Let’s talk about sharing our faith at work. The big point of our series is that our work itself matters to God and is part of his creation and redemption mandate. It’s not that our job doesn’t really matter, except that it is a platform to share our faith. Our work itself is part of our divine calling and therefore doing it well glorifies God and represents him well to others. All that is true. It is also true that work provides maybe the best opportunity to impact other people spiritually because most of that happens through relationships and most of our relationships develop at work. Whether you know Jesus or not, you are on a spiritual journey or you wouldn’t be here. We all have a story to tell and if we are compassionate at all would love for other people to know how they could know Jesus, find transformation and meaning in a relationship with him, and know real hope. If we are loving at all, we realize we can’t just keep this to ourselves, and many of us know that we are in fact commanded in the New Testament to actively share that good news with others. Most people who become Jesus followers do so through a relationship with someone who is already a Christian, which is probably your story. That’s significant when we talk about work because most people develop their friendships with people they work with every day. So, how can we develop relationships in a way that can help other people in their journey? That can be a challenging question, because we have all probably experienced well-meaning Christians in the workplace that did more harm than good by coming on too strong. I recently read an article referred to me by a pastor buddy in Boston, written by a Jewish lady about an overly zealous Christian coworker, where she says, “He’s the nicest person in the world but has the unfortunate habit of using the workplace as a recruiting center. When he approached me to discuss religion, I mentioned that I was Jewish. Big mistake. His face lit up, and I came to find out that converting Jews was his personal mission. I couldn’t get up without finding a religious tract on my desk when I came back. After many attempts at conversion, I finally convinced him that I was happy with my religion and nothing he said would change it. He reluctantly moved on and now tries his hand with our clients.” She entitled her article, “Keep the Faith, but Keep it on your Side of the Cubicle.” We don’t want to be that girl or that guy, which can lead us to another mistake—just going completely silent and dark about our faith in the workplace. We hide our light so to speak rather than letting it shine, and just hope something good happens anyway. This is especially tempting because we don’t want to violate boundaries in the workplace in such a way where we could get fired or where we are just seen as a problem. We can easily become paralyzed in the workplace as Christians and hide the most important part of our lives. It’s a little like goldilocks, one porridge too hot and the other too cold. What would “just right” look like? The great news is that the New Testament talks about this quite a bit, how we as Christians can influence and live out our faith in attractive way everywhere we are in culture, including work. Collectively as a church, we are told to create irresistible influence by doing good, by being the most loving and inclusive people on the planet, that creates curiosity and interest in our message. Individually as Christians wherever God places us, we are compelled to do the same—to be people of irresistible influence, to live such attractive lives as transforming Jesus followers that others are drawn to us and to the good news that is transforming our lives. A great friend and fellow leader here at Chase Oaks, Mike Hogan, terms this in such a helpful way as creating pull, not push. If we as Christians try to push people toward our faith, by being loud and pushy, insisting on our own rights, sharing even when people don’t want to hear what we have to say, become argumentative and disrespectful, then we shouldn’t be surprised when people recoil. If you push me, I’m either going to stand my ground or push back. Nobody likes to be pushed (play with this?). Creating pull is what the New Testament tells us to do and is way more effective. It is living our lives in such a way that draws people toward us, creates curiosity and interest in what we believe. The NT talks a lot about this, and once we understand that God has placed us where we are on purpose, to be a light, then we must ask, “How do I do that? How can I live around people at work in such a way that creates pull?” We are going to start with Paul talking to Christians in 1 Thessalonians 4, where he lays it out so clearly: 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anyone.” The first phrase is such a powerful one, “Make it your ambition.” For those of us who are goal-oriented, we perk up with a phrase like that. “Make it your ambition—” a good strong command, and I’m ready to do whatever is next. Coach, put me in the game, and tell me what to do. “Make it your ambition”—okay I’m ready. But what comes next sounds so deflating, “Make it your ambition…to lead a quiet life…” What? That sounds like non-ambition. Try super hard to do nothing. But it isn’t nothing. A quietly attractive life takes tremendous intentionality and restraint. It is also very powerful. He is saying we don’t have to be loud and proud in the workplace with our faith. We shouldn’t be pushy and rude. Instead, we create pull by doing our work well and by living our daily lives in a way that creates respect. Quality work and an attractive daily life. Let’s talk about doing our work well, the quality of our work first. We’ve already seen in this series that our work matters to God, and that ultimately, we work for him and are called therefore to do our work excellently because it honors him. We should be the best workers at work because of that, but also because of this—by doing so we win the respect of outsiders. It should be that when a hiring manager finds out the person they hired is a Christian, they feel like they just won the lottery, that they would say quietly to another manager, “Hey, I know this may be inappropriate to consider faith in the workplace, but I just found out the person I hired last week is a Christian,” and that the other would say, “Oh man! No fair! You always get so lucky. Those people are the best!” With all the difficulties in the workplace over the last few years, the new trend replacing the great recession is quiet quitting, where instead of leaving your job, you just do the bare minimum and quietly skate by and stay under the radar. That is not what Paul is advocating. He is advocating quietly knocking it out of the park, doing your work so well that it wins the respect of others. This is also true of Christian businesses, of course. It’s like when people put a fish sticker on the back of the car, or a church sticker like we have for Chase Oaks, remember that when you are on the road. Don’t be a jerk, and don’t drive slow in the left lane. The left lane is called a passing lane, so if you aren’t passing then don’t be in that lane—especially with a fish sticker. Represent Jesus well if you put a fish or Christian bumper sticker on your car. That’s even more true for those who let others know that your business is a Christian one. When I had just graduated from college, I was spending time with some high school friends who were a few years older than me and had been working a career for a few years. One of those, Don, was telling a story how he had just hired painters to paint his house, and that he had chosen them because they were called “The Christian Painters.” This was before Google reviews, when we still used these things called phone books and you made choices by looking at the yellow pages. So many of you are giving me blank looks because you have no idea what I’m talking about. But that’s the way things were before the internet. He had chosen them out of the yellow pages because of the name. Someone else in the group, who was not a Christian, immediately blurted out, “Oh no! They call themselves Christian? They didn’t also have a fish on their ad, did they?” Don said, “They did! It’s part of why I chose them.” Everybody laughed, without even knowing what had happened, and that same guy, “Oh man, I hope it worked out, but you have to beware of the fish. Any time you see the fish, run away and choose somebody else.” Don then shared, “Well, I wish you would have told me that sooner, because the guy had a sob story and asked for most of the money up front, and I have never seen him again, and he isn’t answering his phone.” This was not a very compassionate group of friends, so laughter erupted even louder, as people kept saying, “Burned by the fish!” How sad is that! We should win people’s respect and win a hearing by being the best of workers and the best of businesses. We don’t just represent us. We represent Him. The same is true when it comes to how we live our daily lives. Remember quality work and attractive daily lives—let’s talk about our daily lives around our coworkers. Our social media team just did a survey of what my dream job would be if it wasn’t doing what I already do, and I said a professional skier—to get paid to travel to the best ski destinations in the world. Not realistic, but dreams don’t have to be realistic, right? My brother-in-law is a sales rep for Salomon skis, which does mean that I get good deals on ski equipment. But my real goal is to be officially sponsored by Salomon, to be a brand ambassador. That’s not realistic either because I’m not very good, but I love the thought of it. I am, however, a brand ambassador, and so are you if you are a Jesus follower. We represent Jesus, and how people experience us will determine in large part what they think about him. The NT actually gives us that job, as we just read. Our daily lives will either attract people to Jesus or distract them from Jesus. In Titus 2, Paul commanded the Thessalonians that they should live out their faith in the workplace in such a way that: SLIDE______________________) Titus 2:10 “Then they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive in every way.” Titus 2 is all about how we in all spheres of life with outsiders should realize that we are brand ambassadors, that what people experience from us will either attract or distract people from Jesus. I was significantly impacted as a teenager reading the biography of Sheldon Van Auken, an atheist student at Oxford who came to know Jesus while in contact with professor C.S. Lewis and other Christians at the university who won him over through exemplary lives. In one of his journal entries early in that spiritual journey, he wrote: “The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians – when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.[1]” – Sheldon Van Auken As a new believer with mostly non-believing friends in my high school, I realized my job to represent Jesus as best I could, because the way people experienced me would either make them more open or closed to all that he wanted for them. That is true for all of us, however we interact with people outside the faith—certainly those at work. We should intentionally be the most loving, humble, respectful, compassionate, helpful, and gracious people at work because we represent the brand of Jesus. When we pull that off, it makes people curious in a good way about what makes us tick. Our daily lives can create pull. And then what? Peter, talking to Christians living in Rome, tells us what will happen and what our responsibility is. Creating pull with an attractive life will create conversations and opportunities. He says, 1 Peter 3:15-16 “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” You and I are not on our own at work when it comes to spiritual impact. God is at work, pulling people toward himself, and wants to use you and me in the process. When we live lives that are compelling, as Jesus is transforming us, we will have opportunity to share our faith. That’s why we are told to always be prepared to give an answer when people wonder about the hope that we have. Hope is a powerful thing. Hope gives us a why that others who don’t know Jesus do not have. Christian hope is what drives us forward, giving us the motivation to live differently by being the most loving people on the planet, to do our work well as unto the Lord, to be here for good people. So, when we love in ways that are remarkable or serve in ways that are sacrificial or work in ways that are above and beyond the normal or converse in ways that are remarkably respectful, don’t be surprised when people find all that surprising enough to become curious about what makes us tick or to come to us when they have spiritual questions. That’s also true when we or others around us encounter the inevitable difficulties of life in a broken world. Our hope is not based in circumstances, but in the God above the circumstances, which is a surprising kind of hope. When we go through difficulties with hope in God, there is a strength even in our grief that is surprising to people who don’t have that hope. How can you keep going? How can you be so strong? We create pull by quality work and attractive daily lives, enough that we need to be ready for those spiritual conversations to happen. That’s what Peter says, “Be ready!” But what does that mean? How can we be ready? Let’s talk about being prepared and how we can share our faith when people want to hear about it or when people come to us in tough times for support. When someone says, “How can you always stay so positive in a work environment like this?” You could say something like, “Oh, I believe that God placed me here and that what we do really matters to make our world function the way that he intended, so even when work becomes difficult, it helps me to tap into that higher purpose.” Someone might say, “How can you keep treating customers, even rude ones, with such respect and patience?” You could say something like, “Oh, I believe every human is made in God’s image and worthy of respect always, and when people are at their worst, it’s an opportunity to show some love to someone who must be hurting in other areas of life.” How about when people come to you in difficult times for support? Christians are still in our culture the go-to people when life gets hard, because we have a hope that is above circumstances. When conversations happen with people who are struggling, it’s perfectly okay to offer to pray for them. And if they wonder how you can be so strong, you can say someth8ng like, “Oh, I’m not strong. But fortunately, God is, and he is with me in all that I go through. Without him, I’d be a total basket case.” That may open up more conversation and opportunity to invite someone to your small group where you find support, to invite them to take a step on their spiritual journey by joining you at church. Surveys of non-churched people consistently show that they would be open to going to church if someone they respected invited them…but hardly any of them have ever been invited. It’s how Philip, one of the twelve disciples, invited Nathaniel, a friend of his who would also become one of the twelve. Nathaniel was curious but had a lot of doubts and questions. Instead of debating him, Philip just said, “Come and see!” and brought him to Jesus. We design our church services to be come and see environments where we can easily invite those who don’t know Jesus yet and are curious. It’s one way they can encounter Jesus too. You should also be prepared to share with someone how they can begin a relationship with God because of what Jesus did. He came here to take away the guilt of our sin by dying on the cross and being raised from the dead. He wants to not only forgive us but to be in a relationship with us that changes our lives. He invites us into a relationship with him that transforms us from the inside out. I think the best way to about that is to share your story of how you began a relationship with Jesus and the difference it has made in your life. It is not so threatening to share your story, because it is your story. You aren’t saying, “I’m right and you are wrong in what you believe.” You are simply saying, “This is what has happened to me, and why I’m so thankful to have found connection with God through Jesus, because it has made all the difference.” This fall we are doing Chase Oaks Road Shows at each campus, where a traveling group of facilitators will be showing up for a couple of weeks to offer classes designed to give us more confidence and skill in life, including this one. One of the topics will be how to share your story in an effective way. That’s so important. You may have heard a quote by an ancient saint, Francis of Assisi, that says, “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.” – Saint Frances of Assisi Even if you haven’t heard it, it sounds really good. There are two problems with the quote though. One, he never said it. And two, it’s not true. Yes, just as Paul has instructed us and we’ve shared in this sermon, respectable lives are the most important witness of the reality of Jesus. But that doesn’t mean that words don’t matter. At some point, words are necessary to help someone understand what Jesus is offering them. Like Paul said in Romans, Romans 10:13-14 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” How will they know if they don’t hear? How can they hear if we don’t use words? So be prepared to tell your story, like a before and after story, and if you aren’t, then the roadshow is designed to equip you to do so. Our work itself matters to God, and therefore we should do it well in a way that glorifies him and helps others flourish. Our work also, because we spend so much time there, is usually our most strategic place to represent Jesus in such a way that we can help others know about him. So, let’s go back to work with this thought in mind, that we are there to win the respect of others, to love people with no strings attached and do our work well and treat people with respect, so much so that it creates spiritual pull. Imagine how exciting it would be to help someone in their spiritual journey, wherever you are at in your own. Imagine what it would be like to help lead one or two or ten others around you to a relationship with Jesus and sharing that journey with them? Imagine if all of us Chase Oakers, about 10,000 or so, started doing work the way we have talked about it in this series, how with that critical mass we could actually lift the whole experience of work for others? Let’s ask God to help us be his people in the workplace in a way that can make a real difference. Let’s do our work well, live increasingly attractive lives as he is transforming us, and always be ready to share our story and the reason for our hope when people want to hear about it or come to us for perspective. He will help us do that, because he will always empower us to do what he commands us to do. [1] Sheldon Van Auken, A Severe Mercy

Recently, my Bible study group came face-to-face with the age-old problem: “Why do the righteous suffer?” After almost an hour of discussion, a member of our group said, “I’ve recently been reading the book of James. There is a whole section about the problem of pain.” Roger, would you please unpack that for us? Sincerely, Matt Dear Matt, Many passages in the Bible give us insight for handling pain. I’m thinking of books and passages like Job, many of the Psalms, Lamentations, Hebrews 12, and James. James was facing intense persecution in the early church. In his writings, he shared his suffering and God's work in his life. And in doing so, he addresses the problem of pain in our lives. Note that there are many types of pain: emotional, physical, mental, spiritual, grief, guilt, loss, sin, and on and on goes the list. Fortunately, James’ principles are effective in the midst of any type of pain or problem. So, I’d like to answer your question by using James’ insights on the matter. 1. We Solve the Problem of Pain By Approaching it with Humility, No Arrogance The early church called James “camel knees” because of the hours that he spent on his knees in prayer. His was a life of deep humility. I admire James because of how he begins his book: James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. (James 1:1) What you may not know is that James grew up in the same home with Jesus; but James doesn’t describe himself like that. He could have written: James, an apostle. (Galatians 1:19a) James, leader of church at Jerusalem. (Acts 21:18) James, pillar of church. (Galatians 2:9) James, brother of Jesus. (Galatians 1:19b) He could have exalted himself in so many ways. However, James chose not to! He was too busy being on his knees in humble prayer. So, we face our pain with humility as we understand that Jesus is Lord, and we are not. He knows us far better than we know ourselves. He knows what we need when we need it. 2. We Solve the Problem of Pain By Choosing Joy Instead of Misery Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds. (James 1:2) “Count it all joy!” What an unnatural reaction. It’s supernatural! One of the most important characteristics that separates mature Christians from immature Christians is right here. When difficulties come to immature Christians, they tend to say, “Oh, everything’s against me! I’m angry; I’m bitter; I’m disappointed. Joy isn’t anywhere in sight. I know that God never liked me in the first place! I’m bitter and disappointed, I quit.” However, the mature Christian says, “The last time I had difficulty, I faced it, trusted God, and grew. I’ll see what God intends to teach me this time around.” There seems to be little difference between joy and happiness according to the dictionary. But a sharp distinction is made in the Bible. Happiness has to do with circumstances. Joy has to do with a deep sense of well-being and contentment regardless of circumstances. Joy is something we deliberately choose. Notice James says, “Count it all joy when, not if, you fall into fiery trials.” I’ve met too many Christians who thought that when they received Christ as their Savior, all of their troubles were basically over. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, God says that if we’re not having troubles, then we’re not His children—because all of God’s children have troubles (Hebrews 12). Christians aren’t people living without problems. Christians are people who have the Problem-Solver living within. Christians choose joy. 3. We Solve the Problem of Pain When We Recognize That the Purpose of Pain Is to Mold Us to Look Like Jesus Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4) In other words, troubles produce godly patience. And godly patience matures us, molding us to be like Jesus. The author of the book of Hebrews, declared about Jesus: “Though he was a Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered“ (Hebrews 5:8). If the Son of God matured through troubles, so can we. If the Son of God matured through trials, so can we. But we have to “Let perseverance finish its work”—that means we must choose to submit to and endure trials in order to become like Jesus. A man with a briefcase was running through the airport, trying to get to his gate before the airplane door closed. He was thinking that he was just going to make it, when he accidentally ran into a small boy carrying a puzzle box full of pieces. The box hit the floor and pieces scattered everywhere. He started to run on. He had a flight to catch. But then he thought better of it. He got down on his knees and joined the boy in picking up pieces. When the box was full and the pieces were safe, the boy looked up at the businessman and asked, “Mister, are you Jesus?” It’s always a good time, Matt, to pause and reflect on just how much we look like Jesus! We solve the problem of pain by submitting to an ongoing process by which Jesus molds us to look increasingly more like Himself. 4. We Solve the Problem of Pain By Yielding to the Truth That the Process Will Hurt This is essential. “Trials and troubles” are not an elective course that we can take or leave. This course is required. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:8) A young man came to pastor and teacher Harry Ironside during Ironside’s later years when he was losing his hearing. The man asked, “Will you please pray for me that I will be more patient?” They bowed their heads in prayer, and Ironside prayed, “Jesus, please send this young man some problems.” The young man, knowing that Ironside was hard of hearing, shook him and said, “No, no, I didn’t say that I wanted problems. I said that I wanted patience.” Once again, they bowed their heads in prayer. Ironside prayed, “Dear Jesus, would you please send this young man some troubles and problems.” Figuring that once again Ironside had not heard him correctly, the student raised his voice and repeated his request. Ironside replied, “Do you not understand that troubles and problems are what produce the patience?” God knows that the best climate for making us just like Jesus is the crucible of fire and testing. Are you willing to face it? 5. We Solve the Problem of Pain By Asking God for Wisdom When We Experience It When you are in the midst of troubles, and you don’t know how to handle it, then ask God for wisdom. He promises to answer! If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:5) Wisdom to do what? We all need wisdom to react properly to our problems by counting as joy and then handling them accordingly. 6. It’s Hard to Express Joy in the Midst of Pain When We Are Wavering in Faith and Unbelief But when you ask , you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.” (James 1:6-8) In the midst of pain, trials, and testing, too many of us waver: Is God adequate? Is He sufficient to trust or not? Will He get me through this? Is it worth it? James never says that we must understand everything about God’s purpose in our lives. It is simply sufficient to know that God has a purpose. So we declare by faith, “I will trust Him. He’s my God, and I’m committed to Him, no matter what the trial or trouble. That decision has been made. It will never have to be made again.” We will never find that trials and troubles make any sense until we come to place where we can distinguish between the permanent and perishability of things. The house of one of our church members burned to the ground. I was on the sidewalk watching the house disintegrate, enveloped in flames. They lost it all. The kids and their father were standing beside me on the sidewalk cursing God, the fire department, their insurance company, the police, etc. I saw the holocaust and thought, “What would I lose if that happened to my house? If tomorrow I were to lose my personal possessions or my health, or both, would I have anything left?” Think about it. Would you? Well, Matt, I hope this helps answer your question. Feel free to ask another one. Love, Roger

This is the story of my wife, Angel, from her perspective. I am a type A, first born. By the time I was twenty, I had my life planned out. After marriage, John would work to get me through college and then I would work as an elementary school teacher to get John through seminary without debt. Then, he would graduate, we would move into our white picket fence dream home, start our family, and begin a life of ministry together. I never recognized my insatiable desire to control the events and timeline of my life, but God saw it and he knew that I needed to be broken of my desire to control in order to soften me into his surrendering daughter with a heart of delight for her king. As I entered my final semester of college, I began my student teaching in a third-grade classroom outside of Phoenix. The kids were well-behaved, and yet I was overwhelmed and emotional. It was so much harder than I anticipated. My go getter, energetic, type A personality knew how to manage stress well, but this time I didn’t seem able to fight through it. During the halftime show for Super Bowl 2003, serenaded by Shania Twain, I took a pregnancy test. Two lines appeared. Pregnant? How could I be pregnant? How does this fit into my plan? Tears began to flow. Not tears of joy. Tears of being overwhelmed. The beginning of motherhood started to strip me of my selfishness and desire to control. I was forced into this land of surrendering my well-planned life. Lesson one: submitting to the Lord’s agenda is always best. The sooner I get that, the better I will be for it. He won’t do to me what he won’t do for me. God began to teach me the gift of receiving his timing over my own. I held on to my future as if I owned it, knew what it entailed, and actually had the power to make it happen. Folly. God loved me enough to give me a child in order to strip me of myself. This was just the beginning. This gift of life in my womb was my personal grace. Nine months of stripping my agenda. Yet I found myself fighting to make a plan. I knew I was a mom intellectually, but I never felt like I was a mom emotionally. I couldn’t imagine life without it being just John and me. I was surprised by the grief I felt. I had to grieve the loss of just the two of us. That loss was real. Lesson two: We can simultaneously feel both joy and grief. Stages and seasons of life are true gifts. When they end and it’s time to say goodbye, that place of loss is worth grieving. When we learn to grieve what we have lost, we are equipped to enter well into future loss. This path creates space for the blessing that God wants to bestow upon us through the loss. I had no idea the gift that was being given to me. This child was a mover. She wanted out! She wanted to explore. During the third trimester she danced with music. She squirmed at the sound of her daddy’s voice when he would read her a story. On Sept 6, 2003 John and I walked Princeton’s towpath. I called my mom. “This is it. She is coming.” While I wait for my mom’s arrival, I am determined to walk this baby out. John is the best partner. By my side. Breathing, stopping, walking. Repeat. Contractions are too close. He runs to get the car. We arrive at Princeton Hospital. I continue to labor. I’m in so much pain. My midwife, Ursula, wants to send me home until my water breaks. I knew I couldn’t go home. This child was ready to come out. Ursula tells us to walk the ward. “Let’s see if your water will break,” she says. My water breaks in the hall. Thank you, Jesus, this means we can stay. He knew my pain. We labor. Breath by breath. Worship playing in the background. Mom arrives. I am convinced I have to go to the bathroom. Ursula is confident I don’t. Apparently, she knows a thing or two about delivery. I beg her to let me try. She concedes. I get to the bathroom and with the Lord, I am letting him know the pain is real and I can’t take much more. Over the toilet I start to feel her head! I scream, “I feel her head!” Ursula yells at me to get back to the bed, she yells for more nurses to assist, the bed isn’t quite laid out for delivery so I go on both knees in the bathroom and keep breathing. Fernando Ortega’s, “Give Me Jesus” starts to play. I ask John to turn it up. I breathe, I push. I breathe, I push. I breathe, I push. I breathe, I push. And out she comes, a beautiful baby girl. Bright, light blue eyes take in the world. In an instant. I know in my knower, I am a mom. We take a day to name “Baby Girl Beeson.” We wanted to see her, feel her, pray over her. Her huge eyes, ready to explore the world in front of her. Gentleness met with intense curiosity. God gives us the name: Camille Dawn. Camille means purity, virtue, unblemished.  Dawn: a middle name given to her mom and grandma. They discharge us and we find ourselves at the curbside with this delicate little human being. At 24 and 22, how are we possibly allowed to be responsible for this image-bearer? Lesson three: God names his own and delights in allowing us to live into our namesake. Camille reflected the truth that God knows our past, present, and future. She was and is a reflection of God, unfolding his pure and perfect redemption plan for our family from the very beginning. Fast forward 10 years. John and I have just walked through our marriage crisis. I confess to three years of adultery. With our home church, we are voluntarily walking through the journey of public repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. We included our kids (Camille is ten, our son, Soren, is eight) in the conciliation journey so they can ask questions and process their confusion at an age-appropriate level. They are in it with us. My woeful adulterous season had culminated. On the night of my confession, Jan 31, 2013, we were in the Poconos in New York at a Princeton University campus ministry retreat. I was weak physically from a bout with pneumonia. The band plays “Cornerstone” at the end of the night and I begin what will be a long process of confession. After this heavy confession, John wraps his arms around my waist, and we sing in tears. “Christ alone, cornerstone, weak made strong in the Savior’s love.” Our family lived in that song for a solid 3 years. God gave it to us. John and I prayed through it before we met the elders to repent. We sang it on our last Sunday at our church before we were asked to take a leave of absence while the church figured out how to navigate this path with us and those involved in my adultery. The church sang it on our first Sunday back. They had no idea it was our cloud by day and fire by night: a visible reminder of God’s presence with us. We sang in tears with God’s sweet affirmation over us. It was a constant whisper of “I am with you. I love you. I am for you. This is my battle. Just keep walking.” It would come on the radio at the perfect random time and we would roll down the windows and sing it loud! No one belts like Camille and Soren. When God released us from our Princeton home church that we loved so dearly and still has a special place in our hearts to this day, the church sang Cornerstone on our last Sunday. At that point, no one knew our “Cornerstone” story except Team Beeson and the Lord. God’s gentle mercy called us to respond in gratitude. Eventually, the time came to enter back into vocational ministry, but this time miles 2400 away from Princeton, NJ in Tucson, AZ. “Cornerstone” was the first song on the worship set list on the Sunday John candidated for the associate pastor position. Only God! Lesson four: it is never our job to protect our kids from conflict and pain. But it is our job to shepherd them through it, learn how to confront it, and sit in it with them. It’s God’s job to turn our mourning into dancing. We don’t have to strive for that. Sadness is a good emotion the Lord designed us to feel. Motherhood teaches me not to run away from pain but instead seek Jesus in the sadness, and remember his promises for us. I remember when God broke my heart with the gift of repentance in 2013. I was willing to do whatever it took to release the grip of adultery over my life so that it would not be passed on to my kids. I begged God to bring everything to the light no matter the cost. Satan was not allowed to have any stronghold. On this journey, I would often take the kids on a walk and check in on their hearts. One summer day, Camille and I took a walk to the park. “How is your heart today my love? What have you been thinking about?” “Mom, I do have a question, but I am not sure if I am allowed to ask it.” “Babe, you can always ask any question. I promise to always answer you honestly and appropriately.” “Who in the church did you have an affair with?” “Well love, it isn’t that I won’t answer that question but I want to make sure I understand why you are asking it. As a pastor’s kid, I never want to put you in a position where you feel you need to protect or defend us. So let me ask. Why do you want to know?” “Well, how do I know that this won’t happen to me when I get married and how do I know that I won’t get a divorce like you and daddy almost did?” “Camille, do you know what your name means?” “No.” “It means purity. Virtue. To be without blemish. God knew what was in our future when you were born. He gave us your name for a reason. I believe he has made you to reflect his purity and virtue. That you will learn in your life in Christ you are unblemished and unstained because his blood covers you. You will learn the value of being pure in Christ and that this sin of adultery will not have a hold on you. It is one reason I chose to bring it all to the light no matter the cost. If I could do anything to partner with the Lord in breaking this sin of destruction, in God’s power. It would be done. I believe that. You do not have to fear. You are safe in the Lord’s hand my love.” “Ok mommy. Wanna play on the slide?” “Of course I do.” She forgot her original question. It was never about who, it was about her fear. Lesson five: Through her life and through her questions, Camille taught me to slow down and find the heart behind every concern. Middle school and high school brought on more gifts of shepherding Camille’s curious and tender heart. John and I were invited into hard conversations that helped break us of control. We were reminded again and again that we couldn’t prevent our children from experiencing pain. Parenting teens forced us to daily entrust our kids’ hearts and emotions into the care of their perfect Heavenly Father. The illusion of control continued to be stripped away through the process of a true surrender in faith. Time doesn’t slow down. Fast forward again seven years to today and now I am invited into further release. Sorrowfully, yet excitedly, our family climbs into the car one August morning, California-bound. Concordia College will have the gift of a pure, joy-filled, radiant child of the Most High King. She is anointed with his wisdom, understanding, creativity, passion and grit. I’ve never understood the power behind bittersweet until now. Lesson six: Camille was never fundamentally mine. She has always been the Lord’s and she will never leave his grasp. She can’t. That’s his faithful promise to us. Parenting teaches you to trust and live by faith. August 8, 2022. It’s time to say goodbye. We stand in her dorm room now festooned with her artwork and decorative touches. A handmade tapestry with a JRR Tolkien quote hangs behind us, “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” We huddle together and begin to pray. The tears come. We ugly snot-cry together. Camille closes, her pure voice begins to sing Cornerstone. Lesson seven: My hope is not built on motherhood. “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness And I dare not trust the sweetest frame But wholly trust in Jesus name When darkness seems to hide His face I rest on His unchanging grace In every high and stormy gale My anchor holds within the veil Christ alone, cornerstone Weak made strong in the Savior’s love Through the storm He is Lord, Lord of all” Little sparrow, it’s time to fly. You are held under the Father’s continued care, you are safe. You are ready. You don’t need our roof anymore. We hug. We cry. We drive away. I ache deeply. Thank you Camille for being an agent of God’s amazing grace to me. I’ll like you for always. I’ll love you forever. As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be. www.thebeehive.live

If you want to be more creative, productive, and fulfilled in life, you need to get out of your comfort zone. Living in a comfort zone is a trap that keeps us from living our potential. God wants us to stretch and grow, and growth happens best when we are getting out of our comfort zone. Fear keeps us stuck in our comfort zone. Fear is not from God. He gives us faith. With faith, we can overcome any obstacle and step out of our comfort zones to grow and achieve the great things God has placed in our hearts to do. With His power, we are over-comers of anything that keeps us stuck. Here are some ways to get out of your comfort zone: 1. Pray for God's guidance and wisdom. Ask Him to show you where He wants you to stretch and grow. When it comes to getting out of our comfort zones, prayer is one of the most important things we can do. Prayer connects us with God, who wants nothing more than for us to reach our potential and live a fulfilling life. He guides us and gives us wisdom as we step out in faith. When we pray for guidance, we are opening our hearts and minds to Him, and ready to receive whatever He has for us. So don't hesitate to pray for guidance when you feel stuck or like you're not sure what to do next. God will guide you every step of the way! In addition to prayer, it's also important to read scripture that encourages us to stretch and grow. Here are some scriptures that can help inspire you: "For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11, NLT) "This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9, NLT) "But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31, NLT) "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9, NLT) God has great plans for us, and He wants us to grow and reach our potential. With faith in Him, we can overcome any obstacle that stands in our way! 2. Identify the areas in your life where you feel most comfortable. Areas in our lives where we feel most comfortable are usually the areas we need to challenge ourselves the most. These may be areas where we're used to being good at things or where we're used to being in control. But when we stay in these areas, we're not growing and stretching ourselves. We're not reaching our potential. One way to identify these areas is to ask yourself what makes you feel uncomfortable. What are you afraid of? What are you anxious about? What makes you feel out of your element? These are usually the areas where we need to challenge ourselves the most. When we push ourselves outside of our comfort zones, it can be difficult and uncomfortable at first. But over time, we begin to see progress and growth. We learn new things and become better versions of ourselves. So don't be afraid to challenge yourself in the areas that make you feel uncomfortable! God will be with you every step of the way. 3. Set some goals that require you to step out of your comfort zone in order to achieve them. When it comes to setting goals, it's important to choose ones that challenge us and require us to step out of our comfort zones. This is the only way we can grow and achieve great things. So how do we go about setting these types of goals? Here are a few tips: Make sure your goals are realistic and attainable. Don't set yourself up for failure by choosing goals that are too difficult or unrealistic. Make sure they are something you believe you can achieve with hard work and dedication. Write your goals down and make a plan for how you will achieve them. This will help keep you accountable and motivated as you work towards reaching them. Find a support group or accountability partner to help you stay on track. When we have someone else to help us stay focused and motivated, it makes the process a lot easier. Celebrate each accomplishment along the way! When we reach small accomplishments, it helps keep us motivated and encouraged to keep going. So make sure to celebrate each milestone as you progress toward reaching your ultimate goal. With these tips in mind, you can start setting some goals that will require you to step out of your comfort zone and achieve the great things God has placed in your heart! 4. Find a mentor or coach who can help you identify your blind spots and help you develop a plan to overcome them. When it comes to overcoming our blind spots, it can be helpful to have someone else help us out. This is where a mentor or coach can come in handy. A mentor is someone who has been where we are and has the experience and knowledge to help guide us. They can help us learn from our mistakes and give us advice on how to move forward. A mentor can be a great source of encouragement and support. A coach, on the other hand, is someone who helps us develop a plan to overcome our blind spots. They hold us accountable and push us to reach our full potential. They help us identify our weaknesses and work on improving them. Coaches are great for those who need extra support and motivation to reach their goals. A mentor or coach can be a valuable asset in helping you get out of your comfort zone and reach your fullest potential! 5. Take baby steps outside of your comfort zone. Don't try to do too much too quickly. When you do this, it's hard and you might not be very successful. It's better to take a few baby steps outside of your comfort zone. This will help you get used to the new thing and make it easier. For example, if you're afraid of public speaking, don't try to give a speech in front of a large group of people right away. This will likely just make you more nervous and increase your anxiety. Start with something smaller, like giving a presentation to a small group of people. Once you're comfortable with that, then you can start working your way up to larger groups. Baby steps are important when it comes to getting out of your comfort zone. They help you ease into the new thing and make it less scary. So don't be afraid to start small! You can always work your way up as you get more comfortable. Accommodating your discomfort day after day is exhausting and limiting. We naturally avoid discomfort, but that’s where all the fun and growth happen. Push forward to live outside your comfort zone and be an overcomer. Being an overcomer means having faith in God no matter what the situation. It means trusting Him even when we don't understand what is happening in our lives. It means believing that He has a plan for us and that He will never leave us or forsake us. When we are faced with difficult challenges, it is easy to become discouraged. But as believers, we know that we can overcome anything through Christ who strengthens us. We must keep our eyes on Him and not be tempted to give up or give in to our fears. As long as we stay focused on Him, we will be victorious over any obstacle that comes our way. Get out of your comfort zone today. You’ll be glad you did!

