God's Kingdom Life Now (Luke 17:1-19, Jeff Kliewer)

Joel Osteen wrote a book entitled, Your Best Life Now.

And it, in a lot of ways, is different than what the Bible teaches.

In a lot of ways, it is contrary to the ethos of the kingdom of God.

I don't wanna begin with a negative note, and I, in fact, would like to point out that of the 30 to 50 ,000 people that might come on a

Sunday morning to hear Joel Osteen preach, very many of them are our brothers and sisters. And Joel Osteen, in fact, himself, could be a strong believer in Christ who just hasn't formed theology around the word of God.

There's a missionary whose name is George Verwert who wrote a book called Messiology, Messiology, pointing out that the way the kingdom of God advances on Earth is often messy.

God will often use imperfect things to accomplish his purposes. And it's very well possible that when

Joel Osteen preaches on a Sunday morning, that people come to believe in Christ, that people are edified in a number of ways.

Nevertheless, there's a lot of scripture that teaches us that we are to be like Bereans. In Acts 17, we're told that we need to listen to what people say and compare that with the scripture to see if these things are so.

In fact, of the 27 books of the New Testament, 26 of them make some kind of mention to false prophets, false teaching, guarding the sound doctrine that was passed on from generation to generation.

So it's a very big and important consideration that we would examine the teachings of what people have to say and make sure that our doctrine is in fact true and biblical.

Joel Osteen's book is called Your Best Life Now. Your Best Life Now.

And I think that the problem with the book is that it centers around you.

It centers around you and what is best for you and what life looks like at its best for you.

The book begins with the story of a man in Hawaii. And as he goes along the shore, he notices a mansion there on the shore of Hawaii.

And his thought at the time is, I could never own a place like that. And then something shifts in his thinking to say, no, that is the wrong way to think.

The truth is, I could have a mansion like that. And Joel Osteen's point is that we need to shift our thinking to be more like the second way, to say that we could have things like that if only we could envision it, enlarge our vision and tap in to our potential.

Is that the teaching of the scriptures? I would say not.

He has seven steps to achieving your full potential. That's the subtitle of the book.

Seven steps to living at your full potential. And those are one, enlarge your vision. Two, develop a healthy self -image.

Three, discover the power of your thoughts and words. Four, let go of the past. Five, find strength through adversity.

Six, live to give. And seven, choose to be happy. The book is very much centered on you.

But the teaching we're about to delve into today from Luke 17 only makes sense to someone who is looking at life through a

God -centered lens rather than a man -centered lens. The teachings and the things that Jesus says are things like kill your sin, rebuke sin in others, forgive others, deflect all of the glory away from yourself, depend on God for grace, offer

God praise, give thanks to God. God, God, God is the teaching of the

Son of God. He directs our attention not to ourselves, not to our potential, not to being happy, not to our thoughts and our words and our vision, but rather constantly and repeatedly to God.

The teaching of Jesus is thoroughly God -centered. If we were to take the hours that we have in a week, 168 of them, and lay them out on a table and dissect our week, would this be the only hour that you think about God?

Now, I know some of you are saying, please don't preach for an hour, but if it's the only hour that you have in the course of 168 in a week, that's far too short, not too long.

A God -centered life thinks about God all day long. He's at the center of our thought, of our prayer.

When something comes up, we immediately direct that thought to God and pray about it. It's not just a

Sunday morning, one hour a week life. A God -centered life is

God is at the center and our lives are orbiting around Him. That is the definition of a

God -centered life. So how do we get to that place? We're not born there, are we?

A baby comes into the world, and a baby's interest is himself or herself.

Crying for food, crying for attention, wanting to be picked up, wanting a change of diaper. The child, it's natural, is interested in himself, and I think it takes a while for any thoughts of God to really develop in that child, and those thoughts come as they're introduced from the outside.

A baby is not born with a God -centered worldview. But picture a dying man on his deathbed.

His thoughts, if he's walked with God for a lifetime, are entirely focused on God.

He may be just as dependent as a little baby, unable to do anything with his body any longer.

Nearing death may be days away, and yet his thoughts in those final hours of his life are

God, God, God, and he prays for his family that he's leaving behind, and he prays for others with little thought for himself.

That is a beautiful way to die. Each one of us will come to the end at some point, and when you're on that deathbed, looking back on the life that you spent, what do you want your life to mean?

