the point, and we've got to go. So it's always a blessing to have kids in church. But look at verse 17. You see the first question of man. And the question is, tell us then, what do you think, as they're asking Jesus. And we know in this chapter, they're trying to set traps for Jesus and things like that. Tell us what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? And so they want to know, they're being oppressed by this guy Caesar, and they want to know, do we support this guy or do we not? Is that not questions that we're dealing with every day? Should we be supporting these things that are happening around us, maybe through our government, maybe through our schools, maybe through whatever, and we're just like, I don't agree with them. Do we support them, do we not? But It's not so much the details of the question that I think we need to focus on, but it's what is the heart of the question? And the heart of this question is, what do I need to do? Because look what he says. He says, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? The heart of that question is, Jesus, what do I need to do in order to be acceptable to you or to God or to... You know, this thing we're all trying to serve, this thing we're all trying to worship together, and they were all Jews there, and these were the leaders at the time. And so they wanted to know, Jesus, tell us, what do we need to do? Do we pay taxes to this guy, or do we not? And we're not going to get into them, but Jesus' answers are always just incredible. So you can take time this week just to break this chapter down yourself. But the first question of man is always, what do I need to do? And we've got all kinds of different answers to that on this world. What do I need to do? What's that ultimate thing I need to do to get me where I want to be? What do I need to do to find God? What do I need to do to get to heaven? And there's different religions that have different answers to that. And even within various religions, they all have different versions of answers to that. Because I want you to know that your flesh that you carry with you today, even though you're a Christian, that flesh will always prompt you to ask that question, which will prompt you to start resolutions and to do things like that. What do I need to do? Because I know what I'm currently experiencing isn't it. I know there's more. I know there's something else. So what is it? Let's look at the second question. So the Pharisees was the group that asked him the first question, and then the Sadducees come up on verse 23, and this one's a little more complicated, but again, we're just going to look at the heart of this. In verse 23, the same day the Sadducees came to him, who say there is no resurrection, okay, and that's kind of a theological detail, not super important to what we're dealing with today, but Pharisees believed there was no resurrection after the dead. The Sadducees believed, I mean, Pharisees believed there was. Sadducees believed there was no resurrection, that basically this is it. This is all we got. So they're going to set a trap for Jesus about the resurrection of the dead. And verse 24, saying, Teacher, Moses said, if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers among us, the first married and died, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother, so too the second and the third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, here comes the question, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they were had together. for they all had her. He was referring back to a law of Moses called the kinsman redeemer, and God, by his grace, set up a system so that women that lost their husband wouldn't be stuck on their own. So he put a system in place so that women that would have families, perhaps, that would lose their husbands, they would have people already knowing that their job was to step in and to care for this family, and to take on this family as their own family. So it was a great law, but these guys are trying to get technical. They're trying to trap Jesus, and so they want to use this as a, okay, so since you believe there's a resurrection, what's going to happen? If this woman married technically all seven of these brothers, well then in this so-called heaven, in this so-called resurrection, well then whose husband is she going to be? And again, it's not so Jesus answers perfectly, and we're not necessarily going to get into that, but what's the heart of the question? The heart of the question is, what's going to happen? And that's another big question of man. What's going to happen? And that's a big question within our Christian circles too, right? We've got all kinds of different denominations with different versions of that. What's going to happen? And we get really worked up about those answers. And we draw very firm lines in the sand saying, well, this is the answer. And if you don't like this answer, well, then you've got to take your answer somewhere else. It's always amazed me, even as a young Christian when I was in college, how preoccupied we were about what's going to happen. And I'm not saying none of that's important. That's not my point, but... But what we see again is a question of man. We always want to know what's the future going to hold? What's going on? Because there's always tension. There's always stress. There's always anxiety. And we want to know, what's this all going towards? So the first question that man always asks is, what do I need to do? The second question we see here is, what's going to happen? And then the third question, the question that Jesus answers that kind of sets up the mission of C3 Church. Verse 34 picks up. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees about that whole resurrection, they gathered together and they're like, oh cool, the Sadducees couldn't get him. Let's see if we can get him. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. Verse 36, here's the question. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? 