We saw the storm coming. While it was still days away, the predictions chilled our spines and jolted our complacency. “It’s a monster!” “Disaster is not only at our doorstep, it’s coming in!” Now it arrives and will it be as vast and terrible as advertised? It promises to pounce, then sit and sit upon vast swaths of our coastland – drenching, driving, and destroying so much of what we love. Many on the East Coast are fleeing the flooding. And as images of destruction begin to roll across our screens, we are all tempted to worry, wonder and fret. What can be done? Where is God in the midst of this disaster? Where is he in the midst of the storm that threatens your own life? May I remind us of one strong anchor that is hooked to at least four unbreakable lifelines? You see, God is a God of promises. From the first chapter of the Bible, Scripture makes a case for the dependability of God. Nine times the text reiterates “God said.” And without exception when God spoke, something happened. By divine fiat there were light, land, beaches, and creatures. We are left with one conclusion: God’s word is sure and his promises can be trusted. What he says happens. After 40 years in ministry I’ve seen a lot of storms. And I’ve learned that in turbulent times like this, there is nothing more secure than the anchor of God’s promises. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). Could you use some hope in the aftermath of this storm, and in other choppy seas you may be facing? Perhaps the wind of change and challenge is blowing in your faith, your family, or finances. Anchor deep into the unshakable promises of God. And hold on tight to these four lifelines – they can withstand the waves of worry and difficulty in your life. Hang tight, God gets you! He’s been there. He’s been here – and he understands your pain. The stunning idea is simply this: God, for a time, became one of us. Does this promise matter? If you ever wonder if God listens, he does. If you ever wonder if the Uncreated Creator can, in a million years, comprehend the challenges you are facing, then ponder long and hard the promise that Jesus is “able to understand our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15). Overcome Despair with Prayer. When life overwhelms, pray to the one who is in charge, and know that he is praying for you. Will God do what you ask? Perhaps. Or perhaps he will do more than you imagine. Stand firmly on the promise that “when a believing person prays, great things happen” (James 5:16). And ponder this truth: Jesus, right now, at this moment, in the midst of whatever trouble you are facing, is speaking on your behalf. He is calling out to the Heavenly Father. He is advocating for a special blessing to be sent your way. You do not fight the wind and waves alone. Every day he speaks up for you. “He always lives to intercede for [us]” (Romans 8:34). Pull together when life comes apart. In times of extreme challenge we can divide or we can unite. One of the beautiful things that can emerge from times of trouble is extravagant compassion and care for our neighbors – crossing lines and building bridges. Our pain bears fruit if it reminds us that everyone has value, and we were created by God, in God’s image, for God’s glory (Genesis 1:26). Evil exists, but it does not win! Yes, we’d rather have a storm-free life, but we can count on the devil stirring up trouble and fear. Take heart, God has overcome! Satan’s days are numbered. So in those moments when all that is good appears to lose, you do not need to worry. Remind the evil one, “The God who brings peace will soon defeat Satan and give you power over him” (Romans 16:20). Hold fast to these lifelines and ask yourself this key question: Is what I’m anchored to stronger than what I’ll go through? Sometimes it may be a calamity that thousands are facing together, or it may be a personal battle that no one else even knows you are dealing with. But God knows. He knows and he cares. And he wants to buoy you in the day-to-day difficulties and guide you home to safe harbor. When the storm hits, anchor to no one but God. Storms will come, my friend. But when they do, filter them through the promises of God. And since his promises are unbreakable, your hope will be unshakable. www.lysaterkeurst.org .

YOU WILL NEVER SEE DEATH JOHN PIPER John 8:48–59 The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, 'If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.' Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?" Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.' But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple." God directed you to this sermon, I believe, so that you would know, first, that you don't have to die, and, second, so that you would know that Jesus, who makes this promise to you, is God—the God of Israel, the God of all. And, third, you are here because God wants you to see the implication for your life of knowing you will not die. From Tragedy, Greatness There is another great reality in John 8:48–59—namely, the opposition Jesus gets from the Jews. The purpose of showing the opposition in this text is not because it's pleasant to watch. It is tragic to watch. These are his own people calling him demonized. The reason for describing the opposition is that it's the opposition that brings out the greatness—the mystery—of who Jesus is. They demand it. Look at the end of verse 53: "Who do you make yourself out to be?" And it's the final answer to that question that brings this story to a fierce conclusion, because they take up stones—their form of capital punishment for blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16)—and Jesus hid himself, because his time was not yet come, and stoning was not the way he must die. Deity and Deathlessness So let's take two of the great realities in this text—the deity of Jesus and the deathlessness of his followers—and open them up with the help of the opposition that they receive in this text. And let's discover the astonishing implication of our deathlessness for our lives. The text starts with opposition because the conflict in the first part of the chapter has already been intense. It ends in verse 47 with Jesus' words: "Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." So they have already shown themselves deaf to the meaning of Jesus' words. His words only offend them. Vicious Opposition to Jesus So our text begins with their indictment of Jesus. Verse 48: "The Jews answered him, 'Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?'" The Jews despised the Samaritans and half-breeds who had intermarried with Gentiles six centuries earlier and now followed their own version of Old Testament religion. Calling Jesus a Samaritan was a kind of racial slur with the innuendo that his real father was unknown. And to make the insult clear, they said he had a demon. So this is vicious opposition. It is amazing that Jesus continues to talk to them. He answers them in verses 49–50, "I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge." Jesus says, in effect, I don't need to defend myself, because God the Father seeks my glory. In other words, if you dishonor me, instead of glorifying me, you set yourself against God. If you oppose me, you oppose the one who is committed to honor me. Warning: Final Judgment And then he says, You don't want to do that because God is the one who judges (verse 50 at the end). In other words, ultimate things are at stake in the way we respond to Jesus. Almighty God defends his glory. And when it comes to final judgment, the criterion is going to be the glory of Jesus—what did we do with Jesus, the glory of Jesus? And if we turned away from him, or turned against him, God will be our judge. So verse 49 and 50 are a warning. Coming for Salvation, Not for Judgment But all through this whole book the message has been: The Son of God did not come for judgment but for salvation. He did not come to condemn, but to save. John 3:17: "God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." So Jesus finishes his response to their indictments like this (verse 51): "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." In other words, you have gotten to the point where you are blaspheming me, calling me a half-breed and demonized. And you are in great danger of God's judgment, but I hold out to you once more the gift of salvation. If you will keep my word, you will never see death. This Remarkable Promise: Never See Death Now that is a remarkable promise. It's amazing because he doesn't say, "If anyone keeps my word, he will never die." He says, "If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." What does that mean? In verse 52, his adversaries repeat what he said with unbelief and change the word "see" to "taste": "You say, 'If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.'" And Jesus doesn't correct them. So Jesus is saying, If you keep my word—if you believe what I say about myself, and my Father, and our great work of salvation—you won't see death. You won't taste death. This Gospel ends with Jesus being killed and rising again. And the death of Jesus is explained as the substitution for sinners like these adversaries—like us. "I lay down my life for the sheep" (John 10:15; 11:52; 1:29). So keeping the word of Jesus is to receive the words he speaks about himself and his Father and their work of salvation through his death and resurrection. Keep those words, believe them, cherish them, abide in them, live on them, be transformed by them. And you will never see death. Death and Harmon Killebrew Never see death. Death is all around us. Yesterday Harmon Killebrew wrote a blog announcing that esophageal cancer has beat him. He is entering hospice care at 74 to prepare to die. There is a statue of a golden glove outside gate 34 at the new Target Field across town. It is exactly 520 feet from home plate—because that is the longest homerun ever hit by any Twins player—and Harmon Killebrew hit it. It is with profound sadness that I share with you that my continued battle with esophageal cancer is coming to an end. With the continued love and support of my wife, Nita, I have exhausted all options with respect to controlling this awful disease. My illness has progressed beyond my doctors' expectation of cure. Harmon Killebrew is going to die. And so are you. And so am I. Death is the great leveler. It doesn't matter how glorious your career was. You die. Never Seeing Death? Or do you? Verse 51: "Truly, truly, [not falsely, falsely!] I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." He will never taste death. One of the most powerful moments in my seminary days was at the funeral of James Morgan, my 36-year-old systematic theology teacher. Lewis Smedes was preaching the sermon, and at one point he lifted up his majestic voice and cried, "James Morgan is not dead!" My spine tingled, with the heralding of glorious truth. So if James Morgan was not dead at his funeral, and a few months earlier he was not dead as he taught my theology class, what happened in between? Did he die? Let's let Jesus answer from John 11:25–26. He says to Martha at Lazarus' grave: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die." Though he die, he never dies. Yes, We Die—And, No, We Don't Yes, we die: "Though he die, yet shall he live." No, we don't die: "Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die." Lazarus' body lay dead in the grave. But Lazarus was not dead. His body was dead. But he was not dead. He had not died. Even more important is the way Jesus says it in John 5:24: "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life." Believers on Jesus have passed already from death to life. They have now already an eternal life. Eternal life cannot—cannot by definition—end. Believers do not see death. Do not taste death. Our Bodies Die, But We Do Not Our bodies die. They lie—looking like they are sleeping, which is why the New Testament sometimes calls death falling asleep—they lie in the grave until the last trumpet. "For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52). But when our bodies die, we do not die. We have passed from death to life. Eternal life. Unbroken, unending life. What that means is this: When we were born again, we received the gift of life. Spiritual life (John 3:6–8). When we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive (Ephesians 2:4–5). This new life is eternal life. In this new spiritual life, we are able to fellowship with God, know God, experience God, speak with God, hear from God through his word, sense the love of God shed abroad in our hearts (Romans 5:5). This is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Unending Life of New Birth This fellowship that we enjoy with God cannot be ended. It cannot be broken. It is eternal. When our bodies die, we do not experience any break in our fellowship with God through Christ. Our fellowship, in fact, in that instant is perfected (Hebrews 12:23). The life we have with Christ in God today, because of the new birth, will never end. We will not see the end of it. And we will not taste the end of it. Because there is no end of it. We will come back in a moment and talk about some implications of this for how we live. But let's take a look just briefly at the majesty of the person who has spoken these words to us and who has made this eternal life possible. Mocked for This Promise His adversaries mock him because of this promise (are you?). Verses 52–53: Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, "If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death." Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be? The answer to this question comes in two stages, both of them are breathtaking, and will eventually get Jesus killed for blasphemy. You need to realize that as you hear this, you face the same choice they did—either he is a blasphemer or he is God. An Answer in Two Stages Stage one is verses 54–56: Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.' But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." He what? Abraham saw my day. He saw the time when I was alive and reigning. It was my day. The day of my rule and glory. He saw it. He rejoiced. Commentators go all over the map trying to decide what vision or promise or event this refers to in Abraham's life. We don't know. And Jesus didn't pause to explain, because these adversaries didn't care either. They saw the implication and pressed in on it. Which leads to stage two in the answer to their question: Who do you make yourself out to be? Stage two is verses 57–59: So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple." There it is—the clearest, most forthright claim in this Gospel that Jesus is Yahweh, the God of Israel, the great "I am" of Exodus 3:14 and the prophets. If he only wanted to claim pre-existence, he could have said, "Before Abraham was, I was." But he means to say more than mere pre-existence. He says, "Before Abraham was, I am." Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.' And he said, 'Say this to the people of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you."'" Eternally Relevant The implications of this are staggering for your life and for this world and for eternity. We will never exhaust the implications and the relevance this truth for all eternity. But the one focus of its relevance in this passage for us in this message is: Because Jesus is God, his work on the cross and his word of promise will be totally successful. So that when he says, "You will never see death," you will never see death. God has spoken. And his word never fails. Yahweh promises, "My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose" (Isaiah 46:10)—that is what it means to be God. He speaks and it is. And Jesus is God. So when he promises in verse 51, "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death," that person will never see death! One Massive Application Let's end with one huge implication for our lives now. Hebrews 2:14–15 describes the effect of Jesus' death in our place. Listen how he puts it: Since therefore the children [that's us] share in flesh and blood [since we are human], he himself likewise partook of the same things [he became human], so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death The writer to the Hebrews says that the whole human race is "subject to lifelong slavery through the fear of death." In 1973, Ernest Becker wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book called The Denial of Death. His thesis agreed with Hebrews: The main thesis of this book is that the fear of death haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity—activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man. (New York: Free Press, 1973, page xvii) Fear of Death Is a Slave Master Becker had no answer for the massive human denial of death. The answer of Jesus is that he was the great I AM from all eternity, and that he became a mortal man so that he could die for sin and destroy in death the one who has the power of death, and rise again triumphant over sin and death. And in this way free us from the life-long bondage of the fear of death. Hebrews and Becker both say that the fear of death produces a pervasive, lifelong bondage—even when we don't realize it, fear is haunting our choices, making us cautious, wary, restrained, confined, narrow, tight, robbing us of risk and adventure and dreams for the sake of Christ and his kingdom and the cause of love in the world. Without our even knowing it, fear of death is a slave master binding us with invisible ropes, confining us to small, safe, innocuous, self-centered ways of life. Jesus Sets Us Free Becker has no solution for this bondage, but Jesus does. "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." Or as he says in John 8:32, "You will know the truth [about death], and the truth will set you free." The world desperately needs the courage and the Christ of fearless Christians who know they will never taste death. Be one. © Desiring God

Substitute Identities: Free//Servant SUBSTITUTE IDENTITIES: FREE AND SERVANT Story of me at Glorietta. “Johnny.” The power of having a group as a teenager. Jocks. Geeks. Popular kids. Punks. Artists. Hipsters. Danger of latching onto anyone who will accept you. How will you ever be happy? Content in your own skin? The world tells us we will be happy once we and others accept who we are. And who are we? Our sexuality, our profession, being a dad or mom, being a spouse. We are free to choose who we are, and our identity can then be anchored on that choice. We will only find happiness and peace when we set the true north of our life in our identity with Christ. Who you are in Christ is unchangeable and nonnegotiable. Sermon series: 8 substitute identities that masquerade as true identities. 2 Corinthians 5:16-17: you are a new creation! The first substitute identity: freedom. Our world tells us that a core part of our identity is that we are free. We are free to choose who we are. As children, we are told that we can be whatever we want to be. Story of first day of high school. The goodness of freedom. There is something beautiful in that encouragement. Many of us had our identities formed with this sense of unbounded possibilities. There is nothing we couldn’t do if we put our minds to it. As Americans, we value our autonomy and push back against those who deign to try to restrict our freedom. In Christ, though, we learn that our freedom comes through our relationship to Christ: specifically, our enslavement to Christ. We are called by the Servant to be his servants. John 8:31-36: The Pharisees: “We already have freedom! We don’t need your freedom!” Jesus: “You aren’t free.” Jesus ignores the cultural farce (Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Rome!) and goes straight for the spiritual. You aren’t free, you are slaves. Who are you? Disciples. Sons. The house is freedom. The danger with freedom is what it is used for. Freedom for freedom’s sake is a master. Freedom for my own sake is a problem because I’m a sinner. In becoming Christ’s we sacrifice our freedom. We squirm when God calls us to be his servants, but being slaves of the King gives us purpose and value. The freedom we have in Christ is for the sake of others. When we understand who we are serving and why we are serving him, our service is transformed. We have a role in the grandest enterprise in the history of the universe: the Kingdom of God! 6/6/2021 Substitute Identities: Free//Servant Follower after follower of Jesus, when naming their credentials mentions their servanthood as part of their identity. Paul does so in Romans 1:1: “Paul, a servant[a] of Christ Jesus,” and Phil 1:1 “Paul, a servant[a] of Christ Jesus,” and Titus 1:1: “Paul, a servant[a] of God…”. James does so in James 1:1: “James, a servant[a] of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter does so in 2 Peter 1:1: “Simeon[a] Peter, a servant[b] and apostle of Jesus Christ.” Jude does so in Jude 1:1: “Jude, a servant[a] of Jesus Christ…” We introduce with honorifics: NY Times best seller! CEO! President! Influencer! We demand our freedoms and then we demand others cater to us. Jesus transforms his disciples into those who give up their freedoms. They do so because of Jesus. Jesus gave up his freedoms for our sake. Phil 2:7. Jesus is a servant. The question, then, is, what are we servants for? John 13:14-17: wash feet because I wash feet. Servant of the servant. Matthew 23:11: The greatest among you shall be your servant. When Paul writes the church at Corinth, he is struggling with a church that doesn’t trust him. There are those who trust him, but they trust him as a figurehead. Their eyes are set on the flesh. 1 Cor 3:4-9: God’s work matters, not ours. 1 Cor 4:1. Paul takes it a step further. He makes himself a servant to those he serves. 1 Cor 9:19. Ps 84:10: For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. When you become a slave you experience Christ’s freedom. True freedom. John 8:31-32 Those in jail who had lived free until they were confined to a 6’x 8’ cell and then they experienced true freedom. We experience true freedom in Christ and as we step into our identity as servants of Christ. How do we step into this? 1) Give yourself to Christ. Jesus gave himself as a lamb to the slaughter. 2) Release your demands. Release what you demand. Delight in losing an argument. 3) Serve: we are contributors, not consumers. 6/6/2021 Substitute Identities: Free//Servant a. Serving siblings, serving kids, foster care, Gospel Rescue. Day Camp service. 6/6/2021 How will you ever be happy? Content in your own skin? The world tells us we will be happy once we and others accept who we are. And who are we? Our sexuality, our profession, being a dad or mom, being a spouse. We are free to choose who we are, and our identity can then be anchored on that choice. We will only find happiness and peace when we set the true north of our life in our identity with Christ. Who you are in Christ is unchangeable and nonnegotiable. www.newlifetucson.com .

