When We Miss Jesus | Mark S3E1 — A Different Kingdom

Welcome to the CBC Denver Podcast. The message comes from our series Real Jesus, a front row seat to who Jesus really is through the gospel of Mark. Pastor Casey show us that it is possible to be around Jesus and still miss Jesus entirely. The main scripture for this talk is Mark 6:1-6.

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This last Friday, I celebrated my birthday, 34 years old. I I got to play basketball with Jason last week, and the dude thought I was like 24. So I'm gonna hold on to that. That's amazing. But yeah, turned 34, like halfway to 70 about. That's what it feels like. But man, the last couple weeks, your birthday kind of changes as a dad when you have kids, and you're like, you're not really throwing a party, like you want to do stuff with your family. And so the last couple weeks we've been talking with our kids, like, what do you want to do for daddy's birthday? And they're like, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, chanting zoo. Like, we go there all the time, but they want to take me back to the zoo. And so I was all for it. And so I'm like, hey guys, we're gonna do the zoo, we're also gonna do dipping dots, we're doing popcorn, all the things we normally say no to at the zoo. Like, because of daddy's birthday, we're gonna do it. So we load them up in the car on Friday, and that's that's my off day. And we we take them to the zoo, we pull in, there's 10 cars in the parking lot. I look at him and I'm like, this isn't good. And sure enough, the zoo is closed. And in that moment, my four-year-old's in the very back now, and we have a one-month-old in the middle, and our two-year-old, the four and two-year-old like lose their ever-loving minds. They're crying. So our one year old one month old doesn't even know what's happening, but he starts crying. All three kids are crying in our our car. It's like chaos, but it's like ear piercing. And I look at hand, I'm like, we gotta find something like fast. And so I had an idea. I was like, I've heard of this place called Lava Island. Anyone been to Lava Island? Come on, can I get a witness? Anybody? Yes. So we drove to Lava Island. I'm trying to like convince our kids for 15 minutes on this drive, like, it's gonna be worth it. It's gonna be awesome. It's like a trampoline park, and it's it's amazing. We we as a dad, as a parent, you guys could understand this. The best thing is to watch your kids experience something for the first time, right? Like, it's such an amazing feeling. Like, give me that for my birthday. Like, I would do that over and over again. I'm also a former youth pastor, so trampoline parks right up my alley. We walk into Lava Island, like, there's no more tears at this moment. It's like their jaws on the floor, they're like taking in this, it's like this mega world of like, yes, it's a playground, but it's like American Ninja Warrior, and there's like trampolines and foam pits and balance beams and like trampoline where you can dunk a basketball, and amazing. And then in the middle, there's this huge volcano that you can like climb up and slide down. And as a kid, like I can only imagine being in their world, like it it's the coolest thing in the world. We we got them checked in, we we we played, I took them all around the playground, and halfway through, my my son was like, Dad, this is like my most favorite place ever. And so I was like, That that was a win as a dad on on my birthday. We saved the zoo. I share that story because I want to take you to that moment where they experienced Lava Island for the first time. Like, I can't I will go back to that moment and I have that captured in my mind. There's moments where you've experienced something for the first time. Just think about something that that really impacted you, like maybe a first concert. Maybe the first time you got to go see the people you've been following for a long time, you got to see them, you got to sing every song, like you knew every lyric. It was amazing. You left with like a greater appreciation for that that band, that artist. I grew up on the West Coast, so like we took a lot of people to the ocean for their first time. Like it was not a novelty for us, but I mean, when they saw the ocean, they're just mind-blown, like terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. Maybe it's the first time you flew on an airplane, like and you look out the w that window and you're looking at like just endless clouds and skies, and you're like, Man, I I feel so small. The world is massive. Or maybe it's that first time you looked at that wedding ring. I know we got some recently engaged people in the room, like you have lost track of time, like looking at that wedding ring, that engagement ring, and it's it's special. Or being in Denver, and I've got some guests here too. Like you see the Rocky Mountains. I remember moving here, I remember vacationing here. And man, I could not get over just seeing the mountains all around me. And then what happens? We kind of get used to it. The first time special, the first time we stop and we we stand in awe, but eventually what happens is you barely notice it. Like the wonder disappears, we become less attentive to the beauty, and what was once precious to us is now just ordinary. And I wonder today how many of us do that with Jesus. I wonder how many of us do that with church, with spirituality, with God's word. What was once beautiful, we couldn't get enough of it, is now just ordinary. It's not as precious anymore. And today, what I want us to see, and this is the main idea that we'll