37, and he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law of the prophets. So after they ask, what do I need to do? What's going to happen? Then they want to get Let's make this simple. Let's break this down to the most, the immovable parts. And the last question is, what's the most important stuff to do? Because I don't know about you, if you start living long enough, and you try so many things, you know, you have so many resolutions, I'm 37, I've had so many things that I've, that I've tried and failed and tried and it didn't produce what I thought it was supposed to produce. So now, I don't know about you, I'm at the point where I'm like these guys. Okay, well, if I've tried all this other stuff, just tell me, what's the most important stuff? You know, you get, it's funny, the older you get, the more simple you need it to be because you're like, I'm done wasting time. I'm done wasting energy. Just give me, just bring me straight to the heart. And so Jesus answers, and we all know the answer is good. We all know it's perfect. But what strikes me about this is he answers the question because he's a good, gracious God that desires to connect to his people. But what struck me when I started studying this yesterday is then Jesus has a question of his own. And this was kind of the revelation to me, thinking about New Year's and resolutions and all this stuff, and why do they seem to fail so much. Look at verse 41 and 42. Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, so it means in this same context, in this same meeting, the same conversation, Jesus says, alright, my turn. You've asked me questions. I've been faithful and compassionate and I've answered every one. Jesus asked them a question. Verse 42, saying, what do you think about the Christ? And that just struck me. Our flesh will always ask what, what, what. What's going to happen? What do I need to do? And we'll base resolutions around those things and we'll base life, big major life decisions around these things. And Jesus, in his just subtle, gracious way, says, you're missing the whole point. You're asking me what. I'm going to ask you who. And that struck me. I was like, man, that's it. That's why it always fails, because the New Year's resolution is all about what. What do I need to do? And then what? In order to do those things, I tap into my own fleshly powers which fail and they get tired. And Jesus says, I know that. That's why there's a more important question to focus on before we get into the what's. It's who. That's why he says, what do you think about Jesus? He says, what do you think about this Messiah, these scriptures that you guys believe in? What do you think about him? And he says, well, whose son is he? And they have a little discussion about the son of David and stuff like that. But the point is, guys, my New Year's resolution, at least it was for last year, and it's going to continue to be every year from now because it's really the only resolution that I think that matters to Christians. And you know what I want to do in 2014? I want to think better thoughts about Jesus. telling you I started this journey not too long ago where God just said look you need to stop with all the what's you need to stop with all that and you just need to focus on who I am and you need to understand me you need to know me and you need to know the real version of me and you need to make sure you're not buying into other hype that other people are trying to sell so if a new New Year's resolution to think better thoughts about Jesus. Why is that so important? Why is that so important? Scripture gives us two reasons why thinking true biblical thoughts about Jesus is so important. Why is that more important than me getting into better shape? Why is that more important than me eating better? Why is that more important than me Spending more time with my family. As important as all those things are, all those things that I would typically form a resolution around. Why are my, what I think about Jesus, why is that more important than all of that? Well, there's two reasons that the Bible gives us. And the first comes in Galatians chapter 1. You can flip there. Verse 6. When Paul says this, He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one. But there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Paul's talking to Christians here. He's not talking to the unbeliever. He's talking to the believer. And he's saying, you guys are quickly deserting Jesus. Why? Why? Because they have wrong thoughts about Jesus. And they've turned to a different gospel. So, why do we need to think correct thoughts about Jesus? Unbiblical thoughts about Jesus will cause you to desert Him. Even, yes, us faithful saints that are here in the middle, downtown India, worshiping and learning the Word of God. You and I are apt to desert Christ. We do it all the time. We do it all the time. And unfortunately, we usually do it when we need him the most. And the problem here is he's saying it's a gospel problem, which means it's not a resolution problem. It's because we don't know who Jesus is and what he came to do. So we have a distorted version of the gospel, which is causing us to leave the real Christ and to follow some different savior. Trust me, it happens all the time to well-intentioned, good-hearted Christians. So reason number two comes in 1 Corinthians 15. So the first reason why this is so important is that if we don't understand Jesus, we will desert Him. And if we flip to 1 Corinthians 15, it says... Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. Right there he tells us the second reason why this is so important. He says, Unbiblical thoughts about Jesus will produce vain belief. And what's vain belief? Again, He's writing to the Christians again. This is an evangelistic letter. This is a letter to the saints to help them go deeper in their relationship with Christ. He says that there's this thing called vain belief. What is vain belief? We know what vanity is when it comes to appearance and things like that. People that put way too much emphasis on things that aren't very important. like our hairstyles and all that kind of stuff. We know that's vanity, okay? But the biblical word there means, vain means without any effect, without having an effect. So he's talking about Christians that believe in the right stuff, but it's having no effect on their life because it's a vain belief. It's hollow. It's got no power to it. And that's because we don't think correct thoughts about Jesus. So we're applying this belief that we have to places that Jesus is not at. So, to me, I don't know. I don't know if that grabs your attention, but that grabs