Death Is Certain…but God - Psalm 49 - Skip Heitzig [MUSIC PLAYING] Would you please turn in your Bibles to the book of Psalms? Psalm 49. Not a well-known Psalm, but after today, that will change, I hope, with us. Psalm 49. We're continuing the series called But God, as we'll see represented here in a moment. There was an elderly man who was feeling his age and complaining. He said, I sure've gotten old. I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement, new knees, I've fought prostate cancer and diabetes, I'm half blind, I can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine take off. I take 40 different medications that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. I have bouts with dementia, I have poor circulation, I can hardly feel my hands and feet anymore. I can't remember if I'm 85 or 92. I've lost all my friends, but thank God, I still have my driver's license. [LAUGHTER] Uh-oh. Look out. You know? At some point, we all have to face our own mortality, that we're not going to live in these physical bodies on this planet forever. In fact, wouldn't you agree that the most basic thing about life is death? Psalm 49 addresses that. It's one of the most practical psalms in all of the Book of Psalms. And you could even title this Psalm, The Brevity of Life and the Certainty of Death. The Brevity of Life and the Certainty of Death. That is its theme. Years ago, when Dr. Billy Graham was still alive, he was at a university. And a student asked him a question. Dr. Graham, what is the most surprising thing you have discovered about life? And he quickly quipped back, "its brevity." And all of us who are getting older have the experience that time seems to accelerate the older you get, right? You look back, where did that time go? And even James in the New Testament said, "For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes." If you're around these parts in the Fall of the year, down in the valley, on cold mornings, when it's just a little bit moist-- that's really about all it is, a little bit moist-- you get a morning fog that settles in the valley. But stand around and wait 10 minutes because as soon as the sun comes out, that vapor quickly dissipates. But God has a solution to that for us. And it's suggested here in this Psalm. Let's get a sneak peek by going to a couple of verses that we'll look at in just a little bit, verse 14. "Like sheep they are laid in the grave, death shall feed on them, the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning, and their beauty shall be consumed in the grave far from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall receive me." Just a little background on Psalms. Did you know Psalms is the longest book in scripture? That is, it has more chapters, 150 chapters, psalms, are written in this book. The longest chapter in the Bible is found in Psalms, Psalm 119. The shortest chapter in the Bible is also found in this book, Psalm 117. Only two verses. But the Book of Psalms was used in ancient times in Israel as sort of like a song book, the hymn book for temple worship. To this day, Jews will sing or recite the psalms in their liturgy of worship throughout the year. And it was thus used in ancient times in the temple. But Psalm 49, in particular, gives us the basic reality of life. In fact, you could sum up the entire Psalm this way. We live precariously, we die certainly, we must plan accordingly. That sums up the entire message of Psalm 49. Do you ever think about your own death? Most people don't. Most people get creeped out by it or somebody brings it up like a parent or grandparent, and somebody in the family goes, no, don't even talk about that, I don't want to discuss it. That's been the trend. In fact, a CBS poll said that most Americans, 54%, don't spend much time or any time thinking, thinking, about their own death. But that number used to be much higher. There is a growing trend-- and it's a good trend-- where people are saying, you know? We should at least think and talk about the inevitable. That trend, as I said, is growing, where people are confronting death in more than just abstract terms. So, for example, there is a phenomenon called death dinners. Oh, boy. Come to my house for a death dinner. Yeah, we're going to sit around and eat, we're going to talk about dying. But they have become popular. People gather to talk about the inevitability of the end of their life. Then, there is something called death salons, where you sit around and talk over death, dying, end of life issues, over craft beer. I can only imagine that conversation gets more interesting as the night goes on. Then there are a little over 100 cities in America that have death cafes, same principle, where you sit around over tea, coffee, cookies, something sweet, to talk about a sour subject. And then I discovered a YouTube series on social-- not on social media, on YouTube-- called Ask a Mortician. And it's interesting. It's this young gal, who is a mortician, professionally trained, that's what she does for a living. And she brings up these unsavory topics and talks about them in a series of videos called Ask a Mortician. And her idea is to help people accept their own mortality. So it's becoming more popular. I think it's good to think about death. I think it's good to talk about death, but it's even better to prepare for death. To get ready for it. Some years ago, I buried a dear lady from this congregation. She was struck by a disease that took her very quickly. I had talked to her and her family. I prayed with her, she went into the hospital, she deteriorated rapidly. And I was asked to come by the family to her room because they said she's not going to be around much longer, would you just come in one last time and pray for her? So I came in. It was in the night. The room was dark. She was lying down quietly in repose. The family was gathered around, and I anticipated a very solemn affair. I walked in the room. Her husband whispered in her ear that I had come. As soon as she heard that I was in the room, she opened her eyes, sat up in bed, raised her arm to heaven, and she said, I'm ready to go. And I left that room thinking, I want to die like that. It was inspiring to me. So let's look at this Psalm a little more carefully. And let me give you what are some bottom line realities about life and death and about being prepared for it. First of all, life is unstable. Life is unstable. Look at verse 1. Hear this. "All peoples, give here all inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor, together. My mouth shall speak wisdom and the meditation of my heart shall give understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will disclose my dark saying on a harp." So think of a musician picking up the instrument and he says, I'm going to disclose a riddle, I'm going to talk about an unsavory topic, and I'm going to set it to music. That's the idea of this. Verse 5. "Why should I fear in the days of evil when the iniquity at my heels surrounds me?" Now, in those five verses that we just read there's some language used. We could easily skip over it, but we should notice it. For example, in verse 1, notice the contrast between high and low, speaking of one's status in life. Also, the words rich and poor. You know what that is. In verse 5, he mentions days of evil, bad days, where iniquity is at my heels. So this poetic Psalm points to life's instability and uncertainty in talking about these common experiences. Somebody might be high, that is, powerful, somebody might be low, that is, not so influential, in fact, even beggarly. One might be rich one might be poor. And then, we all have good days and we all have bad days, what the Psalmist call the evil days. And then, some days even feel like you're being chased and you can barely keep up. That would be summed up by the phrase, "iniquity is at my heels." You just feel like you can't get ahead of it. It's funny. Malcolm Muggeridge once said, I have one foot in heaven and one foot on Earth, and the foot on Earth is on a banana peel. It's very slippery around here. And it's this kind of instability in life that really bummed out Solomon. When he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, he looked around, he observed life, and he used the words vain, vanity. It's all emptiness. And in fact, it turned him into a fatalist. In Ecclesiastes Chapter 6, verse 12, Solomon writes "For who knows what is good for a man in life, all the days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow. Who can tell a man what's going to happen after him under the sun?" You don't want that guy as your counselor. But he's discovered the truth of this Psalm, life is unstable. Now, in the New Testament-- we're dealing with the old-- but in the New Testament, there are three different Greek words that are used that are all translated into one English word, "life." It's always fascinated me that Greek can be so detailed and English is sort of so sparse. So we call life-- we use that term, but in Greek, there were three different experiences all translated in English "life." The first two are unstable, the third is stable. Let me explain. The first word, the most basic word in Greek for the word life is the word "bias." We might see it and spell it or pronounce it "bi-as" it's where we get our word "biology" from. It is physical life, it's life on the external plane, the physical plane only. It's focusing on externals. And this is where most people spend most of their time, energy, effort, attention, money, how do I look? How is my hair? I'm trying to lose weight. We spend most of our thought processes on bias, biological life. But I think you'll agree that physical life is very unstable, why? Because a sudden illness can happen. A virus, a bug, a test, a single diagnosis from a physician and everything changes. Or an auto accident and everything changes. I had a friend once, part of our flock, young, healthy, hardworking. But then, one day he didn't feel good. He went to the doctor. The doctor announced to him he had an advanced stage of brain cancer. He died very quickly thereafter, leaving a wife, children, very difficult time. To compound that, that widow, several months later was in an auto accident and she died. It was like sorrow upon sorrow because of the instability of physical life. There's a second word the Greek New Testament uses, translated in English "life" and it's the word "psyche." "Psyche" is where we get the word "psyche" or "psychology" or "psychological," it means your inward life, your personality, how you process thoughts. It speaks of the inner person and what you think. But life is also unstable because you can have peace one day and be filled with anxiety the next day. You can be happy one day, sad the next. And many people are alive physically, but they are tormented mentally. They have absolutely no peace of mind. So those are two types of life that are unstable. There is a third type, illustrated by a third word, and that is stable. It is the word "zoe." "Zoe" is the word for "life" in Greek, but it is usually translated, "eternal life" or "everlasting life." It's life on a spiritual plane. It is a theological term that shows up 143 times in the New Testament. It describes a quality-- not just a quantity of life, but quality of life. That is, it's not speaking about life in the then and there, far in the future, it's about life in the here and now that will follow you into the future. Jesus said, "Whoever hears my word and believes has--" not will have, has right now-- present tense, has-- "--everlasting life." Now, that new life comes from the new birth. Jesus said you must be born again. And when you are born again, and you're not just living biological or psychological, but spiritual life, now you have a sense of stability. Other than that, life is unstable. Second, bottom line reality about life and death this Psalm uncovers, not only is life unstable, but death is universal. We already read this, but look in verse 1 again, and notice how the Psalm kind of cuts across all different categories of geography. Hear this. All peoples. Not just my people, not just my Jewish people, not just my neighbors in Jerusalem. He's addressing a message to all people. "Give here all inhabitants of the world, both high and low, rich and poor" together. So it crosses all social strata, as well as geographical areas. He has a message for everyone. And what is that message? Simple. We're all going to die. That's the message. We're all going to die. No one gets out of this alive, and it's time we ought to think that through. That death is the great leveler for all of us. Verse 6. Those who trust in their wealth, materialism, and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him. For the redemption of their souls is costly. And it shall cease forever that he should continue to live eternally and not see the pit. For he sees wise men die likewise the fool, and the senseless person perish and they leave their wealth to others. Now, you're reading this and may be thinking, this guy is like a bummer of a worship leader. If this is the song he's singing that day in the temple, if this is a musician setting this to a tune, this guy's fatalistic. But he's not fatalistic, he's realistic. He's realistic. Hebrews 9:27. "It is appointed to every man once to die, and after this, the judgment." Did you know that death is mentioned 394 times? 394 times. You can't escape. It's mentioned that many times in the Scriptures. One of the most famous-- you all know this if you're as old as I am, you remember a song by the Byrds that was based on Ecclesiastes 3. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die. [SINGING] "A time to be born" I won't-- I'll spare you. But it comes to my mind, I think of that. Those who are born will all die. Now, those are realities that are happening simultaneously. We know this to be true. 4.3 people are born into our world every second. Two people die every second. So more than twice are being born onto the Earth than are leaving the Earth. What that means is, every hour, 6,316 people die. In the next hour, over 6,000 people will die on Earth. All of that to say the simple reality of this Psalm, death is a part of life. And I'll get very graphic. One day, your home will be six feet under some plot of ground, as will mine be. So you can stay healthy until then, you can run, you can take vitamins you can pump iron you can count your calories, you can stretch your face past your ear lobes, but you're going to lose. One day, you will keep an appointment with death. A Washington DC undertaker signs all of his correspondence, "eventually yours." Now, verse 7, "None of them can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him." Go down to verse 11, we didn't finish that up. Their thought-- that is, these secular-minded unbelievers who have no thought for God, their thought is that their homes, houses will last forever. Their dwelling places to all generations. They call their lands after their own names. Isn't it funny how town have names of people who started them as settlers years ago? The name still sticks. But even us, we who-- I was going to say-- own or are making payments on properties, our name is written on the title. They call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless, man though in honor does not remain. He is like the beasts that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish. And of their posterity who approve their sayings. So not even the wealthiest person with access to the world's best health care can escape death. People who tend to rely on wealth or status, or what they have in their family bank, to rely on that, it's an exercise in futility. Why? Because it says, you can't redeem yourself, you can't redeem anyone else. All the money in the world can't buy life. It always amazes me-- and I've noticed this is a trend-- I've noticed this in every generation, that the wealthiest people on earth get to a point where they have so much stuff. And then, one day it dawns on them. I'm going to die. And then they say, well, I have a lot of money, maybe I don't have to die. Maybe I could invest in something that figures out a way to beat death. I kid you not. It's usually a mental disease of the very, very wealthy. And I was reading an article that cited an article in the New Yorker magazine, the article is entitled The God Pill, Silicon Valley's quest for eternal life. And the article talked about Google's co-founder. You know Google. Everybody Googles something. It's a search engine. Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, along with wealthy entertainers, musicians, movie stars, along with Nobel Prize winning scientists, are collaborating in the launch of medicine's grand challenge in health and longevity, distributing $25 million to, as one doctor put it, end aging forever. Good luck. But this anti-aging research campaign by the co-founder of Google. He was speaking to a group of people, and with a straight face, he said this-- and I quote-- "No. I'm not actually planning to die." Close quote. Now, I got to believe that one day, Sergey is going to be very disappointed. As he finds out he, too, has an appointment with death. It is appointed to every man once to die. And after this, the judgment. That's the point. It's one of the points of Psalm 49, that every kind of carbon-based life will perish. Be it man or be it beast. What does that mean to us? Simply, we should be aware of it. And we should be ready for it. Because once you cross the threshold of what we call death, and your body stops and begins to decay, your soul lives on. The question is, where? And that ought to bother some people to answer that question. I always loved that story that Paul Harvey used to tell when he was on the radio. He told so many good stories. But he told the story about a man who was driving his car, lost control, and went into a ditch, and hit sign, a pole, and it was a gas station sign off of the freeway. He was rendered unconscious, so he slumped over his wheel unconscious. He had hit a gas station sign, as I mentioned. He is unconscious, didn't see this happen, but it was a Shell gas station. And the S fell off upon impact. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] So when he wakes up and he looks up, he sees the sign, "Hell, open 24 hours." What is he thinking? Life is unstable, death is universal. A third major truth of this Psalm is the best. And that is, redemption is possible. Back down to verse 14 where we started a moment ago. "Like sheep they are laid in the grave. Death shell feed on them." It's irony, really, because sheep graze, but here it says, "death will feed on them. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning and their beauty shall be consumed in the grave." No matter how good you look, you won't look good for long. "Their beauty shall be consumed in the grave far from their dwelling, but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall receive me." Here's one of those great "but God" sentences in the Scripture. One of the best statements ever. One of the most faith-filled declarations ever to be found in scripture. "But God will redeem my soul from the grave." I want you to compare something. Look at verse 7. I noticed this, after reading this several times, it took awhile. Verse 7. "None of them can by any means redeem his brother." Verse 15 but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave." You get the message? You can't redeem anybody, you can't redeem yourself. The word "redeem" means to set free by paying a price, that's the language of redemption. You set a slave free by coughing up money and you buy that freedom for this slave. Usually, you own him to yourself, but you have purchased his freedom and you can let him go. So the thought is, you can't pay a price to free anyone. God did pay the price to free everyone. God will redeem my soul. So you can't buy your way out of death. You can't buy your way into heaven, but Jesus, by his death, makes your death temporary. And with that, gives you a ticket to heaven. You can't get out of death. There's only one way to escape death. And that is to believe in the Lord of life. Now, there was a lawyer one time who was on his deathbed. And he said to his wife, honey, bring me a Bible. She was shocked because he never read the Bible. He never really cared much about biblical things. So she found a Bible, blew the dust off of it, gave it to him, he started looking at it. She came into the room some time later. He was just engrossed, poring over the scripture, turning the pages, page after page. And she finally said, what are you doing? And he said, I'm looking for loopholes. [AUDIENCE LAUGHING] There are none. The only loophole to death is to have a relationship with the one who holds the keys of life and death. That is, the Lord Jesus Christ. [APPLAUSE] Now, look at verse 15. Let's just drill down a little deeper into that. That's worth unpacking. "But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall receive me." I know this is poetic and lyrical, but it's also highly theological. It expresses faith in God for personal redemption and for eventual resurrection. So let's break it up into three different phrases. The first phrase is, "but God will redeem my soul." In other words, God will provide payment for my soul. That's what redeem means. He'll provide payment for my soul. For us, when did that happen? At the cross. At the cross, payment was made. All of our sins laid on Jesus. The payment of blood, a perfect life, a sinless life, and atoning death. Payment was made on the cross. So he will redeem my soul. God will provide payment for my soul. Second phrase. "He will redeem me from the power of the grave." So the thought, there, God's redemption includes giving me power over death. And then, look at that last phrase. "For he shall receive me." To me, that indicates that God plans to resurrect me at some point after death. He'll receive me. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples? I'm going to prepare a place for you and if I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be with me. You'll be received. You'll be in His presence. Same thought in Psalm 73. David writes, "you will guide me with your counsel and afterward receive me into glory." Now, some translations-- because receive means you'll just take me with you, or you'll just bring me, take me, invite me. They just translate this, "for he will take me" not "he will receive me" but "he will take me." Now, that got my attention. I'm going to jog your memory. Because back in Genesis chapter 5, there's this guy named Enoch. And there's a short little verse, "for Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him." It's an odd rendering. It almost sounds like a guy who's walking around one day on this Earth, and then he's not. And God just took him from Earth to heaven. Turns out, that's exactly what it means. Because the commentary on that is found in the New Testament Book of Hebrews chapter 11, where the author says, "by faith, Enoch was taken away--" listen, "so that he did not see death." And he was not found because God had taken him. All of these verses that I've mentioned speak about being in God's presence physically. Not just spiritually, not just, yeah, my spirit sort of floats. Yeah, your spirit will be with God. But at some point in the future, your physical body that decays in a grave will be raised from that grave, you will be transformed. And in actuality, in physicality, you will be in the physical, actual, literal presence of God. That's why Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. Heaven is a real place. In the Old Testament, Job-- this is one of the best scriptures ever in the Bible, ever, ever, ever. Job 19. Job was a person who lived during the patriarchal period, so that's one of the oldest texts ever. Job said this. I know that my Redeemer lives and He shall stand at last upon the Earth, and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh, I will see God. I will behold him with my eyes. My eyes, and not another. So here's Job centuries before a Redeemer came. Centuries before the gospel was ever articulated, and he believes in physical resurrection. You know? Sometimes, somebody will say, well, I can't be there Tuesday, but I'm with you in spirit. What do they mean by that? I'm thinking good thoughts about you. I'm not with you there physically, but while you're doing that, I'm over here and I'm thinking of you. You're in my heart, you're in my mind. I'm with you in spirit. But you will physically, at some point in the future, be resurrected to new life. What that means is, to shorten it up, death is not the final word. Jesus is the final word because He said I am the Resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me will never die. Even experiencing physical death, it's like this momentary beep and it ushers you somewhere else. So life is unstable, death is universal, redemption is possible. Now we want to bring this to a conclusion, which brings a fourth and kind of a final undergirding bottom line reality, and that is, confidence is conditional. Verse 16 begins the conclusion. Do not be afraid when one becomes rich. Now, it implies someone other than you, your neighbor. Somebody is getting a lot more than you're getting, thus, more powerful. Don't be afraid when somebody becomes rich. When the glory of his house is increased, for when he dies, he shall carry nothing away. His glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lives, he blesses himself, for men will praise you when you do well for yourself, he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see light. A man who is in honor yet does not understand is like the beasts that perish. That's the conclusion of this worship song. And the conclusion is simple, it's an obvious conclusion. Don't be jealous of people who have a lot, because people who have a lot, when they die, they leave a lot. Like the millionaire who died, and somebody said, how much did he leave? And somebody said, every cent. You can't take any of it with you. I've always been fascinated at Egyptian mentality burying their pharaohs. You know? They buried them in gold sarcophagi with ornate furniture and jewels and all of the accouterments of this life in a tomb, because they actually believed that they're going to enjoy them in the afterlife. Again, a great disappointment. Job put it this way. Naked, I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart. That's what Paul was thinking when he wrote to Timothy, 1 Timothy, Chapter 6, verse 7, "for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it." I wonder if you've ever noticed, but on the back of a dollar bill, on the right hand side of the reverse or the back side of a dollar bill, is an eagle. Shows the wings of an eagle. Did you know that's biblical? Did you know that's prophetic? But listen how. This is Proverbs, 23. "Do not overwork to be rich because of your own understanding cease, for riches certainly make themselves wings and they fly away like an eagle toward heaven." There was a man who said, you know? People say, money talks, the only thing that's ever said to me is, bye. [AUDIENCE LAUGHING] So I just find it fascinating that the back of every dollar has this eagle that's like, see ya. You don't hold on to it long. Now, Verse 20, the last verse, gives a call for us to understand something. A man who is in honor, yet does not understand, is like the beasts that perish. What does he want us to understand? Simple. Trusting anyone or anything other than God is foolish. Trusting wealth, trusting materialism, trusting a person, trusting an institution, trusting anything other than God is foolish. You say, well, those are strong words. Foolish. Well, it's actually used in the Psalm, in verse 13. "This is the way of those who are foolish." Remember Jesus told a story about a wealthy entrepreneur. He made so much money and he was very successful. And he went on a building spree, but he suddenly died, so this guy had all this stuff and goes, I don't know what I'm going to do with all my stuff, I guess I'll just build bigger warehouses to store my stuff because I've got so much stuff. So he did that and he said, now I'm at a place in life where I can say to my soul, soul, take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. Problem is, he died suddenly. Jesus said, God said to him, you fool, this night, your soul will be required of you. Then, whose will those things be by which you have provided? And when you understand that, the temporary nature of life, the certainty of death, the spiritual reality of everlasting life. When you understand that, it gives you a confidence because you have stability. And that stability breeds real confidence. And confidence is conditional. Not everybody has it. The believer has it, why? Because death isn't the end of the road, it's the bend of the road. It's just a bend in the road. It's a portal that's leading you somewhere else. It's the doorway to life. It's just a little blip on the radar screen. One author said it this way. Only on this side of the curtain is death our enemy. Just beyond the curtain, the monster turns out to be our friend. The label death is still on the bottle, but the contents are eternal life. Death is our friend because it reminds us that heaven is near. How near? It's as near as a heartbeat, as near as an auto accident, as near as a stray bullet, as near as a plane crash. If our eyes could see the spiritual world, we might find that we are already at its gates. And I think it's actually safe to say that. In a room of a group this size, some of us are at the gates, some of us won't be here in a year. We don't know when our appointment to die is, but will not be late for it, whenever that is. And it could be that we're at the gates. So let me take all that we have said and boil it down to an irreducible minimum. I like to do that. And let me put it to you this way. If there is no hereafter, then nothing matters. It's why many philosophers turn into fatalists. It doesn't matter. Because if you just sort of live biologically and consciously, but then afterwards you cease to exist, then there's no purpose to life and nothing at all matters. So if there is no hereafter, then nothing matters. But if there is a hereafter, then nothing else matters. And that becomes the central issue and focus that we need to address. And we need to do it here and now, on this Earth. To think clearly and soberly about life, death, judgment, eternity. Let's pray. Lord, it does matter. It does matter. You have revealed yourself in a document that has been scrupulously looked at and criticized and criticisms have been overturned time and time and time again. More than that, your spirit has changed so many of our lives. Like the testimony we heard before the baptism today. Incredible, your power to change a human life. The power of the gospel still as powerful today as ever before. Lord, we know that our life here is very precarious. We don't know how long we're going to be on this planet. And, Lord, you could come and you could rapture us, but barring that, we're going to die. And we're going to be buried. But those realities exist. We can be. It's possible for us to find redemption. You set us free from the slavery of sin, and then you promise a future time when our bodies will be resurrected, transformed, suited for an eternal environment, and we will live forever. That gives us confidence, Lord. We want to understand that. I just pray for those who haven't, but now they're beginning to. Maybe you've opened up their heart, you've opened up their eyes. Lord, I pray that you draw them to yourself. In this moment, where we're kind of processing all this, I want to just ask you a question, and that is, are you certain? Because you can be. Do you know for sure that when you die, you will be in God's presence because he has redeemed your soul, thus he will receive you into His presence and into His glory? If you're not certain about it, if you go, I hope so, it's just not good enough. You can have real certainty. And it comes from a conscious decision, where you realize, I need God, I need him because everything in this life is just sort of turned up empty for me. It's not what I thought it would be. I've drunk deeply of the wells of this world and I've come up thirsty. That's by design. God designed this world so you would never be satisfied by it. But only in a real relationship with Him. And He can change your life. So I want to give you that opportunity before we close. If you're willing to turn your life over to Christ, though you may be a wonderful person, a religious person, a churchgoing person, but you've never surrendered your life to Christ personally, and you're not certain of that relationship, I want you to be sure. Or if you've wandered away from Him or you remember some previous experience, but it's not real today, you're not walking with Jesus right now, you come home to Him. You'd be forgiven by Him. If you want that and you're willing to receive Jesus as your Savior. Our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed. I'm going to leave mine open and I'm going to ask you to raise your hand right now. And what you're saying by raising your hand is, I want to do this now. I want to give my life to Jesus right now. I want the hope of heaven right now. Skip, here's my hand. Pray for me. And I'd love to pray for you. I just need to know who I'm praying for. So would you raise that hand up? Keep it up for a moment, so I can acknowledge you, if you don't mind. God bless you right there to my left, and right up here in the front, and right there in the middle, and again, in the middle. I see your hands in the back on the aisle. Got it. Anybody else? Right up here in the front. On the side, a couple of you. Anybody else. Right there in the middle. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. I see your hand. Many all around. If you're in the balcony, please raise that hand up. Yes, sir. Toward the back toward the back on my right. Father, we thank You for every person, every hand, every struggle, every sorrow. There's not a perfect person on this platform, there's not a perfect person in this congregation. We're talking right now to you. The only person who is perfect is God because we are not-- you know our need and our plight, and you are so willing to forgive and erase when we acknowledge that we need you and we're willing to repent and turn to you. Thank you for these who are. I pray. Lord, that they would have a new level of joy, a real freedom, and a new confidence. In Jesus' name, Amen. Let's all stand on our feet. We're closing this service. I'm going to ask those of you who raised your hands, and I saw a lot, so we're going to wait for everyone. We're going to do this quickly. If you raised your hand, get up from where you are standing right now, find the nearest aisle, and come stand up here. I'm going to lead you in a prayer. We're going to make this deal, this transaction before heaven. [APPLAUSE] You just come up and stand right here and give your life to Christ. It'll take just a moment. Every person Jesus called, he called them publicly. And I want you to come and give your life to Christ publicly. Do it right now. We're going to wait for you, but you come. If you're in the middle of an aisle, say, excuse me, and they'll let you out. But you come. Don't say, I raised my hand, that's good enough. No, no. You come. Come and let us celebrate you and encourage you. That's right. Listen to it all. [APPLAUSE CONTINUES] [ACOUSTIC MUSIC PLAYING] You are welcome. You are welcome. You are welcome. No problem. [SINGING] Lift up your face. You're not too far. Anybody else? Just come. Will you raise your hand or not? [SINGING] As you are. Come as you are. See, I'm really close. I hope you're not uncomfortable. Would you please scoot in a little bit more? I just want to see eye to eye. God loves every single one of you. Every single one. Now, I'm going to lead you in a prayer. I'm going to ask you to pray this out loud. After me, say these words from your heart. Mean them. Deep inside of you, pretend if you can. Nobody hears, it's you and God. And you're giving Him your life. You're giving Him access. You're giving Him control. You're turning your life over to Him. So I'll pray. You pray out loud out for me. Say Lord, I give you my life. Lord, I give you my life. I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. Please forgive me. I believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus. I believe He died on the cross. I believe He died on the cross. That He shed His blood for me. That He shed His blood for me. And that He rose again from the dead. And that He rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin. I turn from my sin. I repent of it. I repent of it. I turn to Jesus as my Savior. I turn to Jesus as my savior. I want to follow Him as my Lord. I want to follow Him as my Lord. Help me to do that. Help me to do that. In Jesus' name. Amen. Music to my ears. We have all heard the famous Benjamin Franklin quip, “ In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes .” Given death’s sure nature, why is it that most people try to avoid talking about it? And why do most people place all their energy and stock in this life alone? Death is the enemy of us all (see 1 Corinthians 15:26 ), and it is the assured fate of us all.  But God  changes this enemy into a friend and provides confidence to face it. www.skipheitzig.com

