Transcription
How cool that God wants to meet with you. Do you believe it? Yes. Do you long for it? Yes. Do you want more of it? Yes. Should I ask the exact same question if I have other different ways and have you say it the exact same way? Yes. Okay. You guys are excited? Yes. And I am too, because He meets us wherever we're at on the journey.
If you're new to the faith, that's where he is gonna meet you. If you're excited and anticipating this weekend, just like every other weekend to encounter the living God in a life-transforming way, yes, that's where he wants to meet you. If you're a little bit tired, that's where he wants to meet you. If you're grieving, that's where he'll meet you. I've learned this in my lifetime. God won't meet you where you're not. You don't have to pretend to be a more spiritual version of yourself in order to meet with him today. You can just be honest right where you're at.
If you're mad and you don't even know why, He's wooing you to tell him. How do I know? Proverbs three, five and six. You know it. You love it. You'll say it with me. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not—you guys sound bored. I want you to hear the words of the Lord—Trust in him with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Friends, hear the invitation through a fairly famous passage of scripture, but I pray that you would have ears to hear it in a fresh way, and you would even say yes to his invitation to trust him with everything, today. In fact, I've learned a lot about prayer over the past few years. I went back to school and studied this topic called spiritual formation, a fancy way of saying how we become more like Jesus. I wanted to know how we actually change, and I'm learning that this is the beginning of it—is trusting him with everything.
In fact, one of my professors said this: prayer is not a place to be good. It's a place to be honest. Yes, you want a boring prayer life? Spend all of your trying time in it, trying to be good. You've done it right. You start your prayer very well-intended. Dear Lord, thine is the kingdom, and the glory forever and ever. And then maybe this is you. Have you ever done it where you start praying and then your mind begins to wander somewhere else and suddenly you're like, over here for like 90 seconds? Has this ever happened to you? And then what do you do when you realize it? You pause the prayer, shame yourself back to the performance. Sorry. Not sure what happened there. Sorry about that. I'm back. Okay. You haven't left. That's good. Where was I? Thine is the Kingdom. Friends, a wandering mind in prayer is a gift. Lean in because where's your mind wandering to?
Jesus put it this way: He says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be. And do you wanna know what he's after in prayer? Your heart. And guess what? Here's my encouragement. If your mind begins to wander, don't pause the prayer. I wonder if that's the very thing he wants to talk to you about. Isn't it wild that so many of us, even recently, have trusted the Lord Jesus for eternal salvation? But the fact that you think your friend is mad at you, you feel like that's something you have to stress on by yourself? Guess what? He wants to do everything with you. Guess what? He doesn't want for you to do anything alone. You don't have to do anything alone.
So next time your mind wanders, watch this. Go with it. Tell him that thing. I wanna go to God in prayer. I wanna begin with the prompt from Proverbs three, five. I wanna trust him with the thing. I wanna go there and I want to be honest. And can I encourage you to be honest? If you're here and you don't even care, watch this. Tell him. I dare you. It won't even surprise him. And that's where he wants to meet you, wherever—are you catching the theme? Wherever you're at, that's what he wants to do with you. So let's pray to him now. Yes, here we go.
Heavenly Father, in fact, I have a feeling a lot of us don't even know where we're at. So right now, we simply open up our hearts to you. I pray, Lord, that for just a few moments, we would be honest. Here are prayers, Lord. Thank you for making a way for relationship possible, one where we can bring everything to you knowing that you meet us in love and compassion and grace and power and everything we've ever needed. So God, I pray very specifically this week that we would talk to you and in doing so, trust you. We pray, and all God's children said, amen.
I've learned a whole lot about what it means to trust in the Lord, 'cause I used to think it was this: God, I trust you, and then you move on and try harder. You know what I've realized? Sometimes telling Him, I don't, is the first step in finally trusting him with precisely where you're at. It's telling him, I know that you can, but I just don't think that you will. He wants your honesty, 'cause that's where he is gonna meet you. And he wants to—he wants you to trust him with all your heart. And let me tell you what, that's a direct contrast to trusting in yourself, which we do even unconsciously all the time.
