Let's start with a quote. This is by a guy named Robert Capon. He was a episcopalian paleon priest. Who passed away in 2013. And I'm reading a few of his books. One of them is called the mystery of Christ and why we don't get it. And in that book, he has this quote. Which says Christianity. Is the proclamation of the end of religion. Not have a new religion. Or even the best of all religions and therefore if the cross. Is a sign of anything. It's the sign that God has gone out of their religion business and solved all of the world's problems without requiring a single human being to do a single religious thing. And that that's where he dropped the mic. Boom. I love that. I love that quote. I think it's amazing. I just, to me, that sums up what the good news is. You don't have to work for it. You don't have to earn it, but that brings us to the question. What do you do then if you want to follow Jesus. What do you do? If you don't have to do all this church stuff, this religious stuff, if there's no heavy burden on you to perform, if you don't have to impress God. There's nothing for you to earn. What do you do day to day? I'd want my daughters asked me this past week. We went out to. To dinner. And she said, dad, I love, I love the grace. I love the mercy. I love the story, the rescue story of Jesus. But what do you do day to day? Like how do you follow Jesus, especially when you compare it to. Well, you compare it to religion and church and you see people. Sort of striving and working, struggling. And he kind of look at yourself and say like, God did it also, what do I do? So that's what I want to share today. I just want to talk a little bit about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And the church they call this. You know, the fancy word they use is called discipleship. Now that, you know, Jesus, you need to be discipled and discipled really just means a follower. That's what Jesus, his disciples were. If you look in scripture, He had 12 disciples, 12 super close friends that went where he went, did what he did and learned from him. Watched him. Made a ton of mistakes, right? You see that all over the place. Which gives us all hope. Uh, but really discipleship is just following Jesus and paying attention. So what does that look like? If we don't have to perform well, let's look at first at religion, I was thinking about church and religion and the way I grew up. I've shared this over the last couple of weeks, but some of the things you have to do to follow Jesus when you were a Christian. You know, things that kind of. Mark up your grades, so to speak is there's a whole list of things you can choose from any or all the more, the better usually. So things like Sunday school. Which if you don't know what that is, that means you go to church before church. You don't just go on Sunday. For church for the gathering for worship, for the teaching. There's actually church before church. It's called Sunday school. And it's like, where you dig in and you go deep, I think is the idea. So there's that. There's usually a midweek service or two. There's always something you can volunteer. There's something you can set up something you can tear down something you can clean up. There's a million small groups, which you definitely. Should be in a lots of should you'll notice in religion. There's a lot of books that you should be reading. And the pastor probably has a book. So you probably want to make sure you read that that's going to score pretty well for you. Oh, and don't forget, Bible study. So Sunday school. Yeah. That's, that's what we do before church on Sunday, but there's also Bible studies. That you can really go in and study the nitty gritty. Go back to the ancient Greek, go back to the, the heart of theology and dig. Dig, dig, dig deeper, deeper, deeper. And then of course, if you're a grown up, there's always a men's group or a women's group. If you're a teenager, there's a teenagers group. There's a youth group. There's a retreat to go on. There's a missions trip to go on. There's several worship nights. You can attend. You can go and just listen to music. You can, you can worship and praise. There's a whole list. You see, basically none of these things are bad in and of themselves. Some of these are edifying and good. Some of these things I still do. And I still love, and I still get a lot of value and goodness out of it. But I'm saying when we do them, for the reason that we think we have to do them, that's where they're all empty. So that's religion. That list I could go on. I could go on, we could make the next 10 minutes about things you could do for church and religion. Now that you're a follower of Jesus. But. Let's shift gears. Let's just see what Jesus said. I shared this scripture last week. I'm going to share it again. It's been on my mind in my heart. Because I think there's so much to it. So much to it that allows us to see the difference between what church slash religion offers. And what Jesus offers. So it's Matthew 28 has Jesus speaking. And this is what he says. Are you tired? Are you worn out or you burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. I walk with me and work with me and watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy. Or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely. And lightly. That verse just makes me smile. That Jesus speaks like that because it's like the antidote to all the empty laws, rules, religion, right? I mean, If you go to a lot of churches, you wouldn't even believe that Jesus. As quoted in scripture is saying, are you burned out on religion? Wow. You mean? Jesus said that. Yeah. He says common to me and get away from all that with me and you'll recover your life. I love that. Walk with me, work with me, watch how I do it. And then I love this line. Learn that what the unforced unforced rhythms of grace. I won't like anything heavy or ill fitting. Right. If it doesn't fit, it's not for you. God will show you what you're designed to do, how to work and live. And thrive in his kingdom in a way that is not heavy or ill fitting. Instead, what does he say? Keep company with me, stick around me. Watch me be with me. Listen to me, pay attention to me and you'll learn to live freely. And lightly. So. Religion offers the list, right? Once you're a follower of Jesus, discipleship looks like Sunday school midweek service, small group youth group books, Bible study, mission trip, worship night women's group men's group. On and on and on and on Jesus says no, just, just get away with me and live freely and live lightly. As someone who's done both. I'm telling you option two. There's a lot better. All right. So if you're on the fence and you just want to dabble your toe, maybe you should try option two because there's a lot of life there I'm telling you that. So. Two things. I noticed one religion has us doing a lot of work. There's a lot of stuff to do. And Jesus has us resting. And living freely. And lightly. It's interesting. I love the show, Ted lasso. If you ever saw season one, there's this awesome scene where he's in a bar and he's kind of up against the villain, a guy named Rupert and they're playing darts and it's like this sort of pivotal moment and the drama and the tension is amped up. And, uh, Ted lasso says this quote. He says, be curious, not judgmental. And there's a lot of ways you can take that and go with that. And I love that quote, I think. I think that's what Jesus does. I think that's what followers of Jesus are called to do. But I think. A lot of that is what following Jesus looks like. Being curious, not judgment. One, not judgmental means just stay in your lane. Bro stay in your lane, right? Jesus says this scripture about, Hey, you're, you're worried about the sawdust, the little Fleck of sawdust. And some dudes, I, and he said you got a log sticking out of your eye. What does that mean? How do you translate that? It means stay in your lane, bro. Focus on you. We all got our own work to do. We all got our own growth to do. So that's a non-judgemental part stay. You don't need to be judging ranking. No, you're not. It's not your job. Straight up. It's not your job. So just chill. And then the other part is what we're going to talk about is being curious. Being curious and there's so much. Valued as so much of life on the other end of being curious. So if there's one Greek word you ought to know, we're going to talk about it today. It's this word called Kairos. And what I want to talk about is what does it look like to follow Jesus without all the church and all the religion? To me, what I've discovered is this beautiful. This beautiful sort of rhythm. Of trying to follow Jesus and it's called Kairos moments. And so Kairos is an ancient Greek word. For time. And the Greeks had two words for time. One is Kronos. The other is Cairo. So Kronos is like, It's like literal time, the ticking them moments, like the clock, right. It's just like chronological order things happen in order. It's like the ticking of the every day. It's 11:00 AM. Now it's 3:00 PM. Now it's midnight. That's Kronos time. It's just time. It's tick tock, tick tock chiros. On the other hand is, is this understanding this. Sort of. Sort of deeper sense of time. It's sort of this moment. Within a moment. It's this moment that stands out as to marks us that gets our attention. It's just a rich moment. That's filled with possibility. And maybe clarity, maybe questions, moments that define us. Moments that change us. It's like a crossroads it's this moment has left an impact is something that's got our attention. I like to think of it as like a moment with an a moment. We've all had them. If you think back, I guarantee you might not have labeled them as a Kairos moment and you don't have to, you can call them whatever you want, but you've had these moments within a moment where something deeper, bigger, better. Scarier something. Somehow has got our attention beyond just what's happening beyond just the tick tock of the clock. There's these moments where in our spirit or our heart or our mind we feel or think, or wonder or question. Or sense? That's. A Kairos moment. And to me, there's this pattern that I've discovered. Over the last, you know, 20 years, maybe, maybe really the last 15 years of just reading a lot of books. Uh, listening to a lot of teachers. Uh, of this really simple way to kind of lean into, to following Jesus without all the church and religion, but just