Speaker 1: Heavenly Father, as hard as this is for me, I am asking you to search me. Search me, God, and know my heart. God, test my motives. Reveal to me my anxious thoughts. Show me anything in me that offends you. God, I want to see in me what you see in me, so I can become more like Jesus. God, I ask you to search me. Craig Groeschel: I am very excited to dive into this three part message series. I want to welcome all our churches. Excuse me. All of our Network Churches, everybody at Church Online. The reason I'm really excited about this, and I just want to tell you upfront is I have this very real sense that for some of you, one of the next three messages will become what I call an anchor message. What is an anchor message? As I look back over my relationship with God over the past almost three decades, there are maybe three or four different messages that I remember when I heard that, everything changed. I call it an anchor message. When I heard that one message and was in God's presence, my life really took a different direction. I really believe that for a significant portion of you, one of the next three weeks has the potential to be an anchor message, where you hear from God in such a way that it impacts your life, and the trajectory of your life actually changes for the better. What we're going to do is we're really going to start praying three new prayers, and I want to warn you, these are not easy prayers. These are not safe prayers. These are not benign prayers. We're calling them dangerous prayers, but they're dangerous in a good way. In fact, if you ask my opinion, most people I know in this part of the world, most people's prayers are way too safe. What do we often pray for? God bless us. Safe? God help us. Good, but safe? God protect us as we travel. Doubly safe, right? What I want to do is I want to arm you with some prayers that are not safe to pray. In fact, just know going into them, when you pray these prayers, you're really asking God to do something that will often take you out of your comfort zone. Next week, for some of you, next week will be one of those anchor messages. We're going to talk about a very dangerous prayer, where we ask God to break us, break me, God. If you want to pray a dangerous prayer, you ask God to break you. That's the last thing any of us want, but, on the other side of brokenness, is a real intimacy with God and a dependence on him that you cannot get to any other way but through brokenness. Week number three, for some of you this will be it. It will change the direction of your life. We're going to pray send me. In other words, instead of saying, "God, I'll do what I want to do for you," we're going to say, "God, I'm signing a blank contract. Basically whatever, whenever, however, God, I'm available to you. Whatever you want to do, my life is yours. You send me." Today, we're going to start with an equally dangerous prayer, and we're going to look at a prayer that David prayed in Psalm 139. David prayed this after his enemies and God's enemies were on the attack, and accusing David of having wrong motives. Instead of saying, "No, no, no," and defending himself, he actually prayed a very dangerous prayer before God, when he asked God to search his heart. Psalm 139 will introduce our dangerous prayer for the day. I'll read verses twenty-three and twenty-four. Then I'm going to ask all of our churches to just say this prayer aloud the second time. This is what David prayed, a very dangerous prayer. He prayed, "Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me, and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." A very dangerous prayer. If you wouldn't mind at all of our churches, just to move our hearts toward prayer, let's just say this aloud together. "Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me, and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." In order to digest this, what I want to do is break this prayer down into four sub parts, and we'll talk through each of these, and this will arm and equip you to make this prayer a regular part of your prayer life. The first thing that David prays is this: Number one, he prays, "Search my heart." He says it very directly in verse twenty-three, "Search me, God, and know my heart." For some of you, you may look at that and go, "Now, why would we ask God to search our heart. He knows it, and I've got a good heart anyway." You've got a good heart, and I've got a good heart. We got a good heart, right? Actually, we need to understand that without Christ, we do not have a good heart. It's a very common saying. "Well, she's got a good heart." Actually, she's got a wicked heart, if you want to be completely accurate. Jeremiah 17:9 says this: "The human heart," is what? Let's all say it aloud. "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things," and what is it? "It is desperately wicked." Who really knows how bad it is? We need to understand that without Christ, our heart is not a good heart, that we deceive others, we deceive ourselves. In fact, we're all liars. How many of you are liars? Raise your hands. Raise them up. Leave them up for a second. Leave them up, if you will. Leave them up. Look at everybody's hands not up in the air. Just stare at them for a moment. Just go ahead and say it, "Liar, liar, pants on fire." We're all liars. We lie. We lie. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. I'm going to argue that often the most common lie that we tell is to ourselves. We lie to ourselves. The most common lie that most of us tell is to ourselves. The heart is deceitful. We deceive ourselves. We don't even know how bad we are. We lie to ourselves, like, "I don't need a lot. I don't need that much. Excuse me. [inaudible 00:06:17] I don't need that much. I'm only going to have one drink. Page 2 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message I'm only going to have too many drinks. I'm not full of pride. I'm not full of pride. I can't help it if I'm better than anybody else. I'm not full of pride. I don't lust. I don't lust at all. I just appreciate a nice, fine physique. I'm not materialistic. I just need nice things. I'm not a gossip. I never gossip. I'm just telling people so they can pray for all these people who are doing bad things." The heart is deceitful above all things, and we need a really dangerous prayer when we go before God and say, "Search my heart, God. Show me what is in there. Search my heart, oh God." In fact, I remember the first time I was exposed to this verse. I was in high school. I was in the UMYF. That was the name of our youth group, the most cutting edge title for any youth group in the history of the world. UMYF stood for United Methodist Youth Fellowship. That was a good title. In my UMYF, the youth pastors didn't last very long. They were there a year and they would go. We had this one old guy who came in. It seemed like he was only there for about six weeks or so, which is really disappointing to me because he almost reached me. I was a kid. I went to church, but I did not know Jesus personally. I was just going, playing four square, playing truth or dare in the back of the van on the way to the ski trip, which was awesome. Ask me the truth so you can get to the dare, so you can dare me to kiss the girl. I don't know where God was in that, but that's what happened in the back of the van at UMYF. That was all it was: four square champion, and it was all about the ranking of four square. This guy came in, and he had business to accomplish, and he was talking about God and how you could know God, and I was going, "Can you really?" It was intriguing to me. He read this verse, and he talked about David, search me, God, and how David had courage to pray this. I just remember going, "Wow, I kind of understand this," and he said, "I want you all to go take about half an hour and pray this prayer. Then when you pray, I want you to listen, and listen for God to speak to you." I was like, "Dude, maybe I could hear from God?" This was crazy, and so I went and sincerely prayed this prayer, "Search me, God. Know my heart. Test me, and show me anything that's offensive in me," and I prayed this prayer, and then I listened, and God said, "You have an amazing heart. You're the best kid I know. I can't believe I created you. You're so good." No. You know what happened is I'm praying this prayer, and I heard it ... It wasn't audible, but I had this overwhelming sense of this presence going, "You're faking it." I was like, "Oh, that's encouraging." But it was so true, and it might have been because I always wanted to wear Izod or Acosta, depending on what you call them, but we couldn't afford them, and so my mom would go to a garage sale and buy Izod socks and cut the alligator off and put it on a generic shirt. I was the guy with the crooked alligator going this way. Maybe that's why. I don't know. The real sense at that moment was, "I am faking it." I'm at this youth group, pretending like I'm a Christian, and I'm not. More so, I'm with my parents or Page 3 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message teachers and I'm one guy, and then I'm with my party friends and I'm somebody else. I'm with my athlete friends, I'm somebody. I'm with the girl ... I just was not ever true to who I was anywhere, and I was faking it. In this moment, I had this real sense and awareness of my sinfulness and my need for God, and I just remember being drawn to God. Somehow I managed to shake it off. He got fired. Maybe he was too excited about God for UMYF. I don't know, but he got fired, and I went on my life without God. When you pray, "Search my heart," it's a dangerous prayer, because God is going to show you things in your heart that are not pure. Not to be cruel, but to bring you into deeper intimacy with Him as his Holy Spirit transforms you to be conformed to the image of Christ. It's a dangerous prayer, you need to understand, but it's one that can make you so much closer to God. David prayed, "Search my heart." Then he prays essentially, "Reveal my fears. Reveal my fears." He says this in verse twenty-three, "Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me," and then know what? Let's all say it aloud, all over churches. He says, "And know my anxious thoughts. Know my anxious thoughts." What is it that makes you anxious? "Know my anxious thoughts." A lot of times, we don't even acknowledge them. We just think, "Well, everybody has to worry about this." What is that makes you afraid? I'm not talking about snakes and spiders, and the man behind the shower curtain who is there in the dark waiting for you when you when you come into the bathroom. I'm not talking about that guy. He might be there. He's never been there, but I check for him every time. If you ever think you're going to be him, just understand, I'm cocked and ready every single time, every single time, every single time. What is it that internally makes you afraid? What is that makes you anxious? Afraid of losing your job? Afraid of not getting married by such and such age? Afraid of being stuck in the marriage that you're in and it not getting any better? Afraid of the future, the unknown? Afraid of failing? Some people are afraid of succeeding. Afraid of loss? What if I lose somebody? What if I lose something that I value so dearly? Why does this matter? Why would we say, "God, show me my anxious thoughts?" I would argue because of this ... If you're taking notes, you can jot this down. Because what we fear the most reveals where we trust God the least. Think about that. What we fear the most reveals where we trust God the least. If I'm scared to death that my marriage isn't going to work, well, I'm not trusting God with my marriage. If I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to pay the bills, I'm not trusting God to be my provider. If I'm afraid that ... I got to keep my children safe. [inaudible 00:12:31] I'm not trusting my children to God. What you fear the most reveals where you trust God the least. "God, reveal my fears. Test me, God, and show me where my anxious thoughts fall." I prayed this prayer this week. Every day I started the day praying this prayer, dangerous prayer, "Search me, God. Know my heart. Reveal my anxious Page 4 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message thoughts," and what God showed me about what I fear the most is not something I'm really proud of, but I am scared to death of failing. If I succeed, it's often because I'm so driven by fear of failing, and I prayed through more of that, and I recognized actually what I fear is not just failing, but it's letting people down, and then I got to the deeper level as I was praying through it, and I realize I just have a massive fear of being inadequate, of not being enough, not being good enough, not being righteous enough, not being wise enough, not being whatever enough. This is my fear. This is a real issue, because in the church and in my role, I cannot be driven by fear. I have to be lead by faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God, and there are some things that I really believe God wants our church to do, but there's no guarantees it's always going to work. Often my fear will keep from being obedient. I'm just telling you maybe more than you want to know, but it's really meaningful to me. As I was praying through it this week, what I really believe God showed me is that I have to love pleasing Him more than I fear failing, and that was really powerful to me. I have to love pleasing Him and being obedient to Him, more than I am afraid of failing. In my own time of praying this, "God, test me. Know my anxious thoughts," this comes to mind, and so what am I doing? I'm quoting scripture to renew my mind. "Perfect love, cast out all fear." God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. I just dare you, double dog dare you, pray this prayer, "Search my heart, oh God. Test me, and know my anxious thoughts." Why does what you fear matter? What you fear the most reveals where you trust God the least, and suddenly, you recognize in this one area, I'm really not trusting God, and, suddenly, as you start to do what I did, you get down to the root of it, and then God's word can speak to the root of the problem, and that can become an anchor moment, when, suddenly, you say, "No, I will take that step of faith," or, "I will do what God is calling me to do." It's a dangerous prayer. When you pray this, God will reveal things to you about yourself that you may not have been willing to acknowledge for years and years and years, because the most common lie we tell is often to ourselves. That's an issue for me. I've got this. I'm fine. Oh, yeah, I'm whatever. "Search my heart, God. Reveal my fears." Then number three, this is where it gets even a little more difficult, uncover my sins. Uncover my sins, God. This is what David prays. I love the courage it takes to pray this dangerous prayer. He prays, "God, see if there is any offensive way in me. Show me, God, anything about my life that is inconsistent with your truth. God, show me anything that I'm doing that's displeasing to you. See if there is any offensive way in me," because have you noticed, it's really difficult to see our sins in the mirror? Oh, it's so easy to find everybody else's. Can you believe the way she walks, like she's all hot stuff. She's [inaudible 00:16:09]. He Page 5 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message comes here saying ... If I were him I'd tell him to say ... Oh, they just [inaudible 00:16:12]. If I had one moment with her, I'd just [inaudible 00:16:14]. "Me, oh, no. No, no. Bless Jesus, I am holy." Have you noticed that? We tend to accuse others, and what do we do with ourselves? Excuse ourselves. "I just have to do it. This is how I get through. It's not that big a deal. It's none of your business. Judge not least you be judged." It's so easy to see everybody else's sins, but not our own. I'll give you a crazy example. This is crazy, and it's completely true. Years ago, I was going off on a Sunday morning, having fun. Making fun of people, and this may be some of you, and if it's you, I am making fun of you. You're struck in traffic and you're not moving on a highway, and somebody thinks they're so important they can drive on the right side down the shoulder. Who knows what I'm talking about? Like who do you thing you are, you arrogant. Oh, you're so important, Mr. Sports Car, driving [inaudible 00:17:10] down the side, while we're all law abiding, God fearing, faithful Americans. Here you are. I just went off on it, just went off on it, just unleashed on it. That's on a Sunday. Monday, I'm driving to my office. I to office at the campus. Now I don't anymore. I'm driving there. There's a wreck or something. Nobody's moving. I'm about fifty yards, only fifty yards away from the drive in, the little place to get into church. I'm sitting there going, "This is ridiculous." I'm like, "I can through a tennis ball and hit it." There's not a shoulder, but grass on the side, and it's the church grass. You see where my mind is going. It all belongs to God. I'm a servant of the most high God. It's kind of my grass. Next thing you know, I'm just driving on the grass, passing these people. There's a kid, his name is Alex [Doss 00:17:59]. He's actually on staff now. He was a little kid at the time. He looks out the window with terror, and he goes, "Dad, there's one of those guys. Pastor Craig hates." He looked and he started crying, "Dad, that is Pastor Greg." Where did that come from? Twenty-four hours later, less than that, I'm doing the very same thing. The heart is deceitful above all things. The most common lies are the ones that we tell ourselves. That's why it takes tremendous courage to say, "Search my heart, God. Test me. Know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me," and this can be one of the most game changing prayers you ever pray, when you give God permission to point out any sin that's dwelling within your heart. I want to give you three questions that are really helpful to ask yourself as you're praying, "Uncover my sins." Three questions that really help you with self-awareness. The first question to ask is what are others trying to tell me? What are other people trying to tell me. In other words, if you've had three or four people tell you they love you, "I think you might have a problem with this. This is an issue. I'm a little bit concerned about you here." If you've got consistently people that love you tell you that, that might be something you Page 6 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message want to pay a little close attention to. There is a common denominator here, and it is you. Pay attention to that. The second question is this: Ask yourself what have I rationalized for some time? What have I rationalized? In other words, "Yeah, this may not be right, but it's not that big of a deal, and this is just how I deal with things. This is how I cope. It's nobody else's business anyway. This isn't really hurting anybody. This is my one thing," or whatever. What do you rationalize? "I'm going to quit. It's not that big of a deal." Then the third thing is this: Where am I most defensive? Where am I most defensive? "No, we're not going there. No, we're not talking about that. No, don't you judge me. No, no. I don't have a problem with that. No, back off. I told you we're not talking about that." Where are you most defensive? You see, when I see those three questions, it takes my mind right back to a significant issue that I had, and denied for quite some time, until I gave God permission to reveal my sinfulness. I told a version of this story before. I'll tell it again. In the early years of the church, I had person after person set appointments with me. We had like two hundred people coming at the time, and they would set appointments with me. I thought we were going to talk about whatever, and their appointment was to lovingly confront me, saying that I was too crude in my preaching. In other words, I had potty humor or whatever, and they'd said, "Hey, we like the church, but, Craig, you're too crude." I'm like, "Well, you're just a big old prude, aren't you? You just don't have a sense of humor. I mean he who the son sets free is free indeed, and obviously you're still in legalism and bondage, because if you were free like me, it wouldn't be that big of a deal." And person after person, literally probably twelve to fifteen times I had appointments, where people would come in, people I respected and say, "Hey, we think you're being too crude." Hear this, the heart is deceitful above all things. Finally, this one guy came in. To me, he was so wise, looking back on it. He said, "Hey, Craig, I just want you to know, I'm in. This is my church home. I'm going to serve you. I got your back no matter what, but, as you know, a lot of people think you might be too crude. Maybe you, maybe you aren't. I know you really want to please God. I know that about you, and so would you mind just praying and asking God? Ask God to show you if you're being too crude. If you are, he'll show you. If you're not, he won't. Either way, I'm here, but maybe you can do this, because I know you want to please God." I thought, "That sounds reasonable enough," so I thought, "Okay, I'll do this." I did. I prayed. It wasn't like a deep [inaudible 00:21:55]. It was just, "God, show me. If I am, you will." That was it. Page 7 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message The very next weekend, I'm preaching, and I had a zinger. You would have liked it. The sinful side, you would have liked. It was maybe up to the line, maybe a little over the line, maybe five steps over the line. I don't know. But it was a zinger, and I was about to say it, and that was the