my attention. The fact that I could be saved and I could be a well-intentioned Christian, but I could be deserting Christ at any given moment. And that I could be believing in something that really isn't producing any sort of real transformation in my life. I don't want to do that anymore. And again, so what's the solution in 1 Corinthians 15? He says, I'm reminding you of the gospel. I've got a hypothesis, I believe that we've turned away from the gospel in our evangelical churches. We've lost sight of the gospel. We've lost sight of the centrality of Christ in all things. And so the Lord has done a work in my life this past year returning me to the supremacy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what that's done is that's forced me to dig deep and to think different thoughts. So that's the resolution I encourage you guys to have today. And I just want to give you a couple thoughts maybe to get you started. Because I know every Christian would honestly believe that they understand the gospel, they know who Jesus is, they know what it's all about. And that's who I was for the majority of my Christian life. Someone would come to me being like, hey man, let me share with you the gospel. I'll be like, dude, I'm saved. I know the gospel. But I'm learning. I'm like, oh man, I didn't have a clue as to what the gospel really is and what it's all about. So I had to start changing my thinking. And so from 1 Corinthians 15, let me give you just a couple thoughts to kind of get us started this year together. And look what Paul said. He said, I want to remind you brothers of the gospel I preach to you, which you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved. Jesus is just as crucial for the Christian as the non-Christian. Okay, we've kind of shifted away from that to where Jesus has become super crucial to the unbeliever. And we will... think our best Jesus thoughts when we're thinking about a non-Christian, about His grace, His mercy, His forgiveness, and His love, and His power. When you think about how often you meditate, and it's usually when you're thinking in a non-Christian setting, when you're thinking, oh man, this person really needs Jesus. And the assumption there, the other side of that, that we don't think about is, well, I'm a Christian, I'm good, so I can move away from Jesus now. I can move to more important things. We've got to stop that thing, because Paul said, this gospel, you received it, that's how you got saved, you received the gospel. And then he says, in which you stand, which means if you're a Christian today, you are still standing on the cross of Jesus Christ.

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Amen.

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And by which you are being saved. Present tense. That salvation that started for me when I was 19 years old is still as valid and crucial to me today as it was that first day I believed. So, we have to understand that. We have to... In 2014, we need to understand that we need to bring everybody back to the cross. Non-believer and believer. we've really got to break it back down there. And we've got to find and we've got to reestablish our faith on Christ and Christ alone. Which sets up the second thought. And this one, it sounds so basic, but I'm telling you the impact, the application is so profound, it'll take you really the rest of your life to unpack this one. And the second thought to get us started is, Jesus came to do one thing. And that's die for sin. Look at what he says, verse 3 in 1 Corinthians 15. For I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. People, Jesus, we can apply Jesus in our lives to one place and one place only, and that's our sin. Jesus didn't come to do many of the things that we hear modern day evangelicals talk about. There's only one thing that Scripture explicitly says. That Christ died for sin. And God rose Him on the third day so that we could be transformed and we could be made new from what? From sin. And that's That's it. See, the problem is why we're deserting Christ today because we hear that Jesus came to do all kinds of things for me. He came to improve my family. He came to give me a better job. He came to do all these things. And don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying that there are not just infinite benefits to Christ's salvation in our lives. But we have to understand that it... attacks one thing and one thing only is the fact that you and I were enemies of God because of one reason and one reason only. It wasn't because I'm a bad dad. It wasn't because I'm poor. It was because I'm a sinner. And that sin needed to be dealt with and I needed to be reconciled. I needed to be made friends again. And I didn't have the power to do it. So Christ had to do it for me. And It's so deep. This one, I dwell on this one most every day because no longer is my life about what do I need to do? God, just, Jesus, would you just do this for me? Would you do this thing for me? Would you help me in this area? My new question is, God, what is the sin that is destroying this area of my life right now? And that's so hopeful to me because why? Because Scripture is clear that there's a solution. And I can put my whole heart, I can base my whole life on that. So now, once I get antsy about something, oh man, I wish my finances were better. You know, what I used to pray, I'd be like, God, could you change my finances? No, the new question is, God, what sin is causing me to misuse the blessings that you have already freely given me every day? And you know what? He answers that one like that. I can't tell you how many times I've prayed for money and no money's come. But every time I ask God to reveal in my heart the sin that He already died for, the sin that He already paid for, the sin that He already fixed, that He already rose me from the dead from, and I say, God, could you show that greediness to me? I find out real quick that I spend too much money at Jack in the Box. It's like that revelation comes like that. You know what I'm saying? And I start finding all these areas and it's like, I don't think I can claim poverty anymore. Because I got it. It's just my sin is wanting me to use it on myself instead of the glory of God. And I'm telling you, it'll give you a connection with Christ that you've never experienced. Because