We’re starting a brand new series this morning called Nuts and Bolts.
Nuts and Bolts is a phrase we use to describe the practical facts about a particular thing, rather than theories or ideas about it.

We try really hard to give you a healthy dose of theology but always mixed with practicum. Why? I can give you info, but if you don’t know how to use it, it is worthless. If I gave you a hammer, you could probably figure it out. But if I gave you an astrolabe, it would probably be just an odd paperweight.

A huge problem in the pulpit is great ideas but little to no actual steps to implementing those great ideas in your life.

The Bible is full of incredible mores, instruction, encouragement, promises, and more. It is a dorky way to say it, but it really is basic instructions before leaving earth.

The problem is that we can often complicate something that God designed to be easy to understand. I get it. There are some tough verses to decipher, but they are a handful compared to a truckload of simple truths that will change your life.

Like forgiveness.
Do you really need to understand it to do it? Do you really need a dissertation on why you should forgive? The Bible tells us to do unto others as we’d have them do to us. If you want someone to be quick to offering forgiveness, we have to be quick to give it.

Like giving.
Do you have to know how it works before you do it? It is interesting that this is the only thing God says you can test him on. Give God 3 months of faithful tithing (10%) and watch what he does.

If we simply did what the Bible teaches, we’d find it isn’t just a book of good ideas, but immutable truths and faithful promises.

2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

While there is an element of us simply doing what the Bible teaches without question, there is also an element of the Bible where we are not just doing what God said, but trying to understand. A huge part of working out your salvation is not just in doing what the Bible says, but doing what the Bible says as we are growing in our understanding of why.

The point is that you don't allow your lack of understanding to be what stops you from doing what the Bible says.

You should do what the Bible says as you are working to understand what the Bible is teaching. You might think this is a “you have to pass the bill before you understand what it says” kind of thing. Wrong. At the end of the day, your obedient action is better than your understood sacrifice. God is not asking you to blindly obey. He gave you this entire Bible to help you understand. But if your lack of understanding is what is keeping you from doing what God said, I’d invite you to do what God asked as you grow to understand, not refuse to do what God asked because you don’t understand.

So before we unpack today’s focus, let me first tell you two things about the Bible that are key in your ability to understand and embrace what it teaches.

First, the Bible is not a book about you. It is a book about Jesus.
Too often we read the Bible with us as the focus rather than Jesus as the focus. If understanding what God is saying to us is the goal, we will misinterpret the Bible as long as it is all about us. That doesn’t mean we can’t get something from the Word, or that Bible verses are never speaking to us. WAY OFF! But it does mean that if we are trying to understand separate from the person of Jesus Christ, we will miss it. The Bible is not about what God is doing for you. It is about what he is doing through you.
Second, the goal is to get closer to Jesus. That may seem evident, but often, we use the Word as a solution to our issue rather than an opportunity to get closer to Jesus. Just like prayer, the Word doesn’t benefit God, it benefits us. Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us, shapes us, adjusts our will to his. The Word does the same thing. The Word gives God space to adjust who we are and what we believe to become who he is and what he thinks.

You will find your problems get easier to manage the closer you get to Jesus. Fear, anxiety, lack, dysfunction, brokenness, issues like these are minimized and overcome the closer we are to Jesus.

The more we lean into his Word, embracing his guidance, the closer we get to him, the more we understand and the better our lives get. That simple.

So the point of this series is to 1. get you into action even if you don’t have full understanding yet, and 2. unpack these truths in such a way that you have a clearer understanding of not only what God wants you to do, but also why he’s asking you to do.

With all of this in mind, let’s tackle the first Nuts and Bolts focus, which is “Leaning in.”

Lean in is a phrase we hear a lot in church, but if you need a little help understanding what I mean, let me say it like this:
Have you ever heard someone speak and the topic was so interesting and so inspiring that you found yourself on the front edge of your seat leaning towards the speaker? Every Sunday? Oh you guys…

Have you ever been on a date night with your spouse and while watching that movie at the theatre, she kind of buries her shoulder into you a little, that little hint to put your arm around her? What is the result? Intimacy.

What about a football huddle as the play is being given? What about when someone puts a present in front of you? What about when you’re struggling and a friend kneels before you in your chair and opens their arms to embrace you?

Leaning in is what you do when you are trying to understand more clearly. Leaning in is what you do when you are wanting to know more. Leaning in is what you do when you are engaged in what is being said. Leaning in is what you do when you need to feel close, when you want to feel loved. Leaning in is what you do when you are listening for the plan.

Question:
When it comes to the things that go in in your life, do you lean into God?

Let me give you some biblical context for leaning in.

In John 11, we read the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. Jesus was very close to Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, and he loved them like family. So when we read verses 5-6, it is strange.

John 11:5-6
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

If Jesus loved them so, why did he wait? If this were you, what would be in your heart in that moment? Questions? Sure. Doubt? Maybe. Anger? Perhaps. But would you lean into Jesus, or lean away from him?

Plainly: are you still going to lean in even if Jesus doesn’t do what you want him to do?

We read on that :Lazarus died and was buried. What did Mary and Martha do?

John 11:20-21
20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Was Martha mad? Maybe. Hurt? Definitely. Bu look how she responded.
She went out to meet him. Sometimes things are not going to go like you planned and it will leave you questioning God’s actions. “If you had been here!” She KNEW Jesus delayed in coming, but her response was to go to Jesus. Her response was to lean in.

What about Mary?
She knew Jesus was there but look again in verse 20 “but Mary remained seated in the house.” She was hurting just like Martha, and maybe a little more angry, too, but look at her response. Where Martha went to meet Jesus, Mary stayed behind. Interesting that this was a complete switch from before when Mary did the right thing by leaning in while Martha leaned away from Jesus and into cleaning the dishes.

Both Mary and Martha were in deep sorrow and frustrated at the least that Jesus was not there to heal Lazarus, yet Martha came to meet Jesus while Mary stayed back.

One leaned into Jesus. One leaned away.

They both had the same complaint, “If you would have been here.” But what was the difference between the two? For that, we have to finish the story:

First, Martha: John 11:20-27
20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Now to Mary: John 11:28-29, 32-34
28 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”

Martha leans in and even though she's hurting, and even though she's frustrated, still, she chooses to come to Jesus, still, she chooses to engage. And what was the result? Jesus tells Martha “your brother will rise again.”
Her response is to get theological on Jesus because she didn’t even consider that Jesus could resurrect the dead. Amazing how when we are in a place where we don’t understand, our response is to complicate simple theology. But he gives her the nuts and bolts of that theology with “I am the resurrection and the life!”

The result is that Martha got to hear firsthand one of the seven "I am” declarations made by Jesus Christ. This is a statement that is as powerful as when Moses heard the words, "I am.”

The result is the hearing of words that created in her a renewed commitment to who Jesus was to Martha, not just a family friend, but the Messiah!

Mary leans away and even though she’s hurting, she didn’t hear the I am statement, she didn’t hear the words that would have created in her a renewed commitment to who Jesus was. Jesus asks Mary where Lazarus was laid and they go to the tomb.

Two women who were having the same hurts and same questions and same frustrations all of the sudden are experiencing something wildly different.

Mary was still sad, still broken, still frustrated, and still in the dark about what was about to happen. Martha, however, while still sad and still broken and still frustrated, she was also filled with hope. You see Jesus just told her who he was. Jesus just told her that Lazarus would be raised. Jesus had even given her a theology lesson real quick. Jesus turned her focus away from the problem and onto himself.

Mary was in the dark, but Martha knew something was about to change.
What was the difference?

Martha leaned in. Mary didn’t.

I want to talk to you who have had a rough go here lately. Those who are broken and hurting. Those who are frustrated and angry. Those who don’t understand why God is or isn’t doing this or that.

You may not understand. You may not know why. You may not be able to comprehend why Jesus tarries while those around you are dying. I understand how you are thinking and feeling completely. I have felt the same thing myself. But I only know one answer: LEAN IN, don’t lean away.

I know our natural reaction is to get away, to hide, to internalize, to stuff it down, but doing this keeps us sitting in the darkness on the sofa next to Mary.

God is big enough to take your questioning and your doubt, your hurt and brokenness. He isn’t afraid of your frustration or dismissive of your wondering why.

There is light in the leaning in, and if you will lean in when everything else in you wants to lean away, you will find that you might not get the answer you were looking for, but God has a plan, that God has a way, that God is revealing who he is to you.

Leaning in gets you focused on Jesus not the problem. Your problems always die in the lean in. They may not die in the way you wanted them to, but their impact does.

You need to lean in, especially when all you want to do is lean away.

So what do you need to lean into?

1. Lean into development.
Read the Bible. Get in a DGroup. Pray. Speak the Word. Go to church. Serve. Give. Be corrected. Memorize a Bible verse or two.

Development strengthens the muscles inside of you that keep you leaning in. As you lean into spiritual development, you’ll find that even though you might not understand everything going on around you, you’ll discover
a sense of purpose, resilience, inner peace, a deep understanding of who God is and who you are, belonging, enhanced well-being, and even your mental health will improve.

Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith

It is amazing that Jesus didn’t give Martha a pity party or pep talk.
Her leaning in got her focused on Jesus. Leaning in stripped away doubt and gave her not just a revelation, but a resurrection.