impact today, is you can be around Jesus and still miss Jesus entirely. You can be around the things of God and still miss what God's up to and what God wants to do. We have a God who wants to do abundant things in your life. Like Jesus said he came to give life abundantly. How many of you are living the reality of an abundant life? Or are we missing Jesus? So today we're jumping back into the gospel of Mark in a series that we started at the beginning of the year. The series is called Real Jesus. It's a front row seat to who Jesus actually is. That's why Mark is writing his book, his gospel. And we've broken up this into seasons and episodes. And so if you went all the way back in our podcast, you would see like chapter one of Mark. We we title like season one. It's all about the good news. Jesus is on the scene as the Messiah, he's announcing the good news of his kingdom. You get to chapter two through five of Mark. We titled it mixed reactions because now as he does ministry, we see all these mixed reactions to who Jesus is. Some believe him, some are like all for him, and then in a moment they they turn on him and they leave. The Jews are confused, they had expectations of who the Messiah would be. There's a lot of mixed reactions to who Jesus was. And then we get to chapter six, which we're calling season three. And what we're gonna see come into greater focus, and this is all the way through to the end of the book. This is Mark's whole point, is that Jesus, the kingdom he's ushering in, is a different kind of kingdom than what they expected the Messiah to bring. And we're gonna see that today in Mark chapter six. So if you guys have your Bibles, turn to Mark chapter six. If you guys need a Bible and don't own one, like you can raise your hand, our seating crew will run one to your seat. We have extra Bibles like stocked up because we value the Word of God. And so if you're here today and you're like, hey, I don't even own a Bible, we want that to be a gift for you, just raise your hand, keep it raised until our seating crew finds you. And let me jump into Mark chapter six, starting in verse one. It says, He went away from there, talking about Jesus, and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him, and on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue. That was his custom. And many who heard him were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things? What is this wisdom that's given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown, and among his relatives, and in his own household, and he could do no mighty work there. I'm gonna read that again. And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them, and he marveled because of their unbelief. You can be around Jesus and still miss Jesus. So today I want to give us five dangers that we see that come from unbelief. I want to walk us through five dangers that we see in this story, maybe five reasons people choose to not believe. But even as Christians, if you're in the room and following Jesus, there's a process in your life called sanctification. You've been justified at the moment of salvation. First at the cross, the moment you place faith in Jesus, you've been justified. God sees you just as if you'd never sinned, like you are perfect, you're standing before God as righteous, like the righteousness of Christ apply to your life, forgiven of all your sin. But then there's still this moment called sanctification, where the Holy Spirit moves into your life, and until you get to heaven, he is making you more like Jesus, he is sanctifying you, and he is getting rid of the unbelief that still resides in your heart. Just think about that for a moment. Some of you are like, man, I don't have any unbelief. I believe all this is true, but functionally, the way we live our life, like there's there's still roots of unbelief in our life, and sin at the core is unbelief. We don't believe God's word, we don't believe his promises, we don't believe he's enough, he's sufficient. And so we have to take matters into our own hands. So this is not just a message for people exploring faith in Jesus, and if that's you, man, thank you for being here. That takes a lot of courage to walk in here. But this is also a message for those who've been following Jesus for a minute, for a decade. God has to do some work on the unbelieved stone of hearts. The first danger I want to bring up is the danger of familiarity. The danger of familiarity. This says, I already know Jesus. And I already know everything there is to know about Jesus. Like I was born in the church. You guys ever heard that? Man, I I pretty much came out of the womb like memorizing scripture. I already know Jesus. Now let's back up for a second to get some context. Jesus has already been doing ministry with his disciples. He's been traveling, he's preaching, he's healing, he's casting out demons. People are hearing about this rabbi named Jesus. He's had some viral moments, like his follower account is growing. And so far we see incredible faith and openness from the Gentiles, which were not God's people, right? God had a people that he blessed with his revelation, his truth, so that the nations could be blessed. Like it was always gonna get to the Gentiles. But Jesus comes on the scene, and the people that know him the least are the ones who are trusting him the most. And then Jesus comes to his hometown, Nazareth. What do we know about Nazareth? Not a whole lot. Some of you maybe come from a town like this. I know we've got some Texans in the room. Like, there's definitely these kind of towns in Texas. We're like, where