Many people will die with sadness and anger and hatred in their hearts.

But the death of a saint can be very different, focused on God entirely.

How do we get to that place? The answer is this, I'll say it in a word, grace.

Grace changes everything. There was a missionary from England who was actually, prior to becoming a missionary, a member of the national team in cricket, which was a big sport there.

In America, we say big deal, right? Cricket, what's that? Well, it was a big deal back in his day. His name was C .T.

Studd. But he left behind the national cricket team.

His family was also very wealthy, and he gave all of his wealth to the poor. And he moved to the mission field, to Africa, to preach the gospel.

C .T. Studd said this, you can write this down, because this is something to live by. If Jesus Christ be

God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.

I'll repeat that. If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.

There's a God -centered man. There's a man who has been touched by grace, captured by something of the gospel, that if God has come in the flesh,

Jesus Christ be God, and if he has laid his life down on a cross to take away my sin, then what could

I possibly give to him to compare with that? Grace changes everything, because captured by this idea of a

God who comes and dies for us, no sacrifice could ever compare to what he's done for us.

When captured by a vision of God at the center, he's like a mountain in the world.

And as you climb that mountain, the top, the apex of that mountain is his grace, his giving love that gives us what we don't deserve.

It gives us love and acceptance and forgiveness and eternal life through the cross.

The cross is the pinnacle of that mountain, because it most clearly displays his grace, a

God of grace that accepts sinners like us. When you come to that mountain, your life begins to revolve there.

It changes everything. This is a God -centered worldview, one that is focused on God all the time.

It's the only way to make sense of this passage we have today. In Luke 17, let's go there. We're just covering 1 to 19 today.

Verses one to 19. The teaching of Jesus revolves around God.

A God -centered worldview will, first of all, kill sin.

The man who's living for himself has no interest in killing sin. In fact, you'll notice that man -centered theology in America today winks at sin.

Sin is not taken seriously. Grace is preached, and love is preached, but sin is laughed at and tolerated in the church.

It's not a concern for the believer who's centered on himself, because after all, sin at times can make you feel good, can make you happy.

It can help you accomplish your vision and your dreams. But if your world is revolving around yourself, sin is inevitable.

It's only when you get your eyes off of yourself and onto that mountain, onto Jesus Christ, that sin becomes an issue.

The people in this world who are closest to Jesus, the saints that we know,

I don't mean that in a hallowed sense of being honored and regarded and esteemed because they live some great life, but rather the saints, the believers that you know that are closest to God are the ones who are most aware of their sin.

You'd think this guy has progressed in the faith and he's so strong. He must have totally conquered sin, but talk to that man, and you'll find like the

Apostle Paul, he says, I am the chief of sinners. My heart is pitiful and poor and blind and naked.

I am a sinner in need of grace. And that mature

Christian is the one recognizing his sin who keeps coming back to the cross, keep coming back to confession and repentance.

But the man -centered man sees no need to repent, has no desire to kill sin.

He's comfortable in his sin. I'll tell you something, maybe you're feeling, look,

I'm not the Christian I need to be. Maybe I'm not even a Christian at all. Maybe you're struggling with your sin and it's causing you to doubt your salvation.

If you're sitting here trembling and worried about that, that is a good sign. You have concern about your sin.

You're not comfortable in the life that you're living. That is a good sign. The spirit bringing conviction is a sign that you're alive.

Let's look at Jesus's words, 17, verses one and following. And he said to his disciples, temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

Pay attention to yourselves. We'll stop there. Does Jesus wink at sin?

He couldn't speak any more strongly. He says, temptations to sin are sure to come.

In this life, as we're on this pilgrimage, this journey to that eternal city, temptations are sure to come day in and day out.

Temptations of greed like we talked about last week and pride, all manner of temptations are sure to come, but Jesus does not wink at sin here, does he?

Woe to the one through whom they come. The prescription for us in verse three is pay attention to yourselves.

Pay attention to yourselves. Be aware of these temptations. Be prayerful, be awake, knowing that the devil is on the prowl like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, be awake.

Remember the Lord's prayer. Luke 11, verse four, lead us not into temptation.

Ask the Lord for grace to overcome temptation, but before that happens, ask him, lead me not into temptation.

Keep me from that hour of tempting. They're sure to come, but pay attention to yourselves.

Be aware of where the temptations are coming from. Kill sin in your life, which leads us to the second point.

Kill the sin of those you love. Kill the sin of others.

As we sit here today, some are strong and mature in the faith. You've walked with God for years and years.

You are like a sequoia tree grown and huge, a redwood in California.

Others are newborn in Christ, and you feel young and small in your growth as a

Christian. But I want to tell you something about sequoia trees. They can grow to the size of two million pounds.

Huge trees. In fact, some of them that are growing today in California were planted in the time of David.

A thousand years before Christ, the seed fell into the soil, and they've been growing for 3 ,000 years and are still alive today.

Huge trees, and you'd say, what? A tree like that must have roots that go way down.

That it's never fallen through all the storms and all the years. Hundreds of feet into the ground, maybe a mile, to stand that big and that tall.

But did you know that the roots of a sequoia tree only go about 12 feet deep? How could a tree that big be held by roots so shallow?

The answer is that they go out far, miles at times, and they intertwine with the roots of other sequoias, so that the strength of those roots are found in how they are interwoven together.

And so they stand for 3 ,000 years. And so we stand as a church now for 2 ,000 years since our

Lord ascended to heaven. We are like sequoia trees, and our strength comes from our interconnectedness.

When you see a brother sinning, the easy thing to do is to look away and to say nothing about that sin.

But what does Proverbs 27, verse six tell us? It's in your notes.

Look at it later. The slap of a friend is better than the kiss of an enemy.

Judas gave Jesus a kiss on the cheek to turn him over. Pretending to be a friend.

But the slap of a friend is better than the kiss from an enemy. Here's a true friend, someone who will obey our text today.

Look at chapter 17, verse three. Not only does it say pay attention to yourself, that means kill your own sin.

If your brother sins, rebuke him. Rebuke the sin of your brother or sister.

Call him out. Don't do it publicly. Don't do it in front of others to humiliate him.

Don't do it to humiliate him or her at all, but go one -on -one and talk in private.

As a true friend, deliver this slap. Call him out on that sin.

Point to the scriptures as the reason why it's wrong. And to God as the one with whom you have to do.

Rebuke sin in a friend. That is genuine love. To wink at sin and to ignore it is not love.

Beware of what causes others to stumble. We should dress modestly. We should speak in a way that edifies and doesn't cause other people to fall into sin.

If you have a friend who struggles with alcohol, alcoholism, you should not drink when you're anywhere near that person.

Our lives need to be about building others up, keeping one another from falling.

Notice the strength of what Jesus says about one Christian leading another into sin.

Look at verse two. This is heavy stuff. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

We often talk about that in terms of children, right? If someone attacks a child, everything inside of us rages against that to say, no, we will defend this child.

And if anyone causes this little one to stumble, we are ready to fight. But this isn't referring to children only.

This is referring to the little ones, the flock of God, his little sheep. It's referring to all of us in this room.

He says it's better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than that you be the cause of sin in others.

He's speaking metaphorically. He's speaking hyperbolically, I think. But it's a way to capture our attention, to focus us to say how important this really is.

How important is it to us as a church to kill sin? How do you kill sin?

When sin has a million foot soldiers. Every TV channel you turn on and every radio station, and as you look at billboards going down the road, there's sin everywhere, there's enticements, there's temptations, they're sure to come.

How do you kill sin when there's a million foot soldiers? Here's how you kill sin.

When there's a million foot soldiers, you join an army and you make war. A church has to decide that we are standing for holiness, that holiness is our pursuit.

This is God's kingdom life. That we become a holy and purified people.

Is there a friend that you have, maybe sitting here today or not here today, that you need to go and obey

Matthew 18 and just go to that one believer and say, this area in your life is sin.

Repent, brother, repent, sister. If the church stops doing that, the church will very soon look exactly like the world.

And the world will notice that the church is just like them and the world will not come to us for an answer to the sin that's killing them.

Because we'll be just like them. We have to be a purified people if we are going to be a powerful people that makes a difference in this world.

The third thing Jesus brings up is forgiveness. Forgiving others.

If he repents, verse three, forgive him. And now he speaks in a way that would be very surprising, verse four.

And if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times saying,

I repent, you must forgive him. Recall the story from Matthew chapter 18.

It's verses 21 to 35. Somebody asked Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother?