following Jesus as a disciple or a follower, what does that look like? So there's two questions. To kind of lean into these Kairos moments. And this is what I do when I have that moment. When you sense that. You start to pay attention, right? You start to pay attention more. So that's step number one is pay. More attention. Pay attention. Jesus even says in that scripture, watch how I do it. Watch me. Learn from me. He says, so when number one is paying attention. So when you have that moment, that moment within a moment, your attention is caught. What do you hear? God's saying to you? That's the question. Number one, it's just two questions. This whole thing is just two questions. Number one. God, what are you saying to me? You got my attention. What are you saying? Number two. How do you want me to respond? Okay, you got my attention now. I hear what you're saying. At least I think I do. How would you want me to respond Jesus in this moment now that I know this, now that you got my attention, now that you surface this thing within me, maybe it's for me, maybe it's for somebody else. How would you want me to respond? So some examples look like maybe sometimes you hear of a need. Right. Someone somehow, somewhere in your circle and your outer circle needs help. How do you respond to that? It's got your attention. How do you respond? Maybe it's scripture, right? It happens to me a lot. Maybe it's something I read in a book like that quote I shared at the beginning. I just caught my attention. It sticks with you sort of like something you don't let go of. It's. Not just a passing moment. It's a moment within a moment. And so you ask you pay attention, you grab it and you say, God, what do you want me to do about this? How do you want me to respond? Sometimes as nature, it's a sunset, it's a forest, it's a mountain, it's a crashing waves of the ocean. And you just feel this deep sense of something bigger. God, what are you saying to me here? How do you want me to respond? Maybe it's a place that you're stuck, maybe a place, uh, you just keep coming back to, maybe it's a feeling you can't shake that just keeps returning. It's got your attention. So the followup question is always, how do you want me to respond? And sometimes that means go and help. Go and serve. Someone has a need. You can be a helper, be a helper. That's what followers of Jesus look like. Sometimes it's just encouragement. Hey, you're, you're worried about this thing that keeps popping up. Remember, I'm a good father. I'm a good father. How do you want me to respond to that? God rest, rest in the peace, knowing that I'm taking good care of you. I'm looking out for you. So there's two sort of it's this pattern over and over, and it can happen for me. It happens, I would say a few times a week when I pay attention. It's not every day. It's not, you know, 10 times a day. And it could be different for you. I'm not prescribing, I'm just sharing. But to me, it's a. If I'm paying attention, I'm leaning in trying to. To pay attention to these moments to kind of be aware of them and then stop and pause and say, God, okay. I think you're saying something here. What is it? Give me some clarity in two. You got my intention. How should I respond to this? And it's really easy. It's not like, how do I want to respond? You, you put it up to the lens of Jesus. And you said, Jesus, how would you respond? How would you want me to respond? Knowing what I know. There's a story about a guy named Francis Schaffer. And he took his students. Up to the mountains and the French Alps. And he takes them up to this Ridge. And as he overlooks the Ridge, the snow was falling up in the mountains. And to the left. Is the Rhone river. Which is the dirtiest river. And it flows one of the dirtiest rivers in really in the world. And to the right of the Ridge as a snow melt, it flows into the Rhine river. And that's one of the cleanest rivers and it flows all the way to the beautiful Mediterranean sea. And as the snow falls, it lands on either one side of, of those ridges and it flows into one of those rivers and Kairos moments are like the snowflakes and we're sort of like that Ridge and that story. If you think about that illustration, we have a choice. It can flow just to the nasty river and it's gone and it means nothing or can flow to this beautiful Mediterranean sea. It can become good or it can become empty. It can become. Valuable. If you could become growth. And life, or it can just pass us by if we don't pay attention. If we choose to ignore. Or we choose to respond. That's sort of our choice. These moments are going to come, whatever. And I think what you'll discover, if this is interesting to you and you lean into it. It's not hard. You don't have to make a technical, you just pay attention. You literally just pay attention. Just pay attention to in your normal, day-to-day going about your life pay attention. And these moments I promise you will come, especially if you're asking and seeking, leaning in. You will have these moments. And then you have a choice. Do I ignore this moment? Or do I lean into this moment? Do I ask God how I should respond? And then do I respond? To me. That's. That's discipleship. That's what it looks