Choosing God Over Sports

Mark 11:31-33 - The Result of Fear
* When you operate out of fear, you lose your ability to

.
* You are deaf and blind to God and you don’t even know it.
* You begin to think

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and no longer

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.
* Backstory - Jesus was questioned by the spiritual leaders (rabbis) of the day.
* Note - in Christ’s day there were two types of rabbis:
*

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Teachers - they taught Scripture, but had to use other rabbi’s interpretations.
* They had no authority to make their own interpretations.
* NOTE - The way a rabbi

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Scripture was called a “yoke.”
* Rabbis with

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- they had authority to make their own interpretation of Scripture and teach it to others.
* To become this type, two other rabbi’s with schmeha had to approve of them.
* So when Jesus came teaching on his own authority, they wanted to know which rabbi’s had approved.
* Vs 27-30 - Jesus answered their question by pointing to

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and

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as those who approved of His ministry (but they didn’t see it).
* Vs 31-32 - Fear moved them to operate STRATEGICALLY, not SPIRITUALLY.
* Their fear was:
* They didn’t want to

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Jesus.
* They didn’t want to

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the people.
* Vs 33 - on the basis of their fear, they refused to speak

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!
* The result?
* Jesus didn’t

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their question!
* He no longer gave them

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into that in which they inquired.
* And a spiritual leader without insight is a

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guide!
* Warren Wiersbe - “A crowd pleasure always asks the question, ‘is it safe?’ Rather than, ‘is it right?’ Or ‘is it true?’”
* Fear causes

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- like Esther.
* You no longer know what to do (discernment is gone).

Psalms 31:16 - The Power of Your Face
* Studies show

% of communication is non-verbal.
* Our faces

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- they send signals - and when they do they

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!
* Our faces are like

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- they illuminate whatever we look at.
* When we look “at” someone we can look “

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” them.
* Intimacy - to be fully known and fully accepted.
* Your face gives:
* 1)

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* 2)

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* 3)

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* Numbers 6:24 - “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you…”
* Vs 16 - David wants God’s attention at a time when everything seemed so dark.
* Vs 22 - Imagine going thru something difficult and your most intimate friend just looks away.
* We need two types of faces to look at us -

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and

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.
* Satan doesn’t want us connected to God or others, so he attacks. How?
*

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- cover-up mentality.
*

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- look-down mentality.
* Skip Moen - “The human face conveys hundreds of non-verbal signals in conversation, most of which we are able to read because we have grown up in the world of face-to-face interaction. But that is changing. The more we rely on artificial means for information transfer, the less we are comfortable with real human interaction. We retreat into worlds where emotional connection isn’t necessary. We project images and words as substitutes for involvement. And then we wonder why we feel so alone.”
* Gabor Mate’ - “(when your) real self is not seen, (what follows) is a sense of hopelessness from the chronic inability to be true to oneself on the deepest level. And hopelessness leads to helplessness, since nothing one can do is perceived as making any difference.”
* So take the mask off, or pick your head up and stop looking at that phone, and let your face shine upon someone!