week that my oldest daughter, Katie, had been promoted from kid's church into big church, and she was sitting right over to my side, and right as I was about to say it, my mind just went racing, "Wait a minute, I wouldn't want her to say this, and I don't even really even want her to hear it, and I'm a pastor, and, oh, all these people have been right. Dear God, I've been crude. I can't believe this," and it just hit me like that. Just like that, boom. Some of you are saying, "Well, why haven't you done anything about it all these years?" To my defense, if you've been with us for eighteen or nineteen years, you will say, "Oh, he has done a lot. You would have ... He's like [inaudible 00:22:55]." It's a work in progress. It was at that moment that I was massively convicted, "Oh, my gosh, I have been saying things that would be a bad example to my daughter. Therefore, it's a bad example to the church." When you have the courage to pray this prayer, "See if there is any offensive way in me," let me make you a promise. God will point some things out. God will point some things out that you've been trying to explain away for a long time. God will point some things out that you're trying to deny. Do not deny the truth. Denying the truth does not make truth false. Submit yourself to what God is trying to show you, and then what do we do, is we have the courage when God shows us something, to bring it to light. There's different types of confession. We confess to God for forgiveness, and we confess to people for healing. We confess to God for forgiveness. Scripture says if we confess our sins to God, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, but we, also, confess to people. Confess your sins to one another, and pray for each other that you might be healed. We confess to God for forgiveness, but we confess to people for healing. This is why life groups, they're an absolute vital part of what we do, because we come together as a part of the community of God, and we say, "I need help here. Would you hold me accountable? Would you pray for me? God is showing me this. God is showing me that," and, suddenly, we recognize, "He's not perfect, and she's not perfect, and, therefore, I can show my imperfections." By the way, if you are perfect, this is the wrong church for you. There's no perfect people allowed, so if you're like perfect, and holy, and all that kind of stuff, go polish your halo somewhere else. This is a place where imperfect people are being transformed by a perfect God, and we just open up about our faults to one another, and we recognize we're all in process. We all need to help [inaudible 00:24:50], and so, "Search my heart, God. Reveal my fears. Uncover my sins." When I put all of what I just told you about me together, let's see what it points to. You're a fake, so I'm performing for people. We see that back in high school. Page 8 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message I don't want to fail. I don't want to let people down. I want to live up to people's expectation. I don't want to be inadequate, because I don't want other people to think I don't have what it takes. I'm saying jokes that are maybe inappropriate. I'm performing for people. When you add all these things up, what I see is, for the vast majority of my life, I've battled with living for the approval of people, instead of living for the approval of God. How's that for disturbing? How's that for honest? A battle, living for the approval of people, instead of living for the approval of God. That's not encouraging for anybody, especially when you're a pastor. What does that do? That points me to my need for Jesus. That points me to my need for His grace. That points me to knowing that my identity must be in Him, and not in what people think. What our need does is it always points us to the area where we must call on and learn to depend on Christ, whatever he shows you. "I'm addicted. I won't admit it, but I'm addicted." Listen, you need His power to overcome your addiction. "I'm full of pride." You need His power to be humbled and depend on him. "I've got a lust issue, and it's out of control." You need His truth to renew your mind, and transform your heart. "I'm materialistic. I'm loving the things of this world." You need to fall so in love with Him, that this world is not your home, but heaven is your home. Whatever he shows you, it always points directly to your need for Christ. It always points directly to your need for Christ. This is a dangerous prayer. It takes courage to pray it, because when you pray it, He'll show you some things about yourself that you're not real proud of, but there's always grace. There's always grace. Then David, at the very end, what did he pray? He prays, number four, "Lead me. Lead me." When you show me what I don't like about myself, and show me what needs to be changed, now you lead me in the way of everlasting. Verse twenty-four, he says this, "See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting. Lead me in the way of everlasting." When you have the courage to pray a very dangerous prayer, "Search me, God. You have permission to look deep into the depths of my deceitful heart, and show me, God, test me. Reveal to me my anxious thoughts. Show me the very places that I fear the most, because that shows me where I trust you the least. See if there's any offensive way in me. No, I'm not pointing a finger at anybody, God. I'm letting you reveal to me what I need to hear." You see, in the early years, you often get the big things out of the way. Then you walk with Jesus, and, suddenly, it's the little things. You know what? You know what I've found? The little things are often the big things. It's often the hard issues that are the biggest things He'll reveal to you, and then when he shows you, what does that do? It points us to our direct need for Christ. "Jesus, I need your help. Jesus, I need your power. Jesus, I need your grace. Jesus, I need your freedom," so, for me, Jesus, my identity must be completely in you, because I Page 9 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message refuse to perform for people. I only, God, want to live for you. Help me to live for an audience of one, by knowing so much who I am in Christ, that my security is in Him and Him alone. When you pray this prayer, it will show you your need, and you take that need directly to Christ, and you let Christ meet that need and conform you to his image. It's a dangerous prayer, but it's a prayer that can transform your life. At all our churches, let's close together with this prayer from Psalm 139, and here is our prayer. "Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me, and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." As you continue in prayer today, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would do a work in us, and, God, I thank you that there a few people today that this will become an anchor message for them, that if they start to pray and seek you, you're going to show them something in their life that you're going to transform. You're going to lead them in a way that takes them out of bondage, and brings them into the life that you have planned for them. God, we thank you that they'll have the courage to ask for help. God, we thank you, we'll all have the courage to pray, "Search us, God," and trust you to reveal whatever is in us that you need to change. What I'm going to ask you to do today, at all of our churches, as you're praying, nobody looking around. I'm going to ask you if you'll commit just to pray this dangerous prayer every day this week, every day this week. In fact, for many of you, this will become an ongoing part of your prayer life, so when you wake up in the morning, the first thing we do is not look at Instagram. The first thing we do is we're going to pray. We're going to pray this prayer. I'm going to ask you to commit to do this, and I want to be real, real clear, do not raise your hand, because you feel pressure. I don't want to manipulate anybody. If you'll do this and make it a real serious commitment every day, I'm going to pray. Then I'm going to listen. Just for a few moments, just listen, and see what God shows you, and when He does, He will give you the power through His son, Jesus, to become who He's calling you to become. All of our churches, if you say, "I am in. I'm ready to pray some dangerous prayers, and this week I'm going to ask God every single day to search me, and listen for what He shows me, and be faithful to where He leads me." If that's you today, would you lift up your hands high right now? Just at all of our churches, just lift up your hands. Man, fantastic. I'm so thankful for so many people hungry to know God in a personal way. Father, I ask that over the next few days, that for those who maybe don't have a morning time with you, that this would be the beginning of an intimate time of putting you first. We put you in the first of our day, the first of our week, we Page 10 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message worship you. The first of our income, we worship you. God, we want to put you first. I pray, God, this would be the beginning of seeking you first in a day. God, we'll just submit our hearts to you, recognizing that our hearts are impure and deceitful above all things, but knowing with Christ you can transform our hearts. God, we give you permission to search our hearts. We ask you to test us. We ask you to reveal our anxious thoughts. God, uncover our sins. Show us anything that is offensive in our lives, and then, God, we ask you to lead us. I thank you in advance that, for some, this will be an anchor message, and this will become an anchor pray, that we continue to seek you, and you continue to transform us, God, as only you can do. As you keep praying today, at all of our churches, there are some of you, if you even just started to seek God, you're going to recognize your massive need for God. This is what's so crazy. I grew up going to church. I was in the youth group. I did not know Him. You can be in church today, you can be in church every week, and some of you, when you pray this prayer, you're going to recognize, you don't have an intimate relationship with God. Others of you, you're not a church person. You can't even believe you're in church or watching online right now. If this is pushing it for you, but there's something that's drawing you toward God right now, let me tell you what that is. That is His Holy Spirit, and when you pray and ask God to search you, what you're going to realize is that you've done a lot of things wrong. If you ever feel guilty for those things, listen, that's a good thing. It's, I believe, a conscious that God has given you to recognize that we have all sinned, every single one of us. How do we know we've done something wrong? Because God put in us an inner device that says, "This is right and this is wrong," and so we try to be better, and we try to work hard. We think maybe I'll be good enough for God, and we don't recognize that it is totally and completely impossible for us ever to perform or be good enough for God. We were not designed to be good enough for Him on our own. The fact that we're sinners reveals to us our need for a Savior, and that's how good God is. He loved us so much that he became like us in the person of His son, Jesus. Jesus hung out with people like us, the messed up ones, the ones that didn't get it right, the ones who sinned and fell way short, and He loved them, but He didn't leave them there. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. On the third day, he rose again, so that anyone, and this includes you, who calls on His name would be saved and forgiven. Some of you, this is your anchor message, because today you recognize you need Christ, you need His forgiveness, you need His grace, and that's why you're here. No one needs to tell you this. You can sense it even now. You need his forgiveness, and you're ready to call on Him. Page 11 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message What do we do? We simply turn away from our sins and say, "I want to walk away from that. Jesus, I'm walking towards you. I surrender my life. I ask you to save me and be first in my life." At all of our churches, those who say, "Yep, that's me," today is the day. I can sense it. "By faith, I give my life to Him." That's your prayer. At all of our churches, would you lift your hands right now and say, "Yes, Jesus. I surrender to you." Right back over here, God bless you. Others today who say yes, back here in this section. Right over here as well. Up here close to me. Others today, right back over here. All the way toward the back, say, "Yes, Jesus, I surrender to you." Church Online, you click right below me. Back here in this section, praise God, for you. Others today, who say, "Yes, I call on him," would you all pray aloud with those around you. Pray, "Heavenly Father, today I give my life completely to you. Jesus, forgive me of all of my sins. Make me brand new. Fill me with your spirit, so I can follow you for the rest of my life. I surrender to you. My life is not my own. Today, it is yours. Thank you for new life. Now you have mine. In Jesus' name I pray." At all of our churches, would you worship big? Would you worship loud? Would you welcome those born into God's family today, new life in Christ Jesus. Page 12 of 12 DangerousPrayers_1_Message Believe your big risks will be rewarded. Believe what you ask for is possible. If you’re ready to see a spark in your life, pray boldly. Pray daringly. Pray with fire. And remember God’s listening to your  Dangerous Prayers.  www.lifechurch.tv/open

Are you struggling with fear today? Is it the pandemic, a job, food, something else? Are you seeing the size of your worries and not the size of your Savior? I think I can point you in a direction that might help you right-size your fear. I’d like to start with a long look at Jesus. A long look at his face. It’s the expression of Jesus that puzzles us. We’ve never before seen his face like this. Jesus smiling, yes. Jesus weeping, absolutely. Jesus stern, even that. But Jesus anguished? Cheeks streaked with tears? Face flooded in sweat? Rivulets of blood dripping from his chin? You remember the night. Jesus left the city and went to the Mount of Olives, as he often did, and his followers went with him. When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray for strength against temptation.” Then Jesus went about a stone’s throw away from them. He kneeled down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take away this cup of suffering. But do what you want, not what I want.” Then an angel from heaven appeared to him to strengthen him. Being full of pain, Jesus prayed even harder. His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:39–44) What do we do with this image of Jesus? Simple. We turn to it when we look the same. We read it when we feel the same; we read it when we feel afraid. For isn’t it likely that fear was one of the emotions Jesus felt? One might even argue that fear was the primary emotion. He saw something in the future so fierce, so foreboding that he begged for a change of plans. “Father, if you are willing, take away this cup of suffering” (Luke 22:42). What causes you to pray the same prayer? Facing a pandemic? Leaving your house? Being in a crowd? Walking into a hospital? Boarding an airplane? Speaking publicly? Starting a new job? Taking a spouse? Driving on a highway? The source of your fear may seem small to others. But it freezes your feet, makes your heart pound, and brings blood to your face. That’s what happened to Jesus. He was so afraid that he bled. Doctors describe this condition as hematidrosis. Severe anxiety causes the release of chemicals that break down the capillaries in the sweat glands. When this occurs, sweat comes out tinged with blood. Jesus was more than anxious; he was afraid. Fear is worry’s big brother. If worry is a burlap bag, fear is a trunk of concrete. It wouldn’t budge. How remarkable that Jesus felt such fear. But how kind that he told us about it. We tend to do the opposite. Gloss over our fears. Cover them up. Keep our sweaty palms in our pockets, our nausea and dry mouths a secret. Not so with Jesus. We see no mask of strength. But we do hear a request for strength. “Father, if you are willing, take away this cup of suffering.” The first one to hear his fear is his Father. He could have gone to his mother. He could have confided in his disciples. He could have assembled a prayer meeting. All would have been appropriate, but none were his priority. He went first to his Father. Oh, how we tend to go everywhere else. First to the bar, to the counselor, to the self-help book, or to the friend next door. Not Jesus. The first one to hear his fear was his Father in heaven. How did Jesus endure the terror of the crucifixion? He went first to the Father with his fears. Do the same with yours. Don’t avoid life’s Gardens of Gethsemane. Enter them. Just don’t enter them alone. And while there, be honest. Pounding the ground is permitted. Tears are allowed. And if you sweat blood, you won’t be the first. Do what Jesus did; open your heart. And be specific. Jesus was. “Take this cup,” he prayed. Give God the date of the event. Provide the number of the flight. Tell him about the doctor’s appointment. Share the details of the job transfer. He has plenty of time. He also has plenty of compassion. He doesn’t think your fears are foolish or silly. He won’t tell you to “buck up” or “get tough.” He’s been where you are. He knows how you feel. And he knows what you need. That’s why we punctuate our prayers as Jesus did. “If you are willing . . .” Was God willing? Yes and no. He didn’t take away the cross, but he took the fear. God didn’t still the storm, but he calmed the sailor. Who is to say he won’t do the same for you? Philippians 4:6 reminds us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Don’t measure the size of the mountain; talk to the One who can move it. Instead of carrying the world on your shoulders, talk to the One who holds the universe on his. Hope is a look away. Maybe you’ve let fear rule your life in the past, but today, give your fears to God. It’s never too late to begin again. ©Max Lucado