is that on a map? Like, that's that was Nazareth. The Greek New Testament only mentions it 12 times. Nazareth was a town in the middle of nowhere, up in the Galilee region, but middle of nowhere, made up of nobodies, nobody prominent, comes from Nazareth. Like, that was even a dig at Jesus often. They're like, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? You're saying you're the Messiah. Like, we don't we don't really believe that. So let me ask you this question: why would God choose an unimpressive backwater town like Nazareth to bring the Messiah to this planet? They expected him to go to Jerusalem, they expected the Messiah to show up in Rome, like a prominent political town, not Nazareth. And I think God did this to show radical humility, which is the point of Mark all throughout. He's like the Son of Man came to serve, not to be served. He came to be a ransom for many. So much so, in his humility to connect with humanity, God went to a remote town like Nazareth, so he could grow up as common as any of us. Like he gets you. He's had the nine to five, like he was a carpenter, he had a blue-collar job. Like he he gets everything about your life. He's lost people, like he he was fully God, but fully human. And we see this incredible humility by the fact that God would send the Messiah to a town called Nazareth. Now the estimated population at that time was 150 to 200-200 people. 150 to 200 people. So most of your neighborhoods are bigger than Nazareth, most of your apartment complexes bigger than Nazareth. Like everybody knows everybody. So when Jesus shows up, everybody pulls up. It seems like there's some genuine excitement around Jesus. Like he's the hometown hero. But when they start to hear the claims of Jesus and his messianic kingdom, they're like, hold up. We we already know you, Jesus. Like any of you that have that family member that's like, boy, I knew about you before you were born. Anyone have that? Like, I changed your diapers. Like, you can't pull any fast one on me. That's kind of the attitude that they have. They're like, Jesus, we watched you grow up. We watched you go through puberty. Like, we've seen every part of your life. Jesus, what are you talking about? That might work out there. You might be able to convince people out there that you're the Messiah, but here, like we know you. You're just the son of the carpenter. You're not anything special, you're just ordinary. Another dude like us. And then they call him the son of Mary. They're like, You're the carpenter, the son of Mary, like the one who had the illegitimate child. That's what scholars believe they're implying here. I mean, think about it. The virgin birth. How many of you would believe that? They're like, You're born to illegitimate parents. And the people in his hometown think they have Jesus all figured out. He's just a nobody, a blue-collar carpenter. And they had a head knowledge of who Jesus was. But this it produced this familiarity, which is incredibly dangerous. And I want to ask you this question today. Have you fallen for the danger of familiarity? Where you're like, I already know everything there is to know about Jesus. I think this happens in the church. Of all the people you think Jesus could go and preach and be received with excitement, you would think it would be the people who know him the most, right? But that's exactly how familiarity creeps in. Your spiritual life becomes merely head knowledge. I love I love the crying babies. Don't even don't even worry. Don't even worry. That's a sign of a growing church right there. Come on. You you your spiritual life becomes merely head knowledge. You know a lot of facts about Jesus. Like you grew up in Sunday school. Maybe the glory of God doesn't seem all that glorious anymore. God becomes a divine being to study and critique rather than the Lord of everything who we should worship. And then the Bible gets reduced to some theological manual, some textbook. I mean, I went to seminary for seven years, did my undergrad and my graduate degree in seminary. And man, this will also apply to like CCU students. But man, I can't tell you the amount of people that I sat with in class studying the word of God, dreaming about what God wanted to do through us, like living our lives for his glory, only to see them have moral failures, or to start to treat this as a textbook. The danger of familiarity. This can happen so easily in our lives. And Matthew 7 has one of the scariest verses in the Bible. I really believe this is one of the scariest verses in the Bible. Matthew 7 21, it's written and read in your Bible, which means it's the words of Jesus. This is what he says. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, like they confess his name, I'm a Christian, I'll follow Jesus, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But the one who does the will of the Father who is in heaven, on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Cast out demons in your name, do many mighty works in your name, and then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Watch out for familiarity. It can creep in so easily. You can be around Jesus and still miss him entirely. The second danger of unbelief is the danger of proximity. The danger of proximity. This says I'm close enough to Jesus. And anytime you're like, man, I'm doing enough for Jesus, right? I'm reading my Bible enough, right? I'm going to church enough. Like I worship God with my life enough. I share about him enough. This is the danger of proximity. It's the kind of unbelief that picks and chooses what parts of Jesus you want to believe and reject. And so his hometown shows up, they listen to him teach. They're even amazed at the things he says. They ask, like, where did he get this kind of wisdom? They marvel at the miracles. They even want him to perform miracles for them. But they still take offense at him. This is the the buffet approach to Jesus. I don't really know how many people go to buffets anymore. I don't know if that's a thing. I can't remember the last buffet I went to. But man, I guarantee this happens among us as well. Where we show up and we're like, you're like at a buffet, you're like, man, I'll take some of this. Ooh, I'll take some of this. Like, oh, give me some of that. Nah, hold that. I don't want that. And you're like, Casey, how do how do we do that in the church? Well, you follow some of Jesus' words, but not all of them. And when it comes to the secret sin in your life, you you hide it. You think no one sees it. And here's what we do. We want God to bless us. We want God to do things for us, but we won't even do the things He's asked us to do and trust Him with. Let me just give you some examples. This is not This is not a full list, okay? This is just a couple. A couple things that we won't even do that God's asked us to do. Honor the covenant of marriage. Commit not to live with someone who isn't your spouse. Like we're picking and choosing. Stop gossiping about people. This one's huge. It's so easy to do. And so we just feed into it. To give God your tithe and to trust Him with your money? You're like, man, I don't know if I can do that. Ten percent? Like God's giving you a hundred percent. Can we trust Him with 10? It's a hard thing. It's a trust thing. What about to live sacrificially in the way that you serve others, both here and throughout the week? Are we just living our lives for us? Or like Mark's whole gospel, the Son of Man came to serve and to not to be served. Are we trying to live like Jesus? Or to forgive that person that you've held a grudge against for years, like you know you've received forgiveness for hundreds of thousands of sins, and you can't forgive this one person for this one sin. There's parables about that that Jesus says. But that's just some examples where we have proximity to Jesus, but man, we just want the benefits on the fringe. The danger of proximity confuses Jesus as a butler or a genie, and you come to Jesus out of convenience. Rather than say, Jesus, you are Lord of my life. Whatever you say, I will do. Wherever you tell me to go, I will follow. Whatever you want me to believe, I will believe. The danger of proximity says, I'm okay. Like I might. I'm close enough to Jesus. It settles for a version of Jesus that falls way short of making him Lord of your life. But here's the reality of real faith and belief. When Jesus saves you, he gets all of you. He doesn't save you for part of you. He didn't die for just part of you. When he saves you, he gets all of you. And when Jesus saves you, you can't get enough of Jesus. Like you want more of him. More intimacy, more prayer, more closeness, more obedience, more love, more sacrifice. It's not how little can I do and still follow Jesus, how little how little can I do and sneak into heaven? That's that's the mindset of proximity. No, it's about how much can I give because he gave me his all. It's not a butler, it's an altar. And we lay our life down for that. The third danger of unbelief is the danger of morality. The danger of morality says this I don't really need Jesus. I'm pretty good, I'm pretty moral. Just look at my life, I'm not like that person. And the Jews and the Pharisees, they they did this really well. They had all the external figured out with the law of Moses. Let me take you over to Luke's gospel for a second. I want to show you the same story from another angle. Because Luke gives us some more detail about what Jesus says in the synagogue this day, and it'll make sense why they got so upset. Mark, Mark gives us like very speedy details. He's he's only 16 chapters long. But man, Luke will give us the juicy details. Here's what he says Luke chapter 4, it won't be on the screen. Just follow along with me. It says in verse 16, he and he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. We don't have scrolls anymore. We've got Bibles, thank the Lord. But they had to roll up the scroll to preach. And they didn't have copies of this in their home, by the way. Like, look how convenient it is to follow Jesus for us today, and we won't even pick this up. They're in the synagogue, he pulls open the scroll, Prophet Isaiah, and he unrolled the scroll and he found the place where it was written. And he rolled up the scroll and he gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. They're like, All right, what's he gonna say next? They're hanging on every word. And he began to say to them, Today. This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. I don't know if you've seen The Chosen, but it captures this moment. And holy cow, it is tense. Like they march him out and try to throw him off a cliff. His hometown. His family, his relatives. So another danger I want you to see here is the danger of morality, which says, I don't really need Jesus because I'm good enough. You could also call this the danger of religion, where it's all about the things that you do that qualify you before a holy God, which we know is not true. Now, when he reads this prophecy from Isaiah, what is Jesus saying that he was here to do? He's saying he's here to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed, and the year of the Lord's favor. Basically, he's saying this I am the Messiah sent here to redeem you. You are in spiritual poverty. You are stuck in spiritual bondage. You are spiritually blind, you're oppressed, but turn to me and receive God's favor. He's saying, I'm here to bring salvation. They're like, Jesus, we watched you grow up. What are you talking about? Like, Jesus, we know you. And who are you to point the finger at us? What are you talking about anyway? We're in church, like we're in the synagogue. Like we are, we read the scriptures, we follow the law of Moses, we wash our hands, like we do, we do everything that it tells us to do. We don't need saving, we don't need salvation. We're we're good enough. And that's their attitude. And all of this is playing in their head, and in their pride, they already think God is lucky to have me, versus I am desperately needy for God. You ever had thoughts like that? Or maybe, I mean, I'll be honest, like as a Christian, I've been following Jesus now longer than I haven't been. I was saved at 10 years old. And so there's days where it's hard to feel as needy for Jesus because it feels like I got some things figured out, right? And he's freed me from a lot of things, and I'll give him some credit. But now I'm like, okay, Jesus, I got this. And we we do this with the danger of morality, where we look to our works and our external for some basis of merit with God. And maybe there was a point in your life where you were desperate and needy for him, but it's been a long time since you had that kind of desperation. I talked to people this week who are right in that place. And if that's where you're at, God has so much more for you. You've given into the danger of morality or some kind of like just performance, and it's led you to a place of like arrival in your sanctification, rather than staying desperate for Jesus. You want to know an easy way to determine if you're struggling with this? Answer this question. When was the last time that you confessed sin to God and to others? Or I could say, how often during the week are you in a posture of confession before the Lord? Because when you have moved away from that place, you're in the danger of morality where you're good enough. I don't need Jesus. And that comes from a place of unbelief. The fourth danger of unbelief is the danger of rivalry. The danger of rivalry says, I don't submit to Jesus. I might acknowledge him, but man, I don't submit, I don't come underneath his authority. So in the face of their unbelief, Jesus makes this statement a prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown, and don't miss this, and among his own relatives and in his own household. His sisters are right there, we already saw, like they already know his brothers. We believe like Joseph has passed away, so it's just Mary at this time. But it wasn't just the townspeople who didn't believe, it was his own family. Like, can you imagine that? Let me just take you back for a second. Like, they knew the story, they knew the prophecies, they knew about the angel that visited Mary and Joseph. They knew about the miracle of the virgin birth, they knew that he was announced as the Messiah, and they still struggled with unbelief. Even Mary. Even Mary. So to the Catholics in the room, like that we don't believe Mary has like no sin. Like she had unbelief. Yes, we respect her, we honor her, but there is only one without sin, and his name is Jesus. Even Mary, his brothers, his sisters, they they couldn't believe. They couldn't fully accept the authority of Jesus. They marveled at it, how he taught with such authority, but they couldn't submit to it. And I think it's the same in the church today. A lot of times we're like, man, if I could just see God do a miracle, I would believe. They saw a virgin birth, they saw an angel, message from heaven. Like they they heard about all the miracles he was doing around Capernaum and Galilee, and yet they still didn't believe. And I would say the same would be today. I think we do see miracles and we still don't believe. Even today. A lot of times we're like, yeah, Jesus was a great teacher, but I just don't think I need to submit my life to his authority because I want to maintain some autonomy. And the danger of rivalry is unbelief because you still think in some way, shape, or form that you can be like God. And that's the age-old temptation, all the way back to the garden, where we want to be like God. And I'll say this knowing God is not enough. Knowing about God is not enough. What does James say? We just finished a study through James. James says in chapter 2, you believe that there's one God. Good. So do the demons. They even tremble. But where are the demons going to spend eternity? Separated from God. Why? Because in rivalry, you could even acknowledge that he is Son of the Most High God, as we see the demons do all throughout Jesus' ministry, and yet still miss Jesus. They refuse to submit to his authority. Real faith trusts in the authority of Jesus and orients all of life around his kingship. Number five, the danger of mystery. I think this is where a lot of people in Denver get stuck and caught up, just from my experience. The danger of mystery says I don't understand Jesus. And until I understand him, I'm not going to follow him. One of the craziest parts of the story is that all of Nazareth, they've heard the stories of Jesus, they've heard what he's done, they've heard about the miracles, the signs, the wonders. You would think Jesus would be the hometown hero. Like they're throwing him a party, they're high-fiving him as he's coming to the town. But rather than allow like the mystery of Jesus, like they can't fully explain him. But rather than allow that to lead to this holy curiosity and this wonder that eventually leads to worship, that's what I mean, that's what it's meant to do. You look at Denver, you look at the mountains, you look at creation. There should be this holy curiosity. You're like, man, who made that? Like, how could a God love me like this? It leads to worship, but instead they choose to ignore it. It leads to ignorance. They just like sweep it under the rug. Like, we're not gonna deal with this. They're like, I can't prove it didn't happen, but it also doesn't make sense to me. And so I'm just gonna reject it. And people today will say, man, if I'm gonna believe in Jesus, he's got he's gotta fix, fit, fit in my box, right? I gotta understand how this works. I gotta understand how he's completely sovereign and all these questions that we can't answer because he's God, right? Do you understand? Understand how backwards this is. Like if you could understand everything about God, guess what? He wouldn't be God. If you could explain everything, if you could like that'd be a God, lowercase G made it in your image, if you could explain him. That wouldn't be a God worth following. That would be a God you can control, but that's not God. But think about this: God spoke this universe into existence. Thought about that? Can you explain that? No, you can try a bunch of other ways. That still makes the most sense, and it still baffles us that by the word of his power, he spoke the universe into existence. He created everything you see around you. Can you explain that? Can you explain how your body works? All the systems, it's it's pretty phenomenal. God came to earth fully God and fully man. Can we fathom that? No. Jesus was born of a virgin, he's born without sin. Jesus lived a sinless life. Jesus healed the lame, he gave sight to the blind, he made the deaf hear, the mute speak. He had power over all of creation. He he calmed storms. He had power over the demonic. They fled at his presence. Can you guys explain that? I can't. Jesus died for the sins of the world on the cross. The God of the universe murdered on the cross for you and for me. And three days later, he walked out of the grave. Over 500 people saw him. All of his disciples who abandoned him before he was arrested or at the time of his being arrested, all those disciples saw him resurrected, and 11 out of the twelve became martyrs for that truth. Like you don't die for a lie. I can't explain it, but man, there's enough proof here. And one day he's coming again to gather his church and to usher in the new age. Do I understand all of this? No. But man, God has given you enough revelation through Jesus to trust and believe in him. And not just through Jesus, but in your life and the people around you, in his word, preserved for millennia, so you could hold this in your hand. That's how much God loves you. He's that big. And I still learn more about God every single day. I think for all of eternity, we will never exhaust the things that we're learning about him. That's how big God is. But he's given you enough to trust him through his son Jesus. We look to the cross, we look to the empty tomb. Say less. Here's the crazy part. Verse 5. It says, And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people, which which shows that he could do mighty works. Like he's still God. If he wants to, he he can. There's a principle here. And he marveled because of their unbelief. What's he saying? God can do whatever he wants. He's God. And we don't manipulate him. We don't presume on God. But he does want to respond to faith. What he chooses to do is not reward unbelief. So the big takeaway I want to leave us with today is this that unbelief closes the door to what God is wanting to do through genuine faith. And I don't know what it is in your life that he's wanting to do. Some of you, it's salvation. You've never trusted in Jesus, you've never believed in him. There's never been a moment where you pushed all the chips in. Texas hold them style, like I'm all in on following Jesus. There's never been that moment in your life. Maybe today's that day. But maybe there's something in your life where there's still an area of unbelief about your future, about a relationship, about your financial situation, about why God has you in Denver. I don't know what it is. But I know God wants to move in your life. And the question is: do you believe He can turn that around? Do you believe that He is good? Do you believe that He has plans to prosper you? Do you believe that He is trustworthy, even if it doesn't make sense? Or in our unbelief, will we miss what He wants to do? So today, huh? Just between you and God, I ask you to reflect on that question as we respond in worship. I'm gonna pray. I'm also gonna lead us in a moment of invitation. If there's anyone here that does not know Jesus, today could be the day of salvation. So let me pray. Father, thank you for your son Jesus. Thank you that you have given us everything we know to love you, to trust you, to know you. God, you've done all the work. It is finished because of Jesus. And so God, help us to be a church that doesn't miss out on what you want to do in Lakewood, in Denver, on college campuses, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in our families, because of the danger of unbelief. God, we rebuke that. God, we cast that aside. God, we pray that you would reveal more and more of that in our life. God, so we could trust you further. And God, whatever you're calling us to do today, would we trust you enough to take a step of obedience?