Seven times? What does Jesus say? 70 times seven.

I can remember as a child thinking, I think I'm getting close to 490. I got worried about that.

I've actually done this sin like 490 times. I'm getting in trouble here. But Jesus wasn't speaking about the number 490, rather the hugeness of his forgiveness.

And he goes on to tell the next part of that parable. You recall, there's a man who owed a great debt, a huge debt, would have been years worth of wages.

And he's about to get thrown into the debtor's prison because he can't pay the debt.

And so the person that he owed the money to, he goes to him and he pleads for mercy. And the guy who he was indebted to says,

I forgive your debt, now go free. But as that guy was leaving, he sees somebody that owes him money, just mere pennies compared to what he owed.

And he talks to the guy who owed him just a little bit of money and demands his money then and threatens to throw him in prison and has him thrown in prison because he can't repay that debt.

Jesus says, what do you think will happen when the original owner who had forgiven him so much finds out?

He says, he'll call him in and he'll hold him account for every last cent he owes. How much more should we forgive our brothers from the heart?

Church, we have got to be a forgiving people. We will sin, temptations are sure to come.

We will step on one another's toes. But we have a God who took all of our sin, every last sin we've ever committed, plus the inherited sin, the imputed sin from Adam, our very nature being sinful.

He covered it all on the cross, nailed it to the cross, covered it by his blood and said, you are free.

How then can we not forgive our brother? That's what Jesus is saying time and again, even if they mess up again and again and again.

Forgive, forgive, forgive. That's a God -centered worldview. Why do you forgive?

I mean, if I forgive this guy again, I think he's gonna do it again. You forgive because of God who forgave you, not because of him.

Your entire life is centered on God. You're killing your sin, you're rebuking sin, and you're forgiving others because of God.

That's what makes sense of Jesus' teaching. Now, continue on. Verse five, I love the apostles' reaction.

Look at this. The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith. Increase our faith.

Why would they say that? Because they're hearing the radical teaching about forgiveness, and they're looking at themselves and they're saying, that's not me.

Increase my faith. Increase my faith. And Jesus' answer is classic, too.

And the Lord said, if you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.

Reminds me of when Jesus would look at them and he'd say, ye of little faith. Ye of little faith.

When they say, increase our faith, you would expect the loving Jesus to say, oh, no, no, you're okay. You have great faith.

Look how strong your faith is. You're good. But rather, he doesn't do that.

He says, if your faith was even as small as a mustard seed, you could be moving these mountains right now, which they're not doing.

He strengthens their prayer. What is their prayer? Increase our faith.

This is the right thing to pray, and this is the fourth point. Depend on God's grace for everything, even your faith.

You recognize that your faith is weak, not strong enough to do what the Bible says.

That's why you need to be daily on your knees pleading with God to give you more grace.

I can't just muster up enough faith to kill my sin or to go to my brother or to forgive this person in my life.

I can't do it. It's just not inside of me, and no matter what I do, I can't gin it up. I just don't have enough faith.

Sometimes I even doubt whether this whole Jesus thing is real. You say, is it true?

This is the natural state of your heart. It's not born with faith. You're born in Adam's sin, not aware of God, dead to God.

So grace brings you alive, and we need to come back to God for more grace, even your faith comes by grace.

You notice that? Verse five, this is a good prayer. The apostle said to the Lord, increase our faith.

We need grace to birth faith in us. In a sense, faith is a gift.

Timothy, and Paul says to Timothy that if perhaps God would grant repentance to us.

Paul says in Philippians 1, 29, he says it has been granted to you not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.

Faith is granted, just like suffering at times is granted in our lives.

Faith comes by grace. Grace underlies it all. We need to beg

God for more grace in our lives. Next, following in verse seven and following, deflect glory to the one upon whom you depend.

This is so important for a God -centered life, a Christian life.

Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table.

Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink.

And afterward, you will eat and drink. Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?

So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded say, we are unworthy servants.

We have only done what was our duty. Jesus speaks to the social norms of his day.

A master who owns a field was above his servant and the servant had a duty to perform.

The servant had to do what was commanded and the master would expect him to do what was said and the servant would understand,

I am but a servant, I'm only doing what I was commanded and expected to do. That's earthly.

That's the relationships that we see in the workplace today. Bosses aren't too quick to come and just rave about how well you finished that paperwork.