So as we've said throughout this series that repairing a broken or disrupted or awkward or damaged relationship, it's not easy. And oftentimes, not all the time, but oftentimes we actually want to. I mean, if we just push a button and the relationship was fixed or the relationship was better, we would. And even if we don't really want to oftentimes we know we ought to, want to. You ever ought to, want to. It's like, you know, if you ever pray and say, "God, I know what I should ask you for but I don't really think that's what I want". So I want to want to what I want to want to want. So when it comes to relationships we want them to be fixed. Or at least we know we ought to want them to be fixed but it's just so difficult. And one of the reasons it's so difficult is honestly, we just don't know how to. So want to is one thing but how to is something else. And it's not intuitive. As we said, throughout the series, we think, you know, it's intuitive but repairing a broken relationship is not intuitive. And part of the reason is not is because repairing a broken relationship requires something that does not come natural to any of us. It requires humility. And we are born, we come into the world and anti, you know, resisting humility. Putting somebody else first. You know, making ourselves small, going to that smaller place. So because it kinda resists, you know, our nature resist it and we don't know how to do it, oftentimes these relationships they just kinda dangle out there in this sense of awkwardness. And for some of you, your strained or broken relationship with somebody you don't see very often so it's not front of mind. In fact, if you've been tracking with us in the series you're kinda looking forward to it being over. So you can put them back over in that box where you've kept them for years until I started talking about it, and suddenly you find yourself thinking about them, and your mom or your husband or your wife or a friend is like, "Hey, maybe you're like". "Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope". We just, we just resisted. And the other reason this is so difficult is since it's not intuitive and a lot of us have never even seen this modeled well, it's something we have to learn. It's a learned skill, which means somebody has to learn us, right? Teach us how to do it. And hopefully this series has given you some handles or some steps in doing that. But again, the series, you know, it's just a series. There's so much more to it. But ideally seeing this model is so helpful because as you know, some things are really more caught than taught. So if you're a parent or you're a grandparent, okay? And this isn't gonna be like a message on parenting but I just wanna say something about this. It is so important for you to teach your children how to repair a damaged or broken relationship. And maybe the primary reason you should teach them or model for them what it looks like to repair a broken relationship is so that someday they will know how to repair their relationship with you. Yeah. And you're like, "Oh, that could never happen between me and my kids". It will. It's just gonna be strange. And think about this, if they don't know what to do, they won't know what to do. And it's gonna impact you. And you say, "Well, Andy, that's pretty, self-serving. Teach your kids how to, you know, repair damaged relationships so they'll know how to repair a relationship with their own parents". But it's not self-serving at all. Here's why I say that. That their relationship with you, you know, this because of your personal history. Your children's relationship with you will be reflected in their future relationships, right? I mean, the damage that's done in a home we become a carrier. We carry that with us into the other relationships. So one of the best investments, if you have children, one of the best investments you can make in the future of your children. And in fact, this is a multi-generational investment. You have no idea where this is gonna land or how well this will serve them or how long this will serve them, one of the best things we can do is teach our kids how to repair a damage relationship. And one of the best things you can do in this regard, I'm gonna move on. Is if you have ever done this successfully or you have ever tried and failed in this, you should share those epic stories with your kids. So again, they're not only gonna watch you try at home, but they're gonna hear how it worked out, how it didn't work out, what you wish you had done. So don't hide those things from your kids. It's so important that we model and we teach it for our kids. And I'll tell you, again, I'm gonna move on. I'm gonna tell you where to start with your children. It all begins with a personal pronoun. You remember those? The personal pronouns. In fact, you might need a lesson in this particular personal pronoun. Let me explain. So we have three kids and they're all 20 months apart by accident or providence, but anyway, they're pretty close together. And so when one would do something offensive to the other or hurt the other's feelings or just be cruel to the other, we would do what every parent does. We'd say, "Okay, apologize to your brother, apologize to your brother". And the apology would be so heartfelt, it would bring us to tears. It would go like this. "Sorry, sorry, sorry". Anybody ever heard the one word apology? Just sorry. And Sandra and I are like, we're such good parents. Listen, let's just have a group hug, have prayer. And we're like, no, we would not let 'em get by with that. We're like, "Nope, you gotta add the personal pronoun". And this is the first lesson in humility. It's "I'm sorry". And we would literally make our children look the brother or sister in the eye and add the I'm. "I'm sorry". This is the early lesson in humility. This is where it all begins. It begins with owning what we've done, owning our slice of the pie. Now, somewhere around middle school, it changed a little bit and went more like this. "Tell your brother you're sorry". "Brother, you're sorry". Right? Which is the point, okay? This is not intuitive and it bumps up against our stubbornness and that thing in us that never wants to be wrong. And that's exactly why we're talking about it. So today, we are in fact wrapping up our four-part series, entitled "Reassembly Required: A Beginner's Guide", it's just a beginner's guide, there's so much more to this, "A Beginner's Guide to Repairing Broken Relationships". Now, throughout this series, there's been a disclaimer. And I wanna say it one more time because this is so important. When it comes to re-establishing or repairing or reassembling and adult relationship, the goal is not reconciliation, the goal is no regrets. This is so important. If the goal is reconciliation, that means you are moving toward this person with an agenda. And an agenda in a relationship is like a third party in the relationship. It's like, okay, we're gonna reconcile. I heard this series, come here, come here, sit down, sit down. We're gonna, I'm gonna. You're just kinda like, no, I don't wanna be around you. What is wrong with you? You need to find a different church. What's happening, right? So when you have an agenda for someone, I mean, when somebody has an agenda for you, do you draw closer or do you kinda sit back as far as you can in the booth, like how long is this gonna last, right? So the agenda, the agenda from our perspective is not reconciliation. Again, we don't control all the parts. We don't hold all the cards. Our agenda is, we just want there to be, as far as we can control it and to the degree we control it, no regrets. We wanna know that we did everything we could and we're gonna continue to do everything we can. We did everything we could and we're continuing to do everything we can, because reconciliation is a process, but also, reconciliation is a posture. It's dynamic. It's ongoing because it's relational. And the win, the win is to go to bed every night and know, you know what, to the best of my ability, I have an open door policy, assuming that's a safe person. We're gonna come back to that in a minute. Now, the Apostle Paul gives us a theme verse, and if you were gonna memorize like one verse to kind of associate with this topic, something to put on the mirror or the dashboard, this would be it. And the reason that may be important is because when we're finished talking about this, that relationship that's unresolved is still gonna be out there. This isn't a one and done. This is a process. And I think this verse more than anything else in The New Testament or in the scriptures, it sort of encapsulates the tension of relationship and the goal. So here's what the Apostle Paul wrote and we looked at this briefly last time. He says, "If," he's such a realist. "If it is possible". Because again, you're not holding all the cards. I mean, this isn't like a broken plate. I can get all the pieces and glue them back together. I mean, there's another person involved. I mean, you don't have access to all the pieces. He says, "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you". In other words, the parts that you have control over. And in the Greek, this carries the idea of if you've got it in you, it's kind of a challenge. If you've got the grit, if you've got the determination, if you're ready for this, be at peace with everyone. Your English New Testament says, "Live at peace with everyone". But that sounds kind of like both people were involved. You have no control over that. The Greek text really kind of indicates, be at peace. In other words, you do everything you can do. I do everything I can do to remove any obstacle to reconciliation, which doesn't guarantee reconciliation because the other person has to be involved. But my responsibility is to remove every obstacle I can because reassembly, you know this, it begins with us, it begins with us, regardless of who initiated the fuss. Now, we said throughout the series, reassembling a relationship requires four decisions on our part. We've talked about two, I'll review the first two real quick and then we're gonna jump into number three and four. The first decision was simply this. I will get back to, not get back at. I will get back to, not get back at. I am taking retribution off the table. There is no payback, this is get back to, just like your Father in heaven. In fact, if you're not a Christian or not a religious person, some of this content will be helpful. I hope you found it helpful or hope you find today helpful. But if you're a Jesus follower, not just a believer, but somebody who wakes up every day and to the best of our ability says, Jesus, I wanna follow you. If you're a Jesus follower, then we are to do for others what God through Christ has done for us. And you know what He did for us? Well, interestingly enough, the verse after the most famous verse in the Bible tells us, the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, the next verse says this, listen to this. "For God," he's talking about Jesus. He said, For God, did not send Jesus, did not send His Son into the world to get back at us, but to get back to us. For God didn't send Jesus in the world to pay us back, but to get back. "He did not send Him to the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him". He came to rescue us in spite of our behavior. He came to rescue and establish a relationship in spite of the fact that we've been resisting the relationship all along. And then Jesus comes along and He says, follow me. Don't just believe in me. I want you to follow me. And I want you to follow my example. Again, the Apostle Paul, after he explains to this group of Gentile new believers all that God went through to create the possibility for their salvation. He says this, and this goes right to the point of this first decision. He says, "All this," talking about the process of having a relationship with God. "All this is from God," here's our word, "who reconciled us to himself through Christ". And then he gave us the assignment of reconciliation. And English text says the ministry of reconciliation. But ministry is such a churchy word and the Greek term here existed long before there was a church. It really means the assignment or the opportunity to serve. He says, we've been given the assignment or we're supposed to provide the service of reconciliation. We're to do for others what He did for us. And then Paul finishes with this, it's so amazing. "That God was reconciling the world to Himself". God was doing everything He could to remove all the obstacles. That's why he sent Christ, in Christ. And then this part. "Not counting people's sins against them". Because God knew what we know that's easy to forget and that we want to forget. That if I'm gonna reconcile with you at some point along the way, I have to quit counting your sin against you. I've gotta take whatever you did to me and I've gotta get it out of the equation or we are never gonna reconcile. And the point of the Gospel, the reason we gather in worship is because took it upon Himself to take the main obstacle that stood in the way of reconciling with us. And He moved it out of the way before we even knew about it, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And when Paul wrote that, this was like, hey, Paul was thinking, while I was still alive, I'm in Tarsus and way over in Jerusalem, my savior died for me. I didn't even know about it. While I was literally still a sinner, hundreds of miles away, Messiah died for me, and I didn't even know about it. God removed the obstacle of my sin so that He could be reconciled to me. So do you know what this means? Look at this. "He has committed to us the message of reconciliation". And again, if you're not a religious person or not a Christian, I mean, take the pieces and parts that you want. I can't say you need to do anything. I don't have any authority over you. Nobody left me in charge of your life. But if we're gonna take what the Apostle Paul said seriously, if we're gonna take what Jesus said seriously, we have been reconciled to God. That's the essence of our message. That's what it means to be a Jesus follower and a Christian. And if that is the essence of our message, if we've been given the message of reconciliation, how in the world do we carry that message into our world if we refuse to reconcile it with the people around us? It takes us back to what Jesus said last week. Remember last week, not me, I wouldn't do it. He looked at us all, He said, if you don't do this, you're just hypocrites. You're just hypocrites. You're taking advantage of what God has done on your behalf and you are not willing to do that for the people around you? Second decision we talked about is this one, this is last time. I won't spend much time on it. I will own my slice of the blame pie. I will own my slice of the blame pie. And I'm gonna look in the mirror and I'm gonna take the pie out of my eye. And there may not be much pie in my eye, but before I try and get the pie out of your eye, I'm gonna take the pie out of my eye. I'm gonna remove the plank. You remember this? I'm gonna remove the plank not so I'll be a better person, not so I'll be a healthier person. I'm gonna remove, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna focus on what my role in disrupting this relationship was, and I'm gonna remove it, so I can see more clearly how to move toward and reconcile with you. Our third decision and our fourth decision today are things I've talked about throughout the series. I've kinda left some breadcrumbs along the way. I've sort of sewn this idea throughout the series, but I've not asked you to commit to it. So today, I'm gonna take something we talked about before and I'm gonna turn it into a decision that I'm gonna challenge you to make. The third decision is this. I will make the first move regardless of who moved away first. I will make the first move toward reconciliation regardless of who moved away first. And humanly speaking, the reason you're going to do this is because the most mature person in the relationship should take responsibility for the relationship, right? And I know you, you are the most mature person in the relationship. Isn't that correct? I mean, when you tell your story about the things that he or she did, when you tell that story to other people, clearly you come off looking like the more mature person. 'Cause what they did was terrible, what you did was, you were just responding to something terrible, your part was so small. When you rehearse the narrative about what happened to this relationship in your mind, aren't you the most mature person? Yeah. I mean, when I rehearse these things, not only am I the most mature person, there's a crowd, in my mind. And I'm like talking to this person and I'm kind of giving 'em what for explaining my side and there's a crowd and they're going, "You're right, Andy, you're right, Andy, you're right". And then they all applaud and I walk off, and they look at this person, like you really, I mean, he's right, you know? Because I'm right, you're right. So if you're right, if I'm right, if it's mostly them, well, then we're the most mature people in the room. And the most mature people should initiate reconciliation. That's humanly speaking. But there's another reason. In fact, this is so amazing to me. Jesus' most inconvenient command, not His most extreme command, but His, especially within the context of the first century, His most inconvenient, what Jesus says, I'm gonna show it to you in a minute, was just flat out inconvenient, but it underscores this very point. In fact, it is so inconvenient and so tied to first century Judean culture, when we read it in our New Testaments, we just kind of read right over it, like, I'm not so sure what that means. But when Jesus said this, I feel confident everyone in his audience just gasped. Like what? Did He say what I think He said? It's like okay, okay Jesus, okay, tell us a parable or something. You've gotta be kidding. You want us to do what? But again, it's so tied to first century Judean culture, it doesn't even leave a mark on us. Here's what he said. He was teaching. He said, "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar," and He's already lost us. It's like, whatever, what is it? I don't know what He's talking about, right? Here's what he's talking about. He's referring to this extraordinarily inconvenient trek to Jerusalem through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, to the temple, up the southern stairs, to get in line to offer a gift at the altar. Now you may live in Jerusalem, but still, it's a journey, right? And you gotta take time off of work and you're dragging the kids and it's hot as, it's just really hot there if you've ever been there, right? And the kids are crying, it's just a mess, and there's no fast pass! I know, it's amazing. You can't even call ahead. "Excuse me, what's the wait like? Three days!? Okay, Frank, it's three days. We better get going". You have no idea what you're gonna find when you get to Jerusalem And you, what is this line for? Well, this is to get to the temple. I can't even see the temple. That's the long line, you know? And they have no idea what they're gonna run into. He says, so this is that day you decide you're gonna go make a sacrifice at the altar. And Jesus is very specific here. So again, it's something we miss. He's not talking about making a sacrifice for sin. This isn't like, oh, I've done some horrible thing so I have a goat, I'm gonna go to the temple, I'm gonna sacrifice an animal and ask God to forgive me of my sin and cleanse me of my sin. This is not that. He's very specific. This is a gift. This isn't an I owe God an apology. This is a gift. This is someone who's just grateful. This is someone for whom God answered a prayer. This is someone for whom things worked out and they just wanna go to the temple. So this is a really good person. This is a person who's kind of getting extra credit. I'm not just gonna be grateful in my heart 50 miles away. I'm gonna make the long trek knowing God's saying, wow, they are really, really, really grateful. Look at all that they went through just to express their gratitude. So this is a gift. This is a voluntary sacrifice, expressing devotion to God. I just wanna be closer to God. So he says, okay, so you know, "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and when you get there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you". And Jesus is so brilliant. He is intentionally ambiguous. He didn't say what it is. He doesn't even say whose fault it is. He says, if you get there or as you're arriving there, or maybe you found your place in line and suddenly it comes to mind, oh yeah, that, yeah, we need to talk when I get back. I kind of left him hanging there. You know what, I think she misunderstood what I said and she's, or he's down there, and so you know. Suddenly, you remember, there's an interrupted conversation. There's an unresolved conflict. Well, the way we think, the way Jesus' audience thought was this. Well, no problem. I'll deal with that later. I'm gonna stand in line. I'm gonna make my gift to God, let God know how grateful I am. Then when I go home, I'll deal with that, says compartmentalