when Jesus comes on the scene he's less concerned with playing the game right
and more concerned with playing the right game and some of us are playing
the wrong game and we spend a lot of our lives trying to figure out how to play
the game right but the question becomes this is the game changer not are you
playing the game right but are you playing the right game and sometimes it
takes us half our lives to realize I've learned to play the game right but I
wasn't playing the right game would it be tragic to spend your whole life to
get good at a game that you weren't even supposed to play to win the approval of
people who don't sit on the throne anyway to get really good at something
that isn't good for you and I see this more and more more more and more as it
becomes easier for us to get sucked into systems of comparison and analysis that
have nothing to do with real value we start we start getting good at winning
but winning it what winning it what and the game has changed it's changed so
much for young people you know like when I was growing up it was different in
terms of social media even the games that I played as a kid the video games I
played as a kid were much different than the games I see my kids playing today it
was an entirely different level of of nobility involved in when the games I
used to play we were doing real things important things like when I was when I
grew up playing games we were we were saving princesses we
were training to win heavyweight titles order to do that we had to we had to
face opponents select Sona pop in ski King Hippo don flamenco and ii don
flamenco and piston honda and the second ball bull real stuff you know things
that the transpose into actual life skill but the other day i was watching
my kids play game on their phone and all they were doing and it was very it was
very fascinating to me i just watched them for like five minutes all they were
doing was tapping the screen and i watched for a little while before I
realized there's absolutely no strategy to what they're doing right now I didn't
know the game that they're playing cuz I don't play games on my phone I read my
Bible because I'm pastoring well I walked over set and I said what
is that game what are you doing and they said it was called cookie clicker
they said it's old dad it's an old game not as old as your games but it's an old
game for us I said cookie clicker let me see it how do you play
they said you click the cookie I said alright and then what like up up
down down left right left right B a start is that the they said no you just
click you just click the cookie see these kids don't have to think like we
had the thing they said you click the cookie I said alright and then what they
said then you get more cookies when you click the cookie you get more
cookies I said and then after you get more cookies what what do you do after
you get more cookies they said well the more cookies you get the more the more
cookies you can get each time you click
that's what y'all been doing over here for the last 30 minutes
no Princess Zelda no Princess Toadstool
just click it cookies to get more cookies to get more cookies to get more
cookies to get more cookies I said let me try that it was addictive I loved it
and millions of cookies that could mean any of them but I had fun clicking let
me ask you a question have you been clicking on stuff playing a game without
asking the question what is the goal of this game have you ever argued with
somebody and then you realize that even if I win the argument even if I win your
approval even if I win your friendship it's not worth winning if I have to win
it even if I make you like me
and that's what he was doing he was tell him quick clicking Jesus was saying this
she was saying quick clicking tell somebody quick clicking quick click in
and ask a different question it's not am i playing the game right you know cuz
you can get that right and succeed materially relationally you could get
status you could get power you can get position you can even be a really good
preacher but if you don't do it for the right reason
you can get all the cookies that you want but you can't dunk any of them in
milk if it's not real am i preaching okay everybody over 50 that ever clicked
on worthless stuff and found out it wasn't worth clicking on make some noise
god the church is old did you hear that that was a roar twelve and a half years
ago had asked that it wouldn't have been oh that made me feel weird but but it's
good it's multi-generational amen there's some wisdom that you get Jesus
gives it on multiple levels and six times he does this thing in the Sermon
on the Mount I wish had time to show you all of it he sets up a construct like
this you have heard it said but I say to you you've heard it said and then he
would quote from the rabbinic tradition that they had been handed through the
law of Moses but I say to you then he would correct the values because he was
speaking to people who had perfected the appearance of religion but he understood
that if the behavior is right but the belief that is beneath the behavior is
not right if your values are shallow your
victories will be empty and why didn't you write that down I worked all week on
that Destin I know you've got your pins out I have faith in you if your values
are shallow your victories will be empty so I'm winning it what I'm winning it
what and Jesus went up on a mountainside and he sat down but then he began to
teach them he's digging beneath the behaviors to
identify the beliefs like one of them that he said he said you've heard it
said don't murder but I'm telling you if you're angry even if you don't murder
you will suffer the consequences of that anger and eventually will either lead
you toward taking action on it or it will deteriorate your spiritual
condition to the point that you might as well have gone ahead and done it because
you're living in a prison of hatred and whether or not you act it out doesn't
matter because beneath the behavior is a belief that led to the behavior this is
what we mean when we say Jesus was the game changer because he didn't just play
the game that's why they killed him he touched lepers that they wouldn't touch
he spoke with women who they devalued he he challenged their their social values
by associating with people who and religiously had nothing in common with
the Jewish people and that's what they hated about him that he didn't endorse
their values to run his campaign he challenged their values
he got beneath their actions and challenged their values matter of fact
he did it not only in terms of hatred and murder and adultery but he did it in
terms of other areas like one thing he said was you've heard it said love your
neighbor but that's that's easy I say love your enemy
see that changes the game grace changes the game I said the grace of God is a
game changer when the grace of God really becomes operative in your life
what Jesus is saying when he says love your enemy is you can't insist on God
relating to you one way and then you turn around and relate to people another
way so if you want God to be gracious to you that grace has to flow not only to
you but through you and if it's not flowing through you it didn't really
flow to you if you don't give it you don't got it I'm sorry for my
grandmother my theology is spot on it's a game changer
and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten father of the Father
full of grace and truth so when grace shows up it changes the
game and the Bible actually says that when Jesus finished teaching all these
things the people were amazed at his teaching not because he was so funny not
because he was so succinct not because of the human wisdom but he taught as one
who had Authority and not as one of their teachers of the law well what was
it that his teacher the teachers of the law were teaching that had no authority
they were teaching on the basis of appearance and that's what he's
correcting in Matthew chapter 6 it's not a giving scripture it's a scripture
about intention so when you give he assumes that you're going to give not if
when he's making the assumption that your actions will align with your values
and I've learned that the greatest way for me to know whether I'm winning in my
life is not to ask people you know or not to consult certain external
scoreboards that can tell me how I'm doing because my bank account is a bad
indication of whether I'm winning or the car I Drive or any of that but when my
actions match my values I'm winning and it's cool when you can get to that place
not that I live there all the time but when I'm there I know it and I can feel
it and when I'm living from that place I don't need others to notice because my
father is keeping score