like. To follow Jesus. So much of God's work in our life is learning. To pay attention, just literally being present. God, you're big. You're amazing. And you're doing work every single day. Jesus says the kingdom is here. The kingdom of God is now. It's not some day it's here. Any invites us to participate in it with him. One thing also notice. I at least I do. Right. One thing I noticed about the list of religious stuff we can do as a disciple. Right. As we grow closer to Jesus, it's all stuff that we do either, either for the church or for like ourselves. It's very insular. We're trying to grow ourselves. We're trying to grow the church. We're trying to expand all of these things and really, I think. I think the opposite way is, is that we we're outward focused. It's not about us. My mom used to say that all the time. Hey, this ain't about you. She would say that about a lot of things. It's not about you right now, right? Like, don't make this about you. I think that's what we do a lot. We, we grab this thing called the kingdom of beautiful kingdom, dream of Jesus, where everything's restored and good. And instead of participating in, instead of, instead of joining in. We make it about us. Right. And then it becomes a sort of very cryptic. Closed insular kingdom about building the church kingdom. Or the pastor's kingdom. Or our own spiritual deepness. I don't know. Maybe that's interesting to you. I've been there. I've done it. I'm done. Right. So what do we do now for those of us who are done, what do we do now? Or are we just done? We just, man, God's great. It's all done. The cross took care of it. Jesus says it is finished. Now we just hang out. Know to me, this is what I found that that brings life. That brings. Growth to me as I follow Jesus. Right. God is always at work and events and people, relationships, circumstances. You can find these moments all over the map. Of your life. Celebrations pressure points, things that stress you out. Breakthroughs, triumphs, deep, sad moments, moments that catch your attention and wake you up. Right? The stretching, the pain. All of these things, all of these things are happening and God speaking, God's showing he's teaching us. Right. Like that scripture says that. Forced rhythms of grace. And the thing is they're unforced. That's why we have to pay attention. The church forces, religion forces. You have to do these Jesus doesn't force. They're unforced, literally his exact words. I will not force this upon you. So they're easy to miss. If we don't pay attention and we don't lean in these Kairos moments where God's getting our, trying to get our attention is showing us what he cares about. Can be really easy to miss, but they're there. And if you lean in. I think you'll start to see him. One of the things I do is sometimes. Sometimes when I feel like I'm not sensing them or I'm not seeing them, I just pray, God, Jesus, please help me. Help me to learn, to pay attention, help me to see what you're doing. Cause it's happening. If, if it's, if it's, if I'm not seeing it, it's because I'm not paying attention. It's not because those moments are happening. There's these opportunities, these kingdom moments, I call them all over the place. Right. These teachable moments where God invites us to care about the things he cares about. So what I try to do my journey as a follower of Jesus has learned to respond. How does Jesus want me to respond to this? And usually if you just measure it against the things Jesus cares about it, it just looks like love. Simple just looks like love. So what does love look like? I need to ask for forgiveness. I need to say, I'm sorry. I need to go encourage that person. I need to drop off a Starbucks and say, Hey, you're doing all right. And I'm thinking about you. I need to go help. I need to go rake leaves or build a barn. I need to deliver some food. I need to stop doing this to my kids. I need to start doing this for my wife. I needed whatever. Just whatever love looks like, whatever Jesus cares about that that's called love. What does it look like? How do you respond in love? Right. So pay attention. Ask God, how you should respond. That's a life of Jesus follower. Don't complicate it. Don't overdo it and remember, remember, remember, Unforced rhythms of grace do not force this upon yourself and it shouldn't be ill fitting. It shouldn't be heavy. Shouldn't be this giant burden. That's religion. Religions done. Jesus took care of religion. Remember, it's not a new religion, not a better religion. Christianity is not supposed to be a religion. It's Jesus. Right? It's Jesus's kingdom and it's breaking in and it's happening everywhere all the time. And we're invited as his followers to step in, to join in. To be a participant to care about the things. He cares about. So if you're in sort of that zone where maybe religion doesn't have the appeal that at once did. But you're curious about spiritual spiritual stuff. And you're curious about Jesus. And when you hear about Jesus, it sounds good. And you want to know how do I follow? How do I learn more? This is it, this is, this is my prescription for you. This is what I would tell my daughters lean in. Pay attention. And ask God, how do I respond to this?