And this started way back in the beginning, but not the very beginning, 'cause in the very beginning we read this in Genesis chapter two, we read about before the fall of humankind when we relied on our own selves. In Genesis chapter 2:25, it says this: Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Can you imagine that type of freedom? Some of you can this weekend 'cause you've gone through a freedom experience. Amen. Amen. But no shame, no self-consciousness, no insecurity, total freedom. And then one page later, they listen to a different voice other than the Lord's, and the consequence we're still living into. We read about it. Genesis chapter three, seven verses later it says this: Then the eyes of both of them were open—this is after the fall, after the original sin—and they realized they were naked. So the weird part is they were already naked. They just realized it. They became self-conscious, self-aware. They were thinking a lot, circling their thoughts around the self. Can you relate? So they—here's what they did in response. When they saw themselves and they saw that they were not as they should be—which we all do; we all know we're not as we should be—let's see what they did. It says this: so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. They wanted to look presentable, right? It doesn't stop there. They didn't just cover. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. In other words, they—the presence of the one who is hope is there—and listen to how they respond: and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. If you dive deep in Genesis chapter three, you see all sorts of consequences. Yes, they're hiding. Yes, they're covering. Why? Because they felt shame. They felt guilty. Oh, by the way, those are distinct: shame and guilt. Guilt is hating what you did. Shame is hating aspects of who you are. Shame, guilt. Then they began to blame each other. They hid, and then they felt fear and anxiety. You're not crazy or original. That was page three. But if you're wondering where you came from, I wanna lean in with a series and tell you that you're not crazy if you're experiencing that uneasiness with yourself at the core of your being. If you find yourself self-conscious all the time, it's been born since that day. We are born into sin. And we have all these temptations when we realize it, just like them, we hide. We cover, we pretend all the time. We wanna make ourselves presentable. Of course we do. This is really a—this is a good thing. Even our best intentions. In fact, I've studied this fall and I've gone, what are they doing? And there's so many temptations that are prevalent there. And they're prevalent here. Here's one. One of the first temptations when we realize we're not as we should be, the first temptation is despair. Forget it. And you see this when some people just leave the church when they realize they're not as they should be, they're out. But the weird part is I still see despair within the walls of the church. Here's what it looks like. Maybe a long time ago you heard a word from the Lord and you're like, this is it. And then you started trying and you started to try to get up earlier, and then you thought a novel idea: you're also not only gonna get up earlier, you're gonna go to bed earlier. Proud of you. Proud of you, and then it faded, or you started to open up the word and you're like, I don't really get it. And then you felt a little less motivated and then you kept—and then you kept coming and then—and someone motivated you to try again. Then you try it again and then—you got to a place maybe a while ago where you're like, this doesn't really work for me, so I'm just gonna settle for a valley of dry bone spirituality. I'm not sure what everyone gets that. I don't. I see it. And you're not crazy. Second temptation is the immoral temptation. And what the immoral temptation is this: if you're telling me that I'm gonna show up to church and realize Jesus is the perfect standard, I don't live up to it. What I'm gonna do, since I can't climb that ladder, I'm gonna go find a different ladder. And some of those ladders are this: pleasure. I'm gonna go find something that pleases me and maybe—your ladder is comfort. Matt Chandler said, comfort is the god of our generation. I'm gonna go find a different ladder that I have control over. Gimme success. I can climb that ladder. That's the immoral temptation. The third temptation—here's the surprising one—the moral temptation. Here's the moral temptation. If this is perfection, and this is you, the moral temptation is you trying to climb the ladder by yourself, relying on yourself. By the way, this one's real subtle. It's where you hear an amazing message on prayer and you're like, that's good. I'm gonna try to pray more. And guess who? You rely on yourself. You hear anything good and you go, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do that. That's a good idea. I'm gonna do that. And then you strive and you try. And if you're wondering, wow, that sounds