I know how hard it is to to pray constant prayers that seem to never get answered. It gets very old, it gets very tiresome. It's because we're asking questions and we're praying prayers that the Bible never told us God necessarily wants to answer in the ways we want Him to answer. So, that's really the thought that will help you Get out of that vain belief. Because if you want to get serious about your sin, you're going to find Jesus in a very real way. And it's going to produce effects that you never knew. You're going to love like you've never loved. You're going to have joy like you've never had. Because why? Because you're going to exactly where Jesus is. On a cross. Why? Because I'm a sinner. He's not on that cross, so I'll be a millionaire. He's not on that cross so that I will have a better family. Yes, does some of that stuff happen? Absolutely. I'm a better father today because of Jesus and Jesus alone. But it wasn't until I understood what the root problem was. Well, I'm a self-indulgent sinner. And so once I allowed Jesus to start penetrating those areas of my life, it's like... transformation like I've never seen. That's the opposite of vain belief. That's belief that does something and it'll do something today. And the last thought, Christ died for sins and this last thought, I want to flip to Ephesians real quick. Ephesians chapter 2. We need to understand that Jesus' love is the greatest when applied to sinners. So we need to understand in order to have better thoughts about Jesus, we also have to have better thoughts about myself. I don't mean better as far as better self-esteem. I mean better as in more accurate. I need to have a more accurate understanding of who I am without Christ. Because if I think I'm anything more than what I really am, I'm actually mocking Jesus' love for me. Because listen to this passage in Ephesians chapter 2. Paul says, according to the prince of the power of the air, according to the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. That's Paul's description of me without Christ. Dead, stuck in trespasses and sins, and actually serving the devil, is what verse 2. And verse 3, he says, Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of the flesh. And Paul says, This applies to me, too. The greatest evangelist to ever walk the face of the planet, he said, yeah, guess what? That's what I think about myself, too, without Christ. Indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. That's crazy. Without Christ, you and I are an object of God's wrath. We don't talk about that anymore, do we? There used to be hymns that we used to sing about that, and the mainline denominations are taking those hymns out of their hymnals now. One of the greatest hymns ever written, in Christ alone, was removed from a popular hymnal denomination. Why? Because it talks about the fact that without Christ, we are children of wrath. He said, that's kind of depressing. Let's not sing that song anymore. But it's the most theologically rich hymn hymn probably ever written. It's a great song, but we don't sing it anymore because people don't want to hear about who they are. But the problem is, if you don't know who you are, then you're mocking Jesus' love because look at verse 4. But God, being rich in His mercy because of His great love with which He loved us. What makes His love so great is that you're not worthy of it. And Jesus would say, anybody can love someone who loves them back. That's easy to do. He says even the pagans and the tax collectors do that. What makes God's love so great? We need to understand that. We sing about His love all the time in church services, but we don't even understand how great it is. What's great about it is we want nothing to do with God, but yet He wants everything to do with us. That takes His love from this big to this big. Some of the parents in the room understand that. You know what it is to apply unconditional love to a child that wants nothing to do with it. And you know that makes you a great lover. The times when you experience shallow love is when everything's perfect and they're doing everything I want them to do and it's like, well yeah, that's easy to love. But your times of greatest love on this planet are going to be times when you're being When you're being mocked and you're being hated and you're being insulted and you're being disobeyed, but yet you, out of your great love for people, you choose to love anyways. That is the nature of God's love for us. But that love gets cheapened if you don't know who you are. If you believe there's something in you that's lovable, if there's something in you that's special, then you're like, hey, what the heck, of course God loves me. Look at me. It's another problem of man is we want to be this. We want to believe that we're the center of the universe. And that's why we struggle so much with the Bible. Because the Bible only applies to people who understand that God is the center of the universe. And that His glory is the only thing worth glorifying. That's it. And we struggle with that because we want a piece of that pie. And so that's why we're struggling to be in our words, because it tells a story that we don't want to hear. It's like, could you turn this into Iron Man or something? Because Iron Man's the center of the universe. I don't want to be like that. You know what I mean? And so, until we allow Jesus, with the power of his gospel, to change our hearts to where we actually desire the glory of God more than the glory of ourselves... This book is going to be a struggle for you. It'll be a struggle for you. Because there'll be dull, boring passages. Well, there's God again trying to be glorified. The Psalms, oh geez. Over and over, God be the glory. Okay. You know, it just won't mean much. But if Jesus, by the power of His gospel, can transform Christians' hearts to understand that God alone is worthy of glory and praise, then you can't get enough of the Psalms. Because David and the other writers just come up with different wording after different wording to declare how marvelous and how amazing He is and how small and insignificant we are. So, three thoughts to get you started. Jesus is just as crucial for the Christian as the non-Christian. Jesus came to do one thing, and that's die for sin. And Jesus' love is greatest when applied to sinners.