So what does it mean to lean into development?
- It means waking up at 30 minutes early so you can spend time reading the Bible and praying even though your body just wants to be in the bed.
- It means joining that D group, even though you feel inadequate doing a soap.
- it means submitting to accountability and embracing correction, not defending against it.
- it means stop making excuses for your behavior and actually change what you believe so your behavior can improve.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up and what's going on in our lives that we stop giving God space to do miraculous things. Even when I was reading the story of Lazarus this week, the thought that race through my mind was:
"There were four days between the time Lazarus died and the time he was resurrected. I would've been mad, frustrated, hurt, I would've had to fight, leaning away rather than leaning in. But I am sure of this: I would hate for four days of my griping and complaining to eliminate the space. God was using to work a miracle.”

A massive part about leaning into development is the act of denying your flesh.

Luke 9:23
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Galatians 5:24
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Do you know how hard this is?
Just ask Mary. She could not overcome her flesh in that moment. She could not lean in. I find it fascinating that down the road from this moment, Mary spends a bunch of money to buy an alabaster jar of precious anointing oil. She anoints Jesus feet. She weeps, and I've always wondered why she was so moved in that moment. Then it hit me.

She'd already lost her brother. She'd already prepared his body for burial.
She already knew the pain of that loss. She knew Jesus was going to the cross, that his body would be broken for us.

I was reminded of Peter and John 21 when he saw Jesus on the shore. He dove into the water, and it was as if his body language was saying, "I did not do you want, but I will never ever do that again."

Maybe that's why Mary was so broken in that moment. "I leaned away from you once. I'm never doing that again.

What happened between those moments was development.
Both Peter and Mary allowed the Holy Spirit to correct, adjust some things inside of them. We see the result of when you don't allow the Holy Spirit to do this: Judas.

So here are the nuts and bolts of leaning into development:
Do whatever needs to be done so that your flesh is crucified, whatever helps you take up your cross and follow him. You may need to start doing something. You may need to stop doing something. But the only way you were going to get better, is when you lean into development.

2. Lean Into People
Before I dive into this next point, let me first ask if anyone in here is Jesus Christ the Messiah. No? OK, then let's read Matthew 26:36-38
36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”

Even Jesus asked for help. For some of us, even the thought of that is crippling. The thought of asking other people to help us makes us lean away way so hard that most of us run away rather than just lean away.

So this morning, I'm not gonna give you Bible verses about not being alone, about two being better than one, and all of that. I'm just gonna ask you a question: Aren't you tired? Aren’t you tired of keeping it all in? Tired of having to manage it on your own? Tired pf hiding? Tired of being terrified at the thought of somebody finding out what you're struggling with? Tired of wondering what God really thinks about you?

In John 1128, Martha goes back in the house to tell Mary that Jesus was calling for her. Imagine for a moment there was no Martha. Imagine Mary was all alone, sitting on that sofa choosing to deal with it by herself rather than leaning into the Lord.

She would've missed the resurrection.

I'm glad that Mary had Martha, but I'm concerned that you don’t.

What are the nuts and bolts of leaning into people?
Time. You have to spend time with people to get to know them. It's going to be exponentially difficult to trust somebody that you spend no time with.
It makes leaning into people harder because, you have to hope they respond well rather than having the benefit of trust based on time spent.

Truth. When you do find that Martha, you have to tell them the truth. Easiest way to stop accountability is just to lie. But remember it is it the lie or the deception that sets us free. It is the truth that sets us free. If you were lying to others, it is proof that you were lying to yourself as well.

Testimony. You have to share your story. Share the good, share the bad. Share the ups, share the downs. Share when you are winning and share when you were getting clobbered.

Galatians 6:2
Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
We cannot help you bear a burden you are unwilling to share with us.

And remember, as you lean into people, people will lean into you. Your story is bigger than you. It can help others. Their story is bigger than them. It can help you.

3. Lean Into Jesus
I’m going to be short here because you know what to do, you just need to do it. Read your Bible. If you can’t understand it, get a kid’s Bible. Pray. If you don’t know what to pray, just talk to God like you would a friend over coffee. Worship. If you can’t sing, just tell him what you are thankful for and how good he is.

Leaning in has to start with you stopping those things that are making you lean away.

The Bible promises us James 4:8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

But I want to ask one question as we end today. The answer is what God wants you to deal with today.

What happened that has kept you on the sofa with Mary leaning away from Jesus, and what needs to be done to get you out of the house leaning into him?

Would you close your eyes and bow your heads.

What has kept you from leaning in?
Thankfully Mary had someone to get her off the sofa.
She would have missed the resurrection had Martha not said something.

Today, call me Martha.
I am here to tell you to stop leaning away, and start leaning in.

Both Martha AND Mary experienced the resurrection. I want to ask those here today who have sensed themselves leaning away from God rather than leaning into God to do something today, a physical tangible response. Your flesh wants you to stay there in your seat, in your anonymity. On the sofa leaning away

BUT if you are here and are willing to come to the altar, to lean into Jesus,
come now. I believe the Lord is going to speak resurrection into your heart now.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?