Jesus Won’t Let You Justify - Pastor Naeem Fazal

[00:00:01] Hey, guys, this is Naim, and you've reached the Mosaic Church Podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and love for you to be even more connected. So check out our website. There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content. If this is blessed to you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity, and I'd love for you to pay it forward. Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you. Enjoy. [00:00:56] Hello, good morning, friends, and welcome. Those of you who are joining online. Did we give them a hand? Did we do that? Can we do that? It's awesome. [00:01:07] So we. Yeah. Welcome to week two of the series. Let me just tell you, last week was so awesome. Pastor Christian kicked it off, and I was intimidated. I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I can do part two because it was so good. If you missed it, you missed a good one, friends. And she talked about complacency, and I was like, wow, this is gonna be a tough one. It's gonna be a tough one. So I started washing dishes just because it helps me out. Anybody else find it therapeutic to wash dishes? [00:01:37] Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else not talking to you? Okay, who else? Anybody else, please? Yes, please. Cleaning. Cleaning is therapeutic. You guys stress all day. You can start cleaning something. Just start cleaning something. You're like. Some of you guys are like, I don't clean. I do something else. Listen, I don't care what you do, but I'm just telling you, cleaning is therapeutic. Now I will say I don't clean everything. You know what I'm saying? There's certain parts of the house I totally. What? Ignore. I totally do. So. I like to clean. I do. I like to clean. I don't know what it is. I just like it. Ashley actually gets to me. She's like, you know what? Stop cleaning. Washing dishes, it's more effective to put them in the dishwasher. Here's the deal. Here's the situation. I didn't grow up with one in the Middle east. We didn't grow up with a dishwasher. So I'm like, If I forget, we have one, apparently. And she was like, I know you don't know how to use a dishwasher because for. Somehow I don't know how you load it in. Do you, like. Do you just throw stuff in there? How do you do it? Are you blind? What do you do? I'm like, whatever. Okay, whatever. But you know what's funny about that is that there's certain parts of the house, like I said, I don't clean. In particular, the top of my fridge. Anybody remember? Like, you guys know you have a top of your fridge? Refrigerator. There's a top to it. There's a top to it. Okay? Most people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But most of us never seen what's on top of it. Have you noticed what's on top of it? So what's. What's happened is if you haven't cleaned it in a minute, it's not just dust that's formed. There's something else that's formed over there. It's dust. It's supposed to be just dust that you wipe off. But I remember the last time I cleaned it, and it was stuck. Sticky. [00:03:11] It was sticky. Okay. It was yucky. It was sticky. I'm like, why is dust sticky? And I realized I think things are growing. [00:03:19] See what I'm saying? You're like, why are we talking about this early in the morning? Well, spring cleaning. That's where we're. That's why. Okay? So here's what's funny, though. I thought about this. I thought about. Is there a part of me? Could there be a part of us that. You know, there's some parts that we always clean, Lena, in our souls, in our hearts and our minds, but then other parts, we just don't clean. And could it be possible that there's things growing in our hearts and our minds that's kind of. Kind of icky? Like, for example, have you ever met someone like a religious person? And you're like, you're icky. Anybody? You're a little sticky. You're a little icky. You're like, don't know if you. You know, I don't know about this. [00:03:59] And I think that's why we are starting this series. That's why we want to make sure that as we live our lives with Jesus, if you're a follower of Jesus, if we try to live our lives trying to understand what God wants from us, one of the things that we have to realize is that there is a routine that we have to go through and that is routinely cleaning up some of the things that have collected on our hearts and our minds and our souls. And so that's why we wanna do this. We wanna get rid of some spiritual thoughts and beliefs that maybe, just maybe, because we didn't dust off, because we didn't deal with them, because we kinda ignored them, because they just didn't. You know, they're just on top. You don't really realize. You don't notice them all the time. They're. [00:04:40] They've been growing some stuff. There's some stuff that's not good. And so when I think about that, I think of the next thing that I wanna talk about. And this is, man, this is a big one. Okay? We talked about complacency. That's big. But today I wanna talk about prejudice. Prejudice. You guys ready for that prejudice now? You're like, oh, my gosh. Okay, that's a tough one. Yeah. Do you know that you have prejudice in your heart and mind? Do you know that? No one. No one in this world is far from it. Do you know what I'm saying? It settles on all of us, Every heart and every mind has some kind of prejudice right now in this room, you know, there's some prejudice going on right now. People who are for cleaning and not for cleaning. You're like, I don't like people who clean a lot. Okay? You're prejudice over everything and anyone. I mean, it's not just systemic, friends, because that's really true, but it's also biological. Like, we all are biased on certain things. The idea of this idea of prejudice is basically this, right? Having a strong opinion without good reason. Like, you prejudge someone. Have you ever done that? Anybody? Can someone be honest over here? Okay, Taylor Swift fans. Have you ever judged them? [00:05:57] I have. [00:05:59] I don't know what's. What's what. I don't even know what the deal is. They call themselves swifties, which is also a cleaning product, by the way. I don't know if you guys know that. So I'm just saying. Just saying. It's all circle of life here situation. But we're all. We're all. In fact, I got a. Like one of those. You know, those reels. You know how people. Do you have people in your life who send you stuff online all the time? Okay, stop. Just stop doing that, okay? [00:06:24] I get them on Facebook, but I get them on, like, on Instagram as well. People send me reels. And I have people, like some of you guys from. I have people from all over the world. That send me stuff because I just have friends and then, you know. Not that you don't have friends anyways, whatever. Okay, So I got a reel sent from a family member, and it was one of those. It was awful. It was really awful. Okay, it was funny, but it was awful. It was not even funny. It was awful. It was. Can I tell you? Can I share it with you? I'm not gonna mention their name. I'm just not gonna. But I just want you to know their family member. Okay? And here's. The video was. Okay, the video was basically like kind of a. And just text in the picture, and it said. The text was this. [00:07:07] The copy. The text, the word said, of course, of course, of course. Allah. Allah, if you don't know, is the God of Islam. Okay? Of course. Allah is the only God and the true God. [00:07:22] Why? Because the universe started with a bang. [00:07:28] Did you guys get it? So you guys get it. Some of you guys are gonna get it in a couple minutes later. It's super offensive, isn't it? Right? But it's a family member. Okay? This person's. This person's like me. We're in the same group. We're in the same group. Okay, we're like. You and me are the same. But you know what's interesting about that is that that is. That's a meme. That's something that is so. [00:07:54] So communicates the human spirit, I think. So many of us have so much biases and so much prejudice, and we have to learn. We have to learn to confront them. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go into a story. And you've probably heard this before, but this story is so profound to me because it really hits. [00:08:16] It hits in a very hard way, but it also allows us to see something that we've got to get right rid of. So let's jump in. It's in Luke, chapter 10. You got your app. If you got that, you can jump right into that. Luke, chapter 10, verse 25 starts off. And basically, here's what happens. One day, it says here, an expert in religious law stood up, right? I stood up. And to test Jesus by asking him this question. He says, what, teacher, help me out. What? What did he say? What did he ask? [00:08:45] What should I. What to. To inherit eternal life. What should I do now? He's not talking about, hey, how do I. How do I live? That's always winning. He's not talking about that. He's talking about a particular kind of life. This eternal life. In the Jewish language is called. If you want to know a little bit of Hebrew, it's called olem haba. Let's say it together. Can we do that? Olem haba, olam haba. He's saying, how can I live that kind of life? It's this life that is realized fully alive here. It's living like kingdom life here. It's like, not like, I'll get to heaven and I'll live a certain kind of life. No. How can I experience this eternal, ever flowing life? And so he's asking a really deep question like, how can I live a life fully alive in who God wants me to be? [00:09:39] How can I live this eternal, eternal life? And so Jesus says, oh, great, okay, all right. So he keeps on going. So the next verse he says, okay. So Jesus replied, and he goes back to this idea of Moses. And he says, so what does the law of Moses say? How. How do you. What? How do you read it? And then the man answered, help me out. What did he say? What? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind. [00:10:06] Yes, strength. And I'm like, what? And your mind. And then what? [00:10:13] Love your neighbor as yourself. You probably know this passage. You're like, okay, I know. I think I remember this story. I think I remember this story. So what happens next? He says, okay. So Jesus says this. He says, okay, Jesus told the man, well, great answer. Do this, do this, and you will live like, this is the kind of life this is. Do this. But then the man wanted to justify something. He wanted to justify his actions. And I would say he wanted to justify his prejudice. He wanted to justify something, the kind of life he was living. So he asked him the question, and we all know it. Help me out. What is it? [00:10:56] Who is my neighbor? So Jesus said, hey, love the Lord, your God, all your heart, soul, mind, strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then right after that, the guy goes, okay, well, who is my neighbor? So what the guy's asking is, when I look at humanity, he I don't want to look at humanity with compassion. I want to look at humanity with categorization. I want to categorize humanity. Like, who is my neighbor? I want to draw the line of who I can maybe mistreat. Who can I not be as compassionate towards? Where can I do this? How can I do this? Like, Jesus is trying to draw a circle. This guy is drawing a line. He's like, okay, well, who is my neighbor? Like, this is our property line. If you have a house, you know, a property line. This is that, this and that. And our neighbor seems to be the person who lives right next to us. And then Jesus blows his mind. He's like, okay, okay, okay, well, let me just talk to you about this idea of neighbor. You see, the first thing we have to understand about prejudice is we have to admit. We have to admit that we have prejudice. I think so often we find ourselves going, you know what? I just wanna know, where can I draw the line? Like, what can. Who can I. Who can I ignore? Who can I. I don't need to love as much. Like, who do I need to treat? Who needs to be included and who needs to be excluded? Like, so. So who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? And the question reveals something to us about our own hearts. Because the idea is like. He's like, oh, you know, he thinks neighbor is that person. But the idea of neighboring loving is where Jesus goes. Right after this, he says, you're asking the wrong question. So what he does is he does with a classic rabbi move, and he starts telling a story. So he tells the story, right? Well, how. How did the story go? He says, Jesus answered by telling a story. He says, there was once a man traveling, traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way, he was attacked by robbers. Okay, all right, we know the story. Okay. They took off his clothes, beat him up, went off, leaving him half dead. Luckily, luckily, a priest was on his way down. Luckily. So now when the people who are hearing the story, when they heard, okay, so this is a story, and the first character is who? A what? A priest. Jewish people knew that this was how he is about to tell us a story. They actually know what's coming next. They actually know there's gonna be a priest in the story, there's gonna be a Levite in the story, and there's gonna be a Pharisee in the story. This kind of storytelling, this parable telling was common. So they're kind of already ready for this. The guy, the expert of the law, he's also ready for this. He's like, oh, okay, okay, okay. I kind of know where it's going. It's like the joke, you know, a priest, a Levi and a Pharisee, you walk into a bar, no, they kind of know what's happening. [00:13:58] Possibly they think they know. They prejudge Jesus. So here's what happens. He's like a priest. Luckily, a priest was coming. But, but, but, but when he saw him, what did he do? What did he do? He what? He what? [00:14:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He saw him and he angled across to the other side. He went to the other side. Okay, so then now they know, okay, the next person, the next character in the story is going to be a Levite. And then it says, what? And then a what? Levite religious man showed up. He also avoided the injured man. So now the next character is going to be a Pharisee. The Pharisees are always the hero of the story. They're always the heroes of the story. In particular, Jewish or common Jewish rabbis. But Jesus throws everything off. He goes, but then he says, a what? A what? A Samaritan. That's why this. [00:14:58] The Samaritan story, a Good Samaritan story, is so crazy. Here's why. Because the phrase itself in Jewish culture was like, what are you saying? There is no Good Samaritan. And now we all just think of Samaritans and we think of the Good Samaritans. History has changed everything. So Jesus starts off and he goes, oh, and a Samaritan. And a Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's conditions, his heart went out to him. Wow. [00:15:28] A Samaritan did this. Now, I just want you to know, this is where we get really. We have to admit that we are prejudice. We have to admit that there's something inside of us. We prejudge a lot of things. We prejudge famous people. We prejudge poor people. We prejudge rich people, pretty people. We just prejudge everybody. You know what's interesting about this is, like, I think about, like, the. The prejudice in our world right now in the US And I think about, like, the conversations have been going on for the last several years. And I just gotta tell you something. I think sometimes the conversation of prejudice sometimes is just limited to the Western world. We just think, oh, you know what? It just exists in America. It does not, friends. It exists all over the world. I mean, I'm a brown person. And I'll tell you what, there are more brown prejudiced people in the world, because you know why there are more brown people in the world. Okay? [00:16:25] We are prejudiced against and we prejudge and we draw lines. We do all the. Like, we have a serious caste system that exists. Serious caste system. I mean, we are in the part of the same group, but yet. Yet we prejudge and we want to mistreat other people. And here's the crazy thing. The crazy thing is we. We want God's permission to do it. [00:16:55] We want God's permission to do it. So when Jesus throws Out. And a Samaritan comes in. They're already like, oh, hold up, hold up. What are you doing? And what Jesus is doing over here, guys, this is part of the reasons why he got him killed. Because he's saying the Samaritan is the hero of the story and he's gonna continue and talk about what he did. But when he throws that in, basically he's saying, hey, expert of the law here. Hey, here, hey, hey, religious guy here. I'm never going to give you what you want, because what you want is a theology that allows you to mistreat people. [00:17:32] If you have a God, an idea of who God is. If we have an idea of who God is, then my question is, does your God, the one you worship and sing songs to, does he allow us to permission to mistreat another group of people? Because if your theology allows that. You missed it, you missed it, you missed it. Now, remember I told you that the reel, the really offensive, you know, reel that I got right from my family member, okay? You know what's sad about that? What's sad about that is. And I kind of have to own that because that's my culture. I grew up in Islam. And sadly, in certain sections of Islam, certain sets of Islam, they have a theology that says, yes, you can. [00:18:25] You can not just mistreat people because that God gives them permission. It allows them to actually murder people. [00:18:37] And I will tell you this. If you and I, if we as the church in the US if we're not careful, that kind of theology is going to creep up in us. That we're going to. We're going to basically read the scriptures and say, how can we divide people up? How can we categorize people? How can we draw a line? Who can be mistreat? And here's the problem. You know this, we know this. We know it because we're on social media and we've seen this even the last couple of years in the US and all over the world. And that is there are people who claim to love God. God and have no issues murdering people, no problem with genocide, not a problem. Why? Because we are God's chosen people and they are not. [00:19:25] And a theology, I said, I'll say it again. A theology that lets you do that is not Jesus. [00:19:32] Because Jesus on purpose, knowing that this will get him into so much trouble, throws in a Samaritan in the story and a very offensive character in the story. It's like basically Jesus is saying, the hero of the story, the hero of the story is the person you are most uncomfortable with. [00:19:54] Let's think about this right now. What kind of person are you most uncomfortable with? [00:20:01] You're like, I just. I just. I cannot. I'm not comfortable with. Around these kinds of people. I'm not comfortable with this kind of group of people. I'm not okay with this. I mean, politically. I mean, man, we are so divided. We are not comfortable. Why? Because there's so much tension, right? Like, I'm not comfortable with a person. [00:20:23] You voted for him. I can't do that. I can't hang out with you. I can't do this. Oh, you're part of the LGBTQ community. [00:20:31] I don't know about that. I'm uncomfortable. Friends, it is okay to feel uncomfortable around certain people. [00:20:39] It's okay. [00:20:42] I get it. Several years ago, I was talking to a guy like, this is maybe 10 years ago in the lobby, and he. [00:20:51] I knew he was part of our volunteer staff, and he was doing, you know, cafe. Like, he was doing the coffee. Like, if you walk in, you know people who are serving you. And he was part of that team for. For, I guess, a year or more. And one day, I just realized I'd never seen him in the auditorium. Like, he's always outside, and there are people, you know, obviously, you're outside. There are volunteers. You have to do stuff. And they're outside watching this live in the foyer. But I just realized. I just. I said, like, I don't think I've ever seen him. And so I was getting coffee, and I just started a conversation. I said, hey, have you ever. This is so crazy, but I don't think I've ever seen you in the auditorium. And he was like. He was quiet for a little bit, and he said, I've never been in the auditorium when you're in it. [00:21:37] And I was like, huh? [00:21:41] He said, so, man, I. [00:21:44] You know, I was in the military, and I just had too many people who look like you shooting at me. [00:21:53] I cannot be in an enclosed room with you. [00:21:57] And this is outside. We had the conversation outside. [00:22:00] He said, I cannot be in the auditorium with you. [00:22:04] And I looked at him, and I went, man, I am so sorry. [00:22:08] I'm so sorry. But, man, the courage it took for him to just say it, I didn't. I wasn't offended by it. He was admitting something. He was admitting that it triggered him. Friends, you gotta admit, hey, I'm super uncomfortable with so. And so you trigger me. Someone like, you did this to me. But it's okay. [00:22:32] It's all right. [00:22:34] So if you Wanna get rid of prejudice? Here's where you gotta start off. You gotta start admitting the fact that we all have it, we all prejudge. And secondly, you have to identify and sit in it a little bit and go, I am. Yes, I get triggered by people who look like or sound like or whatever. I get, I get it. But that was a great admission. [00:22:56] That was such a mature thing to say. So what happens in the story? Jesus says, hey, so the Samaritan comes by and he just has compassion. But then he goes on, he says, what happens? He says, then he starts doing some things. He says he gave him first aid, disinfecting his wounds, then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn and made him what made him comfortable? Could you imagine even living a life that people you are uncomfortable with, you make comfortable? [00:23:33] Like, how do you, how do you live that kind of a life? How do you live by that kind of perspective to go, you know, you make me uncomfortable, but I am going to care about you. [00:23:47] Like, that's tough. [00:23:49] Cause what you want to do is you're a terrible person, you're not a good person, or I don't trust you. But friends, distrust justifies prejudice. All day long it justifies it. I just don't trust you. [00:24:04] Yeah, but you don't have God's permission to mistreat them. You don't, you just don't. And he says he made him comfortable. And then what happened? Jesus keeps on going with the story again, this is not a real story. Jesus is what, he's making it up. But people, some people are getting even madder. They're like, I don't like this at all. [00:24:29] Where's the Pharisee? You know where the Pharisees were in the crowd? You know who asked the question? The Pharisee. He was not the hero of the story. So then Jesus continues, goes, and in the morning, here's what happens in the morning. He took out two silver coins. Now we got money on the table, different things. Oh, I like you. No, I'm gonna financially contribute to your well being. What? There is a paper trail now, people. It's serious. It's like they're coins. This guy paid the guy silver coins and then he says, and made and gave him to the innkeeper saying, take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on. What? [00:25:17] Yeah, put on my tab and I'll pay you on the way back. And then Jesus asked the question, right? Next verse, what does he say? Next verse he says this, he says, who do you think, which of the three became a neighbor, became a neighbor, became a neighbor to the men attacked by robbers. [00:25:43] I wonder how long the guy waited before he answered that. [00:25:50] Because he basically, when Jesus asked that question, I wonder if he had a moment where he was like, I don't know if I want to answer this question, because this is the real part of the story. This really happened, right? He stops and he goes, I can't answer that question. I don't want to ask that question because I would like to live a life drawing lines or drawing lines and just knowing I can treat this person like this, and I should treat this person like that. I don't want to live a life that I don't want to neighbor everybody. [00:26:30] I want certain people that I'm comfortable treating well, and certain people I just distance myself from. That's what I want to live. I don't know if you guys know this, but the world that Jesus lived in, all the stories that he was telling people about, like, how God is involved other races and other people, people that are usually like, outsiders. Like, he would go on purpose to a gentile village, he would heal gentile people. He would like Samaritan woman, he'd go to pagan places. He'd go to these different people, and he would sit with people. And that was a problem for a lot of people. They're like, this guy is so unclean. This rabbi is not staying in his lane. [00:27:21] He eats with those people. He sits with those people. He does that. He breaks the Sabbath. He does all these things. He's the worst of the worst. As if God was saying God. As if Jesus was saying, hey, God wants to include everyone, and you just want to exclude everyone. [00:27:41] So somehow this notion of us, we are the anointed ones, we are the chosen people. I mean, we love the idea of being chosen. Just love it. We have things that movies like, we just love the chosen race, the chosen whatever, whatever, whatever. That's not really Jesus. [00:28:02] It's humanity is chosen for God so loved the world. [00:28:11] Jesus was like, hey, I just want you to know it's everyone. [00:28:15] It's everyone. And so what he says, he says, all right, the one who treated him kindly. And then he says, the religious scholar responded. Jesus said, go and what? [00:28:29] And do the same. [00:28:31] You want to live a life. [00:28:33] You want to grow in your spirituality. [00:28:37] You want to be like Jesus. You want to really experience olam haba, the sense of, like, there's heavenly power working inside of you. You are. You're more important than just your world. And Your schedule. There's a purpose for you. There is an everlasting reason why you exist. If you want to tap into that, I want you to go and do the same. I want you to make sure you go and you act, you act, you act. You have to put some action to it. So, friends, what we got to do is we got to go, hey, who. [00:29:17] Who are we uncomfortable with? [00:29:20] What can we do? What can we do? Let me give you three things that I think really quick that we can do, okay? And these are questions you gotta ask yourself. Number one is empathy. Empathy. Like, you just gotta ask yourself, hey, who, like, what do I. [00:29:36] Like, what do I need to do? [00:29:40] Are there people in my life that I'm walking away from is that there are people that you're not wanting to look at. And I get it. Friends, there are times where I'm like, I just don't wanna look at this. Have you ever done that? Have you ever, like, you know, in your car, even you look at someone asking for money, and I'll tell you what, I've done it. I'm like, I just don't wanna look at them. I just wanna look at them. I just don't wanna look at them. [00:30:02] I follow Everyday Refugee is an Instagram account, and I follow them. And from time to time, I make myself look at them. [00:30:18] Why? Because I'm just wanting to have a terrible day? No, because I just don't want to live my life going, I'm surrounded by prosperity and all goodness and everything's great, or I'm surrounded by no issues and all that. But when I look at real people and real stories, my heart is like, okay, there are some people, friends, we cannot look away from and walk away from. We can't do that. So first is, look away. Do you have empathy? Do you have compassion? Or you just want to categorize all of humanity? The second is proximity. This idea of getting close walk. Not walking away, but walking towards, sitting with people, living, like, being in their world. Being in their world. Let me just tell you. [00:31:10] I'll tell you this. At the end of the day, Jesus is not gonna care what kind of stance you took. [00:31:17] Like, he doesn't care what you stood for. [00:31:21] You're like, what? And I remember telling this to a pastor. I was like, because he invited me to something. And I was like, I'm not gonna. He's like, you gotta make a stand about this. And I'm like, I don't think Jesus is going to care about what I stood for. I think he's going to care about the kinds of people I sat with. [00:31:41] And there are some religious leaders and there are some people who refuse to sit with certain people groups refuse to. [00:31:50] Friends tell me one kind of person. Jesus was like, I'm not going to sit with you. [00:31:58] No, it was everybody. [00:32:00] Because when you sit with them, you get a little close. [00:32:04] You don't hear about the issues. You hear the stories. [00:32:09] You hear the stories. So if we're gonna really do some pressure washing, you know what I'm saying, cleaning out this prejudice thing, we're gonna have to do that. We're gonna have to get close to people. And then lastly, it's gonna cost us sacrifices. It's going to cost you. It might cost you. People not understanding people going, why did you allow so and so and so. I can't believe you did this. I don't know. I don't know about this. What do you think about that? I'm not quite sure. I'm not quite sure. It's going to cost you something. [00:32:39] Living a life that is countercultural. Because all of culture, good and bad culture, all of it is always prejudging. We just for some reason want to do that. And Jesus is saying, you can't live a life like that. [00:32:57] You can't live a life like that. See, for some of us, we think, like, spiritually even, because we prejudge. We think God has prejudged us. [00:33:06] You're not really pressing in. And you know people who are like, not wanting to come to church because they go, hey, if I come to church, I don't know why people think this. I come to church, I'm going to be struck by what, lightning? [00:33:19] Who got that? Where do we get that from? I mean, I don't know. What is God? Jesus is the God of Jesus. Thor, like, what's happening here? Like, why do people think that? [00:33:31] Because they've prejudged God. [00:33:35] Strong opinions with no good reason. [00:33:39] I'm this and I'm going to. This is going to happen to me. [00:33:43] I just wanted you to know when Jesus was telling that story, he's also saying to the people, not the Pharisees, but everybody else there, he's saying, hey, by the way, I'm the Good Samaritan. [00:33:55] I'm not going to leave you on the street. [00:33:58] I'm not going to do that. Religion will leave you on the street every day. If you don't fit a category, he'll leave you on the street. [00:34:10] And religion will justify us leaving certain people on the street. [00:34:17] But Jesus is Like, I can't do that. [00:34:21] You can't do that. So he's like, I'm gonna come to you. So if you find yourself in a place where you're like, I don't know. I don't know. I think God has very strong opinions about me. You have no idea. You have no idea the grace and the mercy that God has for you. [00:34:39] You are not like him and he knows it, but he likes you anyway. [00:34:44] He loves you anyway. So can I pray for you? Can we do that? Let's stand together. Let's do that. [00:34:52] Well, Lord God, Lord God, we come before you and let's do this. If you can close your eyes for a minute. Close your eyes for a minute and just ask this question. It's a brave question. It's a question that, honestly, it's gonna be very raw. [00:35:17] It's gonna be very raw. [00:35:20] It's a question that basically is gonna allow the Holy Spirit to reveal something to you, to show you something that you might not like. [00:35:34] And this is the question, God, who do I mistreat? [00:35:45] Who am I okay with mistreating? [00:35:50] Who am I okay calling names? [00:36:00] Who am I okay with thinking ill of? [00:36:05] Who am I okay with disapproving and distrusting? [00:36:14] Who am I okay with not loving? [00:36:21] Who is it? [00:36:23] Who is it that I'm okay with just being rude, being unkind, ignoring? [00:36:35] Who am I okay with seeing on the street and purposely walking away because I don't like what they represent? [00:36:50] I don't like what they're. The way their life is. I don't like the condition they're in. And I'm okay with that. [00:36:58] God, who. [00:37:00] Who is it? And God, my other prayer is this. Would you. [00:37:05] Would you. Because your spirit lives inside of us. If we. If it's true, God, that when we come to a relationship with you, your spirit lives inside of us and you make our bodies, our minds and our hearts the temple where you live in, then Holy Spirit, would you give me. Would you give us the power to overcome and push away and conquer the prejudice that's in my heart? [00:37:42] God, would you do that? [00:37:44] Would you do that? [00:37:47] God? Give me the power to do this, to really, truly live a life. [00:37:54] And, God, I pray also, the most importantly as we leave this morning, we would not prejudge you because so many of us have. [00:38:08] We've prejudged your grace and your mercy and your blessings in our life. [00:38:15] God, would you give us a picture before we leave, as we respond, a picture of how we should never prejudge your blessings over us. [00:38:26] We should never categorize them, never limit them. God, because we have no good reason. [00:38:35] Could you help us respond in Jesus name? [00:38:40] Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at MosaicChurch TV.