Rather, you have to get that done because he's the boss and you're the employee. How much more does that principle carry when

God is the one we're addressing? Verse 10, so you also, when you have done all that you were commanded say, we are unworthy servants.

We have only done what was our duty. You'll notice in sports that people, the people who perform greatly on the field or on the court, they're very quick to call attention to themselves.

When the crowd is going crazy, what do they do? They gin it up a little more. They invite it, yeah, okay, they jump up on a stand and delight in it.

How different for how we are to relate to God. And that's part of the show, that's part of the fun, that's part of getting your team hyped up.

But in our relationship with God, do we come to him that way? A God -centered life, no matter what you do for God, you should be like C .T.

Studd. What could I possibly give God? What sacrifice could

I make compared to what he has done for me? I'm just an unworthy servant.

When praise comes to you, do you say thank you, that's right?

Or do you say, praise God for his grace, because that's not me apart from grace.

Do you deflect praise from you to God? Or do you let it stick?

A God -centered life always deflects the glory back to God. Finally, verses 11 through 19.

Praise and thanksgiving. A God -centered life spends all day praising

God and thanking him specifically for his grace in our lives. It's God -centered because we're thinking of him.

168 hours a week. And yes, that includes sleep. You even dream of him. I was dreaming of him last night and I thanked him for that dream.

I wanted that dream. I had been asking him for a dream. I want it to be in waking and sleeping that God would be the center of my life.

So notice here, the opposite is true of nine lepers, but one leper got it.

Verse 11, on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying,

Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Now, pause there for a moment. You understand what leprosy was, the most dreaded disease in the ancient world.

And still today, in undeveloped parts of our world, there's about a million cases of leprosy. That Greek word lepis just means scaly.

So it refers to some kind of skin disease, but in this case, it's the severe skin disease that takes over a body.

It might begin as just a white spot on the flesh somewhere, but it can spread. And the nature of this disease is that it kills the feeling nerves in the body so that the reason that a person injures themselves is they don't feel, they don't feel heat when they're burning their hand on a stove.

So they'll begin to lose appendages at times. It takes over the body, it takes over the larynx, so their voice becomes very weak.

It takes over until a person dies. And in ancient cultures, there was one solution to leprosy.

It's to not let it spread to others. There's no cure for it, so the way they dealt with it was they sent that leper away to live in a leper colony.

That's why we see in the text here, they're calling at a distance. They're not allowed in the presence of the

Israelites. They're pressed out. It would be a devastating thing, a father raising his child and find this white spot on his face and go to the priest and be diagnosed as a leper and be sent away.

He can never see that girl again, never come close to her, never hug her. He's cut off, his life is gone.

He's just wasting away with other lepers. It's a devastating situation, and Jesus sees these 10 lepers calling out from a distance.

Verse 13, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. Verse 14, when he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priests.

And as they went, they were cleansed. We recall he cleansed the leper back in Luke chapter five, remember?

And he said, don't tell anybody about this. Why? Because even with him remaining silent about that healing, so many people were flocking to Jesus that he was overwhelmed.

They were trying to make him Messiah, make him king. He was Messiah. They wanted him to come and reign and rule, and he had to slow down their enthusiasm and get away from them at times so that he could complete his mission.

But in Luke chapter nine, verse 51, remember what happened? Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, and so now he's on a mission to Jerusalem, and so he doesn't tell these lepers to be silent.

Now they can make it known. Everything is coming to a head in Jerusalem. In verse 14, when he saw them, he said, go and show yourselves to the priests.

They're gonna see this miracle. As they went, they were cleansed, all 10 of them.

Verse 15, then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising

God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.

Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, were not 10 cleansed?

Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

And he said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. The word there is actually saved.

It has saved you. Of the 10 that were physically healed, one was saved. Here's the lesson.

A God -centered life praises God, praises

God all day long, tunes your radio to Christian worship songs as you're going down the street, praising

God. Wakes up in the morning with a song in your heart of praise to God.

Falls asleep praising God. Sings the praises of the living God. Go read the book of Psalms.

It's actually many short chapters. I point you to Psalm 147.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. But with that praise, and part of that praise is thanks.

Notice, this is the final point, notice giving thanks in verse 16.

He fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. And this note next to that thanks, now he was a

Samaritan. A Samaritan. A half -Jew, a half -Gentile.

Living outside of Israel, and not accepted as a true Israelite. Far off from the promises of God, he worships on Mount Gerizim, while the

Jews worship on Zion. He's far away, but here he gives thanks, because God has brought him near.

Follow me for a second. Each one of us was born far off.

A Samaritan in that sense. But according to Ephesians chapter two, verse 13, that which was far off has been brought near by the blood of his cross.

A God -centered life gets this. That I was born an outcast, like a leper in a colony.

I had nothing but death. I was wasting away. I had no righteousness, no true religion, nothing to get me to God.

I deserved to be cast away, and to never come near.

And yet Jesus went and put blood on the cross, not only to save the Jews, but to save me, a

Gentile who was so far off. He brought me near by the blood of his cross.

Sometimes it's hard to praise God, especially if you're man -centered and you're always thinking of your circumstances and how your life is going.

We're all guilty of drying up in our praise. But see, the thanksgiving that we have in our hearts, when we think about Jesus Christ and his blood and his cross will always bring us back to a place of praise.

We who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ. The gospel proclaims that he has welcomed us, 1

Peter 3, 18, he brings us to God. We who were far off brought near by the blood of his cross.

So in conclusion, we are called to a God -centered life. Go back through this text today.

Go back into Luke 17 before you go to sleep tonight. And just read the imperatives of the text.

An imperative is a command. Jesus says, this, do this. Here's how you take something practical away from the sermon today.

You read the imperatives of the text that we're given. I won't give you a prescription to go home and do this, that, and the other.

Go back and read the text, it tells us right there. Pay attention to yourself.

That's killing sin, noticing where you're falling into temptation, asking God, lead me not into temptation.

Rebuking the sin of others because we're interconnected. We stand or fall together.

We grow as a healthy and godly church or else we stand as some other thing.

It's not the church at all. Rebuke sin, we're told. Forgive as you were forgiven.

Say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. And just like those lepers, rise and go your way.

We come back and gather in 167 hours now. We'll be back here to hear the word again.

But what will you do in that time? As you go, will you be praising, will you be thanking him all week long?

I hope so, that's what I want for myself. Now, close with Joel Osteen in his book.

On page 22, he tells about a frog. And the frog had always lived in a pond.

No, I'm sorry, in a well. One day he noticed the light at the top of the well so he found a way to get out.

And then he looked beyond and he saw a pond. And wow, how much greater was that than the well he always lived in?

And he looked beyond the well and he saw a lake. Wow, how much greater was this lake than anything he had ever experienced before?

And he looked beyond and saw an ocean. How beautiful and amazing was this ocean?

And he went off to expand his vision and live in an ocean. I thought to myself, frogs can't go in salt water, can they?

And I Googled it on a, read a science website. It says frogs generally cannot handle living in salt water environments.

The salinity in frogs' blood and cells isn't as densely packed as it is in salt water. If a frog lived in salt water, the water would quickly spread over them.

This in turn would bring upon their dehydration, mark that. The danger of dehydration would also combine with another serious problem, salt distributing all throughout the frog's insides to a poisonous degree.

Because of these factors, salt water is a big no -no for the vast majority of frogs in existence.

But that spoke to me because I was reminded, we weren't made to be in the center.

And if we start to live that way, where we're the center of our own orbit, we're gonna dehydrate really quickly.

It's gonna sap the life out of us because you'll never exist there. You weren't made to be there.

A God -centered life puts God at the center of everything, your whole life, and then, and then your joy comes.

Not as you pursue joy as the end, the happiness of your life, but rather, when

God is most glorified in your life, you're most satisfied in Him. Got that one from John Piper, and he's right.

Our joy is tied to His glory. When He's at the center, that's when we're not getting dehydrated.

That's when life is invigorating. That's when we're praising from the heart and thanks is flowing from our heart.

God needs to be on the center of the throne of our lives. Amen? Amen, let's pray.

We're calling the worship team. Jesus, we thank You for who You are. King of kings,

Lord of lords, You are the center of our lives, and we ask,

Lord, that You would remain in the center all week long. Let us be a people that kills our sin, that forgives one another, that deflects all the praise and glory that comes to us, to You, that depends on grace even for more faith when we lack the faith, that offers

You thanks for the cross, for Your blood, and praises Your name all day long and all night long.

Jesus, You are King of kings, and this morning we remember that You are the center.