really familiar, I have really good news. The best response to the fact that you and me are not as we should be—if those are the temptations, you wanna know the best response—or you guys good? Oh, you do. Okay. Okay. Here's what it is. The best response to the fact that you're not as you should be is not even your response to it. Genesis chapter three, verse nine shows this: but the Lord God—oh, I love how—I love those verses that say, but God—don't you—but the Lord God called to the man. Where are you? And he gets honest. It's not that God didn't know where he was. What's he doing in that moment? He's opening up Adam's heart. Hey, where are you at right now? And Adam gets honest. I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. And then God goes on to go, Who told you that lie? Not that you were naked. Who told you that? What other voice were you listening to? What is God doing in this moment? Different than us striving after him. Listen to this 'cause this is the story of the gospel, not just in Genesis chapter three, but the rest of the entire Old Testament and all the way until Jesus Christ shows up on the scene in Genesis or in Matthew chapter—at Matthew, Mark, Luke, John chapter one. Although the Son always was, he shows up incarnate y because our God moves toward us while we were still sinners. Not when we once were sinful. While we were still sinners showing up to you today, right where you're at, wooing you back. Where are you? But he says it with compassion. Hey, where are you? Let's open up that heart. Trust me, don't trust yourself. It doesn't work out that well. Trust me with all your heart. Here's the next question: Why? Why with all your heart? Proverbs three, five and six is where God gives us this wisdom literature to trust in him with all of our heart. In the very next chapter, Proverbs chapter four, verse 23, he actually explains why and why that works—verses all of our own effort without him—and here's what he explained. He says this in Proverbs 4:23: Above all else, guard your what? Heart. Why? Before everything you do flows from it. Very simply, it's like this: here's the your heart, and then here's the tree of your life, and basically here's your behavior or your actions. Above all else, guard your heart because everything you do, the fruit of your life, the behavior that comes out of your life comes from your heart. Now lemme give a little bit of understanding about the heart. Are you guys ready for a little educational lesson? Yeah, perfect. All of us are born with a God-sized hole at the center of our being, and the problem is that we try to fill it with all sorts of not God-sized things, right? You try to find people's approval or try to find good grades, or maybe you wanna get a good job or a boyfriend, girlfriend—you understand? We all try to fill our—that God-sized hole with things that don't satisfy. They just make us slaves to those things. Okay. So the problem with that is that when we try to fill our God-sized hole with things that are not God-sized, or the fact that we are imperfect selves, or the ones trying to do the filling, or I'm gonna lean in just for a second—not too long—or other people's sinful choices toward us, what it creates in our heart is residue, and the residue is everywhere. So why do we behave in the ways that we do? It's 'cause there's residue in there and at some point in your life. If you give your life over to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, what he promises is that his Holy Spirit comes in and he fills—already, and yet not yet—everything that we were intended to be. But guess what? He does to get you there. In Romans chapter eight, it says this: the Holy Spirit intercedes on your behalf. Here's what he's praying for: all of this. Why is he praying for all of that? Because he longs for the fruit, the byproduct of his Holy Spirit to be the behavior of your life. But here's where we get it wrong. You hear something like, I want to pray more. And what you try to do by yourself, you try to pray more. You try to change the behavior by trying to change the behavior. Who are you relying on there? Lemme show you a different way. I hear a message on prayer. Wow. Lord, teach me, why don't I pray? Lord, what's going on here? Oh Lord, how I need you. I'm now landing sermons in different places. I used to land them like this, where you would leave like this: I got this. And now I wanna land you like this: Oh Lord, how I need you, 'cause that's the best place you can go. I used to think the prayer ministry was like, Hey, you should go get prayer. You know who you are. You know what I now realize? It's people who are courageously moving toward their greatest source of strength. That's the prayer ministry because you simply trying to change by trying to change isn't gonna work. Now hear the words of the Lord: Trust in me. With what? Everything in there. Talk to me. Come to me, pray to me. I'm with you. I'm interceding on your behalf. And by the way, he uses everything. Did you know this? He