WEBVTT 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:19.000 a life-changing moment, changes the way that we understand peace, justice, even faith. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:26.680 So today, we're going to talk about the next lens in the chapter or in this book, Better 00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:29.080 Ways to Read the Bible that Zach Lambert wrote. 00:00:29.080 --> 00:00:36.360 We're actually moving into the lenses that are, Zach calls them the lenses that heal, 00:00:36.360 --> 00:00:40.200 ways that we read and go to Scripture that are healing. 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:45.560 The last four that we went through were some of the lenses that we've been given that bring 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:46.560 harm. 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:51.320 And so we're getting ready to step into, if you know the phrase, or if you've been through 00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:56.240 this, a lot of us have, like the deconstruction phase, we went through deconstruction a little 00:00:56.240 --> 00:01:00.360 bit and the last four lenses, and we're about to get into the reconstruction phase, putting 00:01:00.360 --> 00:01:06.560 things back together, hopefully giving us a way that we can go to Scripture that is, 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:08.960 like I said, healing. 00:01:08.960 --> 00:01:20.360 It's a space for truth and that points to really just what this is all about. 00:01:20.360 --> 00:01:26.720 So today, the first lens that we're going to talk about is the Jesus lens. 00:01:26.720 --> 00:01:34.320 It's a lens that, honestly for me, as I've gone through my deconstruction, reconstruction, 00:01:34.320 --> 00:01:43.760 how I approach faith in my life, this lens, seeing the person of Jesus, seeing how Jesus 00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:49.720 operated, who he spent time with, how he loved, how he was kind, compassionate, who he called 00:01:49.720 --> 00:01:56.480 out, I read everything through the person of Jesus. 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:01.880 There's lots of reasons that, and I honestly was sitting in the back taking out pieces 00:02:01.880 --> 00:02:08.960 of my sermon because I had a lot, but I mean even the beginning of John, this is one of 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:12.120 those parts I took out, it's not my notes, but I'm going to tell you anyway, in the beginning 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:19.480 of John, John says that the word was with God and the word was God, says he calls the 00:02:19.480 --> 00:02:23.840 word he was there with God. 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:28.280 Sometimes we think of word of God, most of us have grown up, word of God is this written 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:34.400 thing that we carry around called the Bible, this collection of 66 books, if you're Protestant, 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:40.400 72, I think of your Catholic, is that right, 72? 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:48.560 My Catholics, it's like 80 something if you're Greek Orthodox, but the Bible, this written 00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:54.600 thing that we carry, we call it the word of God, but the Bible actually calls the word 00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:57.160 of God a person as Jesus. 00:02:57.160 --> 00:03:01.960 So when I go to the word of God, I go to the person of Jesus, because Brian Zahn said 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:10.800 that the character or that Jesus is what God had to say to us, Jesus is what God had to 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:15.520 say to us, not these written words, but this person, his character, the way that he loved, 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:21.640 the way that he cared, the way that he did life, and so when I go to Scripture, Jesus is 00:03:21.640 --> 00:03:22.640 my lens. 00:03:22.640 --> 00:03:23.980 So what does that mean? 00:03:23.980 --> 00:03:29.520 Sometimes I'll read something in Scripture and I'm like that, would Jesus say that? 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:33.520 So I have to take a step back, now I've got to read some, we'll get into this with some 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:39.840 context, some understanding what's happening, did someone write something down, they got 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:40.840 wrong. 00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:43.120 Like, what is this? 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:53.560 So the Jesus lens for me is the lens I love to go to Scripture with. 00:03:53.560 --> 00:04:02.160 It helps us to see life, like what we've survived, who people are, how do we interpret Scripture 00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:07.420 and life and all of it. 00:04:07.420 --> 00:04:15.960 And when I joined the army, I joined from here in San Antonio, I remember I did not think 00:04:15.960 --> 00:04:19.120 I was going to join the army, that was not in the plans. 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:26.120 I was at Bible College, I'd come home actually for Thanksgiving, I was at my mom's house, 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:30.520 my mom still had the home phone number that we had when I was in high school. 00:04:30.520 --> 00:04:37.400 Some of you Gen Z's don't even know what a home phone is, it's like on the wall. 00:04:37.400 --> 00:04:43.920 Phone Ring, I had been home for a day, I've been living by Dallas, I was out of the city, 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:47.040 I was home for a day, the phone rang, probably because they're like, "Hey, these guys are 00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:49.640 probably back for Thanksgiving break." 00:04:49.640 --> 00:04:55.400 Pick it up, it's an army recruiter, somehow the dude sold me on something, I was like, 00:04:55.400 --> 00:04:56.960 "You know what, I'll come down and talk to you." 00:04:56.960 --> 00:05:04.160 Now really what happened was, I was about to have to leave school, financially we weren't 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:08.360 going to be able to pay some stuff, there was supposed to be some all kinds of stuff. 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:10.880 I wasn't going to be able to afford it and he was like, "We'll pay for college." 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:17.480 He was like, "Well, all right, he says college is going to be free, I'm in." 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:22.200 It's that lesson that nothing is free. 00:05:22.200 --> 00:05:31.440 So I went in, met with this recruiter, we went and took a test, the Azvab, everybody has to 00:05:31.440 --> 00:05:33.920 take it, once you finish it, they're like, "All right. 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:38.200 Here's the, depending on where you rank or score on it, here's the things that you can 00:05:38.200 --> 00:05:39.200 do in the military." 00:05:39.200 --> 00:05:45.200 I mean, I did really well on it, so they're like, "You can do whatever you want." 00:05:45.200 --> 00:05:49.480 I was like, "Cool, I want to fly helicopters." 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:53.000 And then my mom was like, "No. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:54.000 You can't. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:55.000 What happens if you get shot down?" 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:57.160 I was like, "Yeah, maybe that's a good idea." 00:05:57.160 --> 00:06:02.760 So I started talking to the guy, he offered me a job, it's called a cryptologic linguist, 00:06:02.760 --> 00:06:07.760 I started reading the description, it's somebody who sits in a room without walls, with headphones 00:06:07.760 --> 00:06:10.760 on and listens to stuff, and I was like, "Not me." 00:06:10.760 --> 00:06:15.320 I can't do anything, you got anything that talks to people, and they were like, "Hey, 00:06:15.320 --> 00:06:19.920 actually, there's this human intelligence collector, one that, yeah, it talks to people, that's 00:06:19.920 --> 00:06:20.920 exactly what it is." 00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:22.560 I said, "Okay, now we're talking." 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:29.480 And then my recruiter said this line, he was like, "Oh, you know what? 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:31.880 This is a cool job." 00:06:31.880 --> 00:06:41.040 This is like FBI, but in the military, and a cool part about it is, you'll never get deployed. 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:43.720 You'll always be stateside. 00:06:43.720 --> 00:06:46.480 Sign me up. 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:52.360 So I read the description, okay, sounds good, signed. 00:06:52.360 --> 00:06:56.360 I went to training, and my training was long because I had to go to language school, so 00:06:56.360 --> 00:06:57.360 don't go to language school. 00:06:57.360 --> 00:06:58.360 I don't speak Persian. 00:06:58.360 --> 00:06:59.360 No, I don't speak Persian. 00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:03.280 Farsi, I have an associate's degree in Persian, Farsi, because the army gave it to me, but 00:07:03.280 --> 00:07:05.080 I don't really speak it. 00:07:05.080 --> 00:07:12.800 But I did, it's been 20 years or so, like it's been a long time, maybe not 20. 00:07:12.800 --> 00:07:17.840 I got, I did my training, training from that, my job training, it was almost two years. 00:07:17.840 --> 00:07:22.640 I get to my first unit, first official unit, I'm not in training anymore, I am. 00:07:22.640 --> 00:07:24.280 I am a trained soldier. 00:07:24.280 --> 00:07:30.240 I get to my first unit, and within 27 days I am boots down in the sandbox in Iraq. 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:47.840 I was like, but my recruiter told me, turns out, either he read the job description wrong, 00:07:47.840 --> 00:07:51.200 or he lied to me. 00:07:51.200 --> 00:07:56.160 And I don't know which one, I'd like to think the best of people, but I've also heard other 00:07:56.160 --> 00:07:58.120 stories of recruiters. 00:07:58.120 --> 00:08:09.040 Either way, what he told me and what it actually meant were very different things. 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:17.240 And that moment kind of sticks out to me, because it was a lesson that I learned early. 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:26.200 How you read things matters, how you interpret it shapes the life you live afterward. 00:08:26.200 --> 00:08:31.280 We all experienced this maybe one way or another. 00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:42.440 Maybe someone read a text message wrong and got offended, or maybe someone read the Bible 00:08:42.440 --> 00:08:54.520 wrong and built a theology around it, and it hurt people, so interpretation matters. 00:08:54.520 --> 00:08:59.720 And this is what brings us to the moment in this series, this shift from lenses that harm 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:08.200 to lenses that heal, because how we read scripture changes how we treat people, and how we treat 00:09:08.200 --> 00:09:13.280 people reveals how we really see God. 00:09:13.280 --> 00:09:16.760 And this is why we really need the Jesus lens. 00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:24.440 Because when we learn to see like Jesus, everything starts to heal. 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:31.360 Our view of God, our view of others, our view of ourselves, there's this healing that starts 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:34.400 to take place. 00:09:34.400 --> 00:09:45.000 And when we go to scripture and we see how Jesus quotes an interpret scripture, we start 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:49.120 to see a pattern, this this rhythm. 00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:57.560 He doesn't throw the old story away, he actually does a healing in it. 00:09:57.560 --> 00:10:07.680 He reclaims it from hands of fear and control, and he brings it back to what I think Jesus 00:10:07.680 --> 00:10:13.920 would say, the original meaning was love and freedom. 00:10:13.920 --> 00:10:20.960 So when Jesus quotes scripture, he does three things over and over and over again. 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:31.640 He centers mercy over ritual, he prioritizes people over systems, and he interprets everything 00:10:31.640 --> 00:10:32.640 through love. 00:10:32.640 --> 00:10:39.360 We're going to look at a few moments where he does this. 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:44.040 When he centers mercy over ritual. 00:10:44.040 --> 00:10:49.400 In Matthew 9, there's a moment, one of my favorite stories where Jesus is confronted 00:10:49.400 --> 00:10:54.600 by some religious elites, the Pharisees, and his response really sets a foundation of 00:10:54.600 --> 00:11:00.480 his ministry, really gives us what Jesus believes about all of this. 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:05.640 Matthew 9 verse 10 says later, Jesus went to Matthew's home to share a meal with him. 00:11:05.640 --> 00:11:11.040 Many other tax collectors and outcasts of society were invited to eat with Jesus in his disciples. 00:11:11.040 --> 00:11:15.520 When those known as the Pharisees saw what was happening, they were indignant. 00:11:15.520 --> 00:11:20.680 They kept asking Jesus' disciples, "Why would your master dine with such low lives?" 00:11:20.680 --> 00:11:24.760 When Jesus overheard this, he spoke up and said, "Healthy people don't need to see a 00:11:24.760 --> 00:11:28.040 doctor, but the sick will go for treatment." 00:11:28.040 --> 00:11:31.880 Then he added, "Now you should go and study the meaning of the verse. 00:11:31.880 --> 00:11:37.640 I want you to show mercy, not just offer me a sacrifice, for I have come to invite the 00:11:37.640 --> 00:11:46.320 outcast of society and sinners, not those who think they are already on the right path." 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:51.960 Jesus, hey, you need to go back and you need to reread and figure out what this verse means. 00:11:51.960 --> 00:11:59.500 I love, he's quoting Hosea, and when he quotes Hosea, I love how Eugene Peterson translated 00:11:59.500 --> 00:12:00.500 this in the message. 00:12:00.500 --> 00:12:02.920 Hosea is 6'5" and 6", is this? 00:12:02.920 --> 00:12:03.920 This is Jesus. 00:12:03.920 --> 00:12:04.920 He's quoting this verse. 00:12:04.920 --> 00:12:05.920 He says, "Go back and figure this out. 00:12:05.920 --> 00:12:09.800 I'm after love that lasts, not more religion. 00:12:09.800 --> 00:12:12.840 I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings." 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:17.960 I'm like, "All right, all right, Eugene." 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:20.440 Jesus is like, "You missed it. 00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:22.640 Go back and reread what this means. 00:12:22.640 --> 00:12:23.640 Go reread it." 00:12:23.640 --> 00:12:30.800 The story of Hosea is created, that'll set up what Jesus is even referring to, but this 00:12:30.800 --> 00:12:35.800 is what anchors his entire way of life in reading. 00:12:35.800 --> 00:12:43.880 The words that come from Hosea 6, Jesus quotes these actually more than once to the Pharisees. 00:12:43.880 --> 00:12:47.000 It becomes one of Jesus' favorite lines in all of scripture. 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:51.800 He quotes it in this passage in Matthew 9 when the Pharisees attack him for eating with 00:12:51.800 --> 00:12:53.280 sinners. 00:12:53.280 --> 00:12:58.080 He quotes it again in Matthew 12 when they accuse his disciples of breaking Sabbath law 00:12:58.080 --> 00:12:59.080 by picking grain. 00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:02.960 They're walking through a field of grain, they pick some grain to eat it, and the Pharisees 00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:06.200 are like, "You can't pick grain on the Sabbath." 00:13:06.200 --> 00:13:09.960 And Jesus, once again, is like, "Yeah, I got it wrong. 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:11.480 Go back and read that verse again. 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:12.960 Go reread it. 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:13.960 You've missed it." 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:19.160 It's like Jesus is saying like, "Go back, reread the verse, because you're missing 00:13:19.160 --> 00:13:21.360 the entire point. 00:13:21.360 --> 00:13:28.280 You've turned worship into performance and holiness into hierarchy. 00:13:28.280 --> 00:13:34.680 You think God wants your sacrifice, God wants your heart." 00:13:34.680 --> 00:13:40.560 And honestly, that's the story of so much of Jesus' ministry. 00:13:40.560 --> 00:13:44.320 He keeps telling people, "You've read it wrong. 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:48.720 You've heard it said, 'But I say to you.' 00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:54.560 You've heard it said, 'But let me fix what you've heard said in these scriptures.' 00:13:54.560 --> 00:13:58.480 You've memorized the rule, but you've missed the reason." 00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:05.920 That's the Jesus' lens, not a new theology, but a return to the original heart of God. 00:14:05.920 --> 00:14:10.760 A God who is after love that lasts. 00:14:10.760 --> 00:14:16.520 A God who is more interested in mercy than in mechanics. 00:14:16.520 --> 00:14:21.600 A God who's still rewriting how we see the story. 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:27.840 When he quotes Hosea, Jesus is re-centering everything. 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:36.840 He's reminding us that the purpose of faith isn't purity, it's presence. 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:44.400 And maybe there's a question that we have to keep asking in our faith journey. 00:14:44.400 --> 00:14:53.440 Are we practicing mercy, or are we practicing religion? 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:56.880 Because mercy doesn't need to win. 00:14:56.880 --> 00:15:00.600 Mercy doesn't need to be right. 00:15:00.600 --> 00:15:03.560 Mercy doesn't need to prove a point. 00:15:03.560 --> 00:15:09.600 Mercy just needs to see, be present. 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:15.040 Be relational. 00:15:15.040 --> 00:15:19.680 Number two, he prioritizes people over systems. 00:15:19.680 --> 00:15:23.720 And Jesus very first, sermon. 00:15:23.720 --> 00:15:28.360 He basically lays out this mission statement by omit omission. 00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:30.280 He's in Nazareth, his hometown. 00:15:30.280 --> 00:15:33.280 He stands up in the synagogue to read from Isaiah. 00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:34.800 He's handed a scroll. 00:15:34.800 --> 00:15:39.600 He was recorded in Luke 4, says he went to Nazareth where he had been brought up and 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:43.720 on the Sabbath day he went to the synagogue as was his custom. 00:15:43.720 --> 00:15:45.720 He stood up to read. 00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:49.240 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, unrolling it. 00:15:49.240 --> 00:15:54.360 He found the place where it is written, "The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has 00:15:54.360 --> 00:15:57.720 anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. 00:15:57.720 --> 00:16:03.360 He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind. 00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:05.840 To set the oppressed free. 00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:08.640 To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:16.080 And then it says he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and he sat 00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:17.080 down. 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:21.680 The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 00:16:21.680 --> 00:16:28.280 He began by saying to them, "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. 00:16:28.280 --> 00:16:33.320 The spirit of the Lord is on me because he is anointed me to proclaim good news. 00:16:33.320 --> 00:16:34.320 To the poor. 00:16:34.320 --> 00:16:39.320 He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind. 00:16:39.320 --> 00:16:41.000 To set the oppressed free. 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:43.440 To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:52.040 But there's something really interesting about this passage that Jesus is reading. 00:16:52.040 --> 00:16:56.760 As he's reading this passage, he stops mid-verse, rolls up the scroll and gives it back. 00:16:56.760 --> 00:17:01.360 Or mid-thought, because maybe they didn't have the verses the way we have them. 00:17:01.360 --> 00:17:04.880 It's mid-thought and hands the scroll back. 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:12.760 He leaves out the next line after to proclaim the year of Lord's favor. 00:17:12.760 --> 00:17:16.960 The passage in Isaiah 61 goes like this, "The spirit of the Lord is on me because he is 00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:18.840 anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. 00:17:18.840 --> 00:17:22.080 He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind. 00:17:22.080 --> 00:17:23.240 To set the oppressed free. 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:26.480 To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:35.000 Max, can you go to Isaiah 61 and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, go to the next 00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:36.000 one. 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:43.360 And the day of vengeance of our God. 00:17:43.360 --> 00:17:48.600 Jesus stops reading. 00:17:48.600 --> 00:17:52.800 He doesn't read the next line. 00:17:52.800 --> 00:17:53.800 It's a pause. 00:17:53.800 --> 00:18:01.280 It's omission, but the omission changes everything. 00:18:01.280 --> 00:18:06.800 Jesus refuses to make the story about vengeance. 00:18:06.800 --> 00:18:15.000 He takes a passage long used to justify retribution and he turns it into liberation. 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:22.280 He's saying that this is what God has always been about, setting people free. 00:18:22.280 --> 00:18:29.160 Not through fear, not through anger, not to get some form of vengeance, but to set people 00:18:29.160 --> 00:18:30.160 free. 00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:39.800 If you want to know how Jesus reads scripture, look for who it sets free. 00:18:39.800 --> 00:18:47.640 Because the Jesus lens always reads toward liberation, never control. 00:18:47.640 --> 00:18:54.920 This omission of the day of vengeance, I don't believe was a mistake. 00:18:54.920 --> 00:18:56.720 I think it was a manifesto. 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:04.960 I think he was saying the good news doesn't need an enemy. 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:08.960 The gospel isn't about payback, it's about restoration. 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:17.540 It's about setting creation right, not settling a score. 00:19:17.540 --> 00:19:20.840 Again, a question I think for us is we're reading scriptures. 00:19:20.840 --> 00:19:30.920 Do our interpretations of scripture free people from shame or do they keep people in chains? 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:37.880 Because if your theology requires an enemy, I don't believe it's the gospel. 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:42.880 Because the gospel is good news for all people. 00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:49.800 We see this in, again, another story where Jesus is talking to people and then he gets 00:19:49.800 --> 00:19:57.480 asked, "How do we do this?" 00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:06.920 He's quoting a scripture and he says, "You've heard it said, 'To love your neighbors yourself.'" 00:20:06.920 --> 00:20:07.920 And you guys have heard this. 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:10.560 I said this in one of the recent sermons, "Love your neighbors yourself." 00:20:10.560 --> 00:20:21.720 Then he continues and says, "And love your enemy," which is not in the original passage. 00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:25.280 The love your enemy is not even part of the law. 00:20:25.280 --> 00:20:31.600 But Jesus is like, "You've drawn lines and you've created an enemy. 00:20:31.600 --> 00:20:37.920 So let me just wrap this up for you love your neighbors yourself and your enemy so that you 00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:42.920 cannot draw a line and decide who's in and who's out." 00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:50.880 Because when you begin to love someone who you think is an enemy, one love takes proximity 00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:51.880 and presence. 00:20:51.880 --> 00:20:58.320 So when you begin to get close to someone who you've been told is an enemy or that you 00:20:58.320 --> 00:21:05.720 believe is an enemy, it's really hard to keep them as an enemy. 00:21:05.720 --> 00:21:08.480 Maybe what they do you don't like. 00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:14.480 But when you begin to hear a story about who they are and where they came from and what 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:20.240 drives them and how they've been hurt, you begin to not be mad or angry or an enemy. 00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:23.880 You begin to feel compassion and kindness and care. 00:21:23.880 --> 00:21:32.080 And I don't like what you did, but I don't like what's been done to you. 00:21:32.080 --> 00:21:37.880 And I see how this is played out in your life. 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:42.640 And Jesus says, "You can't have an enemy in the gospel." 00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:52.800 It just doesn't work because we are called to love people regardless. 00:21:52.800 --> 00:22:05.680 Because Jesus, number three, is He interprets everything through love. 00:22:05.680 --> 00:22:08.200 Matthew 22 says, "A religious scholar tries to trap Jesus." 00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:16.200 I think this is, I think this is part of it, I may have skipped ahead. 00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:21.240 By asking which commandment matters most, Jesus answers with two, but ties them together 00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:22.240 as one. 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:26.560 Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and it tells you while your heart 00:22:26.560 --> 00:22:28.000 reminds your body. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:34.280 This is the most important, the first of any list, but there's a second to set alongside 00:22:34.280 --> 00:22:35.280 it. 00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:38.240 Love others as well as you love yourself. 00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:40.080 These two commands are pegs. 00:22:40.080 --> 00:22:44.880 Everything in God's law and prophets hangs from them. 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:51.520 Jesus fuses these two different Old Testament texts, Deuteronomy 6.5 and Leviticus 1918, 00:22:51.520 --> 00:22:53.280 into one inseparable idea. 00:22:53.280 --> 00:22:57.000 He's saying, "You can't love God without loving people. 00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:59.560 They hang together." 00:22:59.560 --> 00:23:03.720 If you are not loving people, God's like, "Oh, you're missing it. 00:23:03.720 --> 00:23:08.560 You're not loving me." 00:23:08.560 --> 00:23:14.120 If you're a jerk to my kids, you're not loving me well. 00:23:14.120 --> 00:23:24.720 Even if they're jerks. 00:23:24.720 --> 00:23:29.560 In this moment, He ties these two together, I don't believe He's giving a new command. 00:23:29.560 --> 00:23:35.880 I think what He's doing is He's giving us a new way to read every command. 00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:38.480 Love is the filter. 00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:44.520 If it doesn't sound like love, then it's not from God and not your definition of love 00:23:44.520 --> 00:23:49.640 or how you think love should be, then people get to decide if you're caring for them and 00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:52.600 loving them. 00:23:52.600 --> 00:24:00.400 If you want more, I didn't have this in the first part, but number four, I'm almost done. 00:24:00.400 --> 00:24:04.040 He redefines righteousness as a relationship. 00:24:04.040 --> 00:24:09.880 And Micah 6-8, it says, "But He's already made it plain how to live, what to do, what 00:24:09.880 --> 00:24:12.280 God is looking for in men and women." 00:24:12.280 --> 00:24:13.760 It's quite simple. 00:24:13.760 --> 00:24:16.680 Do what is fair and just to your neighbor. 00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:19.520 Be compassionate and loyal in your love. 00:24:19.520 --> 00:24:21.200 And don't take yourself too seriously. 00:24:21.200 --> 00:24:24.960 Take God seriously. 00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:30.840 Jesus echoes the same thing in Matthew 23 when He tells the Pharisees, "You've kept meticulous 00:24:30.840 --> 00:24:39.000 rules about tithing, but you've neglected the weight of your things, justice, mercy, 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:40.000 and faithfulness." 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:43.000 Yeah, you're real good at your rules. 00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:44.200 Bring your 10 percent. 00:24:44.200 --> 00:24:50.600 But when it comes to justice, mercy, and faithfulness to the hurting, the oppressed, and the pushed 00:24:50.600 --> 00:24:57.160 out, we can make up some different rules. 00:24:57.160 --> 00:24:58.160 Micah said it. 00:24:58.160 --> 00:24:59.640 Jesus repeats it. 00:24:59.640 --> 00:25:02.600 Faith was never supposed to be about getting it all right. 00:25:02.600 --> 00:25:10.840 It was about living in right relationship with God, with others, with yourself. 00:25:10.840 --> 00:25:13.120 Righteousness isn't moral superiority. 00:25:13.120 --> 00:25:15.120 It is relational wholeness. 00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:21.080 It's when Jesus quotes Scripture, I don't believe He's rewriting the story that He's 00:25:21.080 --> 00:25:30.320 revealing what has always been true and what we may have missed. 00:25:30.320 --> 00:25:38.520 That the heart of God has always been about mercy, love, and liberation. 00:25:38.520 --> 00:25:44.600 When we read Scripture like Jesus, the same healing, I believe, starts to happen in us. 00:25:44.600 --> 00:25:51.640 It literally heals the way our body and our mind and our spirit relate to this world. 00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:56.640 Let's be honest, a lot of us grew up with a version of Christianity that didn't feel 00:25:56.640 --> 00:25:58.680 like healing. 00:25:58.680 --> 00:26:03.960 It felt like pressure. 00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:08.320 Faith was about getting it right, not getting free. 00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:16.960 It kind of religion, it literally wires our nervous system for fear, not for love. 00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:22.840 You guys know what I love when the science and psychology comes together and it's like, 00:26:22.840 --> 00:26:26.120 "Oh, God actually made us this way." 00:26:26.120 --> 00:26:33.480 Neuroscience confirms what Jesus already knew, that fear and love can't coexist, that they 00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:36.520 are opposites in the human brain. 00:26:36.520 --> 00:26:41.320 When faith is driven by fear of judgment, the amygdala, the part of your brain responsible 00:26:41.320 --> 00:26:43.520 for threat detection stays on high alert. 00:26:43.520 --> 00:26:48.160 It's like living with an internal siren, always going off. 00:26:48.160 --> 00:26:56.320 Even if you say God is love, your body doesn't believe it. 00:26:56.320 --> 00:27:00.960 But when faith becomes rooted in safety and compassion and belonging, the kind that Jesus 00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:10.840 taught, the brain begins to rewire, the prefrontal cortex, it's the part that's the reasoning, 00:27:10.840 --> 00:27:16.200 the relational part of your brain, it becomes more active while stress response calms. 00:27:16.200 --> 00:27:24.400 Your body finally believes what your heart has always hoped that you're safe. 00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:30.440 It turns theology into not just like this poetic thing, but a physiological idea that 00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:31.440 it matches up. 00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:34.440 Your body, wait, what's, who wrote it? 00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:36.440 Your body keeps the score. 00:27:36.440 --> 00:27:37.440 Hillary. 00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:38.440 Cool. 00:27:38.440 --> 00:27:42.800 Hillary McBride? 00:27:42.800 --> 00:27:43.800 Cole Arthur? 00:27:43.800 --> 00:27:52.600 I don't know, anyway, your body does, it does that. 00:27:52.600 --> 00:28:00.600 It's a good book. 00:28:00.600 --> 00:28:04.720 Try to see how much I need to skip here. 00:28:04.720 --> 00:28:10.440 Well, this Dr. Lisa Miller in her book, The Awaken Brain, found that people with a healthy 00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:17.720 loving view of God show 75% less of depression and significantly higher resilience to trauma. 00:28:17.720 --> 00:28:21.960 It's not belief itself that heals, it's the quality of the belief. 00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:27.440 A loving God heals, a punishing God harms. 00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:32.040 Dr. Kristin Neff's research on self-compassion shows that when we approach our failures with 00:28:32.040 --> 00:28:39.480 understanding instead of judgment, we grow faster and we recover better. 00:28:39.480 --> 00:28:42.800 It's literally what graced us. 00:28:42.800 --> 00:28:49.520 Grace allows us to see our failures through understanding, not through judgment. 00:28:49.520 --> 00:28:58.640 And my favorite social psychologist right now, Dr. Dacher Keltner, who spent years studying 00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:06.680 compassion and awe, he finds it feelings of awe, stepping back and seeing just how connected 00:29:06.680 --> 00:29:13.680 things are, how we are small in this big, vast world, how we are small in this community. 00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:20.280 We are one of a community, we are one of humanity and understanding the vastness, but in a way 00:29:20.280 --> 00:29:23.520 that connects us in a healing way. 00:29:23.520 --> 00:29:28.760 He finds it feeling of awe increases generosity, empathy and connection. 00:29:28.760 --> 00:29:34.520 In other words, the more wonder we experience, the more loving we become. 00:29:34.520 --> 00:29:37.760 It's almost like we were built this way. 00:29:37.760 --> 00:29:42.920 Tell me it doesn't sound like Jesus. 00:29:42.920 --> 00:29:50.040 Every encounter he had left people more alive, more open and more loving. 00:29:50.040 --> 00:29:53.720 It's the psychological fruit of a healed faith. 00:29:53.720 --> 00:30:00.080 It's what Jesus does with scripture, reframing it through mercy, people in love. 00:30:00.080 --> 00:30:02.680 It's what psychologists would call integration. 00:30:02.680 --> 00:30:06.240 He takes what religion has fragmented and he brings it back together. 00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:09.400 He integrates head and heart, he integrates heaven and earth, he integrates theology and 00:30:09.400 --> 00:30:13.240 humanity, Jesus doesn't ask people to pick between truth and love. 00:30:13.240 --> 00:30:19.280 He shows us they were never meant to be separated, that love is truth and that's what makes 00:30:19.280 --> 00:30:23.720 his lens so healing. 00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:27.280 Because integration is the opposite of trauma. 00:30:27.280 --> 00:30:33.280 Because trauma divides where love reconnects. 00:30:33.280 --> 00:30:42.920 Wherever you belong, every you're forgiven, every you're seeing, it all reclaims something 00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:45.160 that fear fractured. 00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:52.520 It begins to heal a trauma in us that when we were told we weren't good enough. 00:30:52.520 --> 00:30:59.320 Something in us was broken, that we didn't belong, that we were not loved fully. 00:30:59.320 --> 00:31:05.040 Now when you see Jesus and he said, "You belong, you're forgiven, you're loved, there's nothing 00:31:05.040 --> 00:31:10.000 you have to do to earn that love." 00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:15.480 It's hard for us to believe it because we've been lied to for a long time. 00:31:15.480 --> 00:31:21.760 But it begins to heal, things that this fear has fractured. 00:31:21.760 --> 00:31:34.040 So I leave you at the last question, the question for this week is not how did Jesus read scripture? 00:31:34.040 --> 00:31:42.640 Maybe it's how does Jesus read me? 00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:50.000 Some of us have been lied to about how Jesus reads you. 00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:55.080 I think we've got to go to Jesus to see how he reads this, not other people's interpretations 00:31:55.080 --> 00:31:57.120 of something. 00:31:57.120 --> 00:32:02.600 But Jesus himself, when Jesus looks at you, he doesn't see a project of fix or center 00:32:02.600 --> 00:32:03.680 to shame. 00:32:03.680 --> 00:32:07.920 He sees someone who is worth healing. 00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:12.440 Someone who bears God's image even in their brokenness. 00:32:12.440 --> 00:32:16.360 Someone who, when they experience love, can be the healthiest, kindest, most compassionate 00:32:16.360 --> 00:32:21.280 person they were ever made to be because that's where we find ourselves. 00:32:21.280 --> 00:32:25.200 It's in the love, the compassion, the forgiveness, the kindness. 00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:28.760 It's in that place that we find who we really are. 00:32:28.760 --> 00:32:34.800 And when we start seeing like that, we see people through that lens, the world starts 00:32:34.800 --> 00:32:42.080 to look less like a battlefield and more like a garden again, more like something we're 00:32:42.080 --> 00:32:48.680 pretending to, to see the beauty of. 00:32:48.680 --> 00:32:53.920 The Jesus lens helps us slow down long enough to see that love isn't naive, that it's necessary. 00:32:53.920 --> 00:33:02.760 It's the only thing strong enough to heal what fear has broken. 00:33:02.760 --> 00:33:08.760 We look through it, we stop asking who's right, we start asking who needs to be loved. 00:33:08.760 --> 00:33:14.960 There's mercy over ritual, people over systems and love over everything. 00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:18.560 That's the lens of Jesus. 00:33:18.560 --> 00:33:31.360 So maybe we become people who see like Jesus, who read with love, who live with compassion, 00:33:31.360 --> 00:33:39.840 who let mercy be our theology and love be our logic. 00:33:39.840 --> 00:33:44.360 And may that way of seeing heal everything it touches because that's what we're called 00:33:44.360 --> 00:33:45.360 to. 00:33:45.360 --> 00:33:50.440 We are called to be healers in this world and I'm not talking about like, you know, I'm 00:33:50.440 --> 00:33:58.920 talking about healing people's internal understanding of who they are, who they believe God is. 00:33:58.920 --> 00:34:04.000 I love does this. 00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:10.720 That's who we're called to be, so let's do that. 00:34:10.720 --> 00:34:15.760 It's why we say go love well, it's who you're made to be. 00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:20.280 That is the only way that healing comes to this world. 00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:27.720 So let's go do that right through this lens and go love this world well, it's who every 00:34:27.720 --> 00:34:28.720 one of you is made to be. 00:34:28.720 --> 00:34:29.720 Love you guys. 00:34:29.720 --> 00:34:29.720 [applause]