even uses your mistakes. He's that good, 'cause what does he do with them? If God's word? He allows you to bring them to the foot of the cross where you find forgiveness in your time of needs, so that his loving kindness and his gracious mercy meets you right there. And then that becomes an overflow. And you've heard the—you've heard the phrase, hurt people hurt people. Yes. Yes. Did you know that forgiven people begin to forgive people? Did you know that? Did you know that people who have been transformed by God's love start giving it away as graciously as it's been received? He doesn't just stop with you, he just moves that stuff through you. But how does it begin in you? And that's where he wants to meet you. And friends, he uses everything. I just wanna take a second on this if I'm feeling it. Do you ever have that feeling of insecurity in life? Did you know that's a move of the Holy Spirit? Watch this. It's almost as if—ladies, let's take a second on this one—you ever walk into a room and you're so self-conscious and worried about what everyone's thinking about you, and you find insecurity in that place. Not me so much, but you guys, can I tell you how it's a work of the Lord? Watch this. It's like the Holy Spirit leaning in. You can't find security there. So even the feeling of insecurity is a gift. You can't find security in your job. You can't find security in your relationship status. The Spirit is moving, and if you simply open up everything to him—insecurity, fear, sin, anxiety, anything—watch what he does. Hear the invitation of the Lord wherever you're at today: Trust in him with all your heart. Why? Because he wants your life to change. And if you don't give him entrance into there, it's going to be hard, 'cause to be honest, your willpower's not that powerful. I'd say this: it lasts till Wednesday, right? So rather trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding of anything or of everything, I think. Trying to lean on your own understanding is—it's kinda saying this: I'm—I'm trying to control my life. If you said that to your group of friends, how okay, with that phrase, would they be? Would they just be silent and not say anything? No. They'd probably be like, nah, that's not cool. But you know what? I think we've come up with a socially acceptable Christian cliché way of saying this. Here's what we say. We go like this: Oh, I'm just trying to figure out—oh, as soon as I figure out—have you said it lately? If you haven't, and you will this week, I hope you remember this face. Can I tell you something? It's so wild if you say—if you said to your friends, I'm just trying to control my life, your Christian friends, they would go, Nope. But if you said, I'm just trying to figure out, they'd go, Lean not on your own understanding. Yeah, but in all your ways, submit or acknowledge him. In other words, what God's leaning us toward is not leaning on ourselves and our own autonomy, relying on ourselves to get better by ourselves. He's wooing us to not lean on our own—our selves—or on our own understanding. Be friends. The very next verse six begins with where you can lean: In all your ways, acknowledge him. Now, here's where I get personal. I know you don't know me good. I just want you to know Christ in me because he's who you can lean on and who you can lean into, not just now, even on that day—you know which day I'm referring to. And forgive me for just going there. I just can't help myself. One day we will all stand before God. And the reason I keep saying this is where it gets personal is because four years ago my husband did. And so when I say that phrase, one day we will stand before God, if it hits different now. And I think about it, and I even wonder about what that conversation's gonna be like. I have studied every single verse there is to know about that day. I've studied every verse there is on heaven. I even have read a lot of the dense textbooks on it. I started getting real creative. I started jumping into some of those near-death experience books. Those get interesting because they're wildly accurate to biblical scripture 'cause I've read it too. Where are you gonna lean on that day? The difference between those who are in Christ and those who are not tend to be the answer to that question, 'cause a lot of people say, I've been a pretty good guy. And I gotta tell you, entrance is perfection. And then the—and the author of Hebrews has this crazy moment where he talks about approaching God's throne. And you wanna know how he—how he talks about it before I tell you how he talks about us approaching it. He actually gives me this vivid picture that I—all throughout scripture—of what that throne is like. And do you wanna get me—give you a little snippet of it with my little study I've done? You ready? Doesn't matter, 'cause I am at the center of the throne. Thanks be to God. You're not on it. There is someone who has always been at the seated—at the right hand of God, seated on the throne. And he has no—no plans of moving anywhere from that place. And here's what he's surrounded by: there's creatures with that—that have these eyes. There's all these seraphim. They have wings, and then they—and all the time it's going, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, is, and is to come. And God is seated on the throne and he's controlling the lightning and there's smoke and his robe fills the glory and the thresholds are shaking and there's peels of thunder and there's glass, and it looks like a sea of glass. And then the author of Hebrews has the audacity to say this: that on that day you can approach God's throne of grace with confidence. Holy. And this is you: confident. What—can I ask you something? What in your life do you approach with confidence? Anything. Do you approach your job with confidence? How about your marriage? How about relationships? How about weddings? How about church? Where in the world do you approach with confidence, let alone the throne room of God? How can you approach it with confidence? You're not strutting up there holding your resume of good deeds. So good. Can I tell you what it means to be in Christ? It means you lean on him in that moment and you hold his resume and you say, I believe in Jesus. And for those who have known that for a long time, I wanna lean in a little bit more 'cause I understood something that I grew up in the church and I never got. The theological term is double imputation, with an I, not an A. Those are different imputations. Now you can impress your friends—not the ones who are here. They'll know where you got it from—but ready for it? Imputation. Imputation means accreditation. It's when something is placed onto something else. Paid in full. Imputations, and he is imputed. In Corinthians, Paul writes this: that God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. Who's that? Jesus. The answer would be Jesus. We're gonna try it again so everyone can be on the same page. You ready? God made him who had no sin, sinless, to be sin for us. Who's that? Jesus. Yeah. What that means is this: that because we couldn't get to God on that ladder, we could not get to God on our own efforts. You can't be a good enough guy. Yeah. Because of that, we couldn't get to God. God came to us. That's why Christians go nuts on Christmas. He climbed down the ladder, pushed over the ladder and said, I'm with you always. Then He lived a perfect life—the one that you and I could not live—and then dies, the death we deserve on the cross. God made him who had no sin to be the perfect sacrifice so that all of our sin would be paid in full. Our sin would be imputed onto the cross of Christ, which means this: If you have put your faith and trust not in yourself, but in Jesus and his sacrifice, you are fully forgiven for all of it. And for someone who needs faith to believe it, I pray that the Spirit would give it to you right now. When I say forgiven for all of it, all of it—even that secret—you cannot outs-send the cross. You haven't. You won't. And his grace is more powerful than your sin is a mess. First imputation: paid in full. You are fully forgiven. Here's the part I missed. I knew that
Since I was a little girl, “Jesus died on the cross for my sins.” Here’s what I missed, the second half of the verse, so that, here it is: “Watch so that, look at this: in him, we might become the righteousness of God.”
Remember when I said imputation? It’s double. First imputation: God made him who had no sin to be sinned for us. Our sin is placed in full on the cross of Christ, and everything that would keep us from relationship with God is paid in full. Second imputation: he took ours. We receive his by grace. Grace, by the way, is unmerited favor. Our culture knows merited favor. Grace makes no sense in our culture. It’s what you don’t deserve. Mercy is not getting hell. Heaven is getting the life of Christ. Grace is getting the life of Christ. God may know sin to be sin for us—first imputation—fully forgiven. Second, we receive in the exchange everything that is true of Christ Jesus. We receive and we get to stand in him so that, on that day, not only was our sin imputed onto him, Christ’s righteousness—which is right relationship—is imputed back. So we stand before a holy God fully forgiven and fully accepted. Not ‘cause of your resume, but because of his.
And so, friends. That, by the way, is why Paul goes off in Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and he goes off and says, “In Christ, you are beloved, chosen, adopted. You’re the dwelling place in which God lives by his spirit. You are pure, you are blessed, you are filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. You are the dwelling place of God. You are pure. You are the temple. You are blameless. Gentlemen, you are pure.” While it’s true of you in Christ, it’s not yet true of you in life. So keep coming to church and keep being honest, ‘cause that’s where he wants to meet you. Stop hiding and pretending you won’t fix it on your own, but in him, and on that day, you get to be in Christ.
I believe in Jesus. And the best part, I read one near-death experience so accurate to scripture. A guy, this was his testimony: There was this light, and it was very exposing. Everything I’ve ever done laid bare before the one to whom we must give an account. And this was his testimony: He goes, “Everything was exposed. And in that moment of total exposure, I have never felt more loved in my life.” And friends, that type of loving acceptance in Christ is not just reserved for heaven.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your understanding. Don’t lean on yourselves, but in all your ways, open that heart up. Submit every way, every insecurity, every mistake, every secret. I can’t say it enough that people around you want it for you. In all your ways, submit or acknowledge him, and then it ends like this: He will either make your path straight, or another translation I like says this: He will direct your path.
And how does he do that? He uses it all three particular ways, and I wanna combine him with an experience at the end. Is this: how does he direct us? Number one, through his word; number two, through his Holy Spirit; and number three, through his people. And I tried to get creative to try to combine all things into one. You ready? We’re gonna do something risky immediately. A lot of you just got nervous ‘cause I’m gonna have you talk to each other—more nervous. You ready for my wisdom? Tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. ‘Cause here’s what we’re gonna do: We’re gonna use our words to bless each other. Before we leave, in a second, I’m gonna have you stand up, turn towards someone in groups of two or three. Wait on the Lord. And tell ‘em something true. I’ll give you an example. Can I borrow you, Pastor Kristen? Someone taught me a very long time ago how to use your words and how God wants to use us. Did you know that the day you said yes to Jesus? Our job as pastors is not just to do the work of ministry; it’s actually to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Gotcha. Come on. And again, some of you’re like, “I’m not ready for this.” I’ll make it super simple. It’s just this: is the combination of God’s word, his spirit, which is alive in me, and his people—that’s us. So very simply, it would be looking at someone, saying, “Hi, my name’s Megan. What’s your name?” “I’m Kristen.” Kristen. And then one of you would lay the hand on the other, and then here’s the encouragement, the risky part: Wait, if God himself wanted to speak to Kristen and he just needed someone who was willing, what would he say? And it might be something like this: “Kristen,” and then you could say, “May you know,” or “May you receive,” or “May you believe.” “Kristen, may you know more so today than yesterday that your Heavenly Father loves you.” And “God, I pray for Kristen to know it more today by your spirit. Amen.” And then you could just switch it up. And I’ll tell you this: Yes, he can use you. Here’s the surprise: Speaking is hard; receiving it harder, because Kristen could think in her head right there, “I know,” and she could absolutely miss out on more of God’s love. It’s kinda like when you tell the Lord about a mistake; do you know that His love spans? Watch this: Because suddenly you begin to realize that his love for you is not dependent upon your good behavior. You can know it more. It’s our pride that makes us not receive from others. So I pray that whether it’s a young person’s voice and an older person’s voice, someone you’re mad at’s voice, that God would use them. And if you have the courage, would you open up your heart to it now, things that you could say to each other? Anything true? It might be just a word of encouragement. I know that there’s gonna be sons turning to dads, moms turning to husbands, strangers that are sister and brother in Christ turning to each other. We’re gonna break off in groups of two or three, and if someone is left out, it’s your fault. So just pay attention to the people around you. What’s gonna happen is I’m gonna have each of you turn about 30 seconds, say one sentence. If you’re up for prayer, great. If you’re not up for praying right afterwards, that’s okay. Just be obedient. Oh, and I have one other cool thing: If what you say is from God’s word, you can be confident. He speaks, and he wants to use you. Did you know that we’re called the Body of Christ? Friends, this is the opportunity that we get to be his mouth to each other. So we’ll have another pastor come up here to conclude at the very end. But now I’d have you stand to your feet, turn to groups of two or three at all of our locations, and let’s begin to bless with the name and then a prayer. Switch if you haven’t, your message today. Thank you. Appreciate that. I have a book for you. Cool. Huh? I’m gonna get your books, but I have a book for you. Sounds awesome. Okay. Thank you. Grace Family Church. May you know Grace Family Church, may you know that he already knows your whole heart and he loves you knowing all of you. So Father, I pray that knowledge and awareness of your love would settle us and make us generous with your love to others this week for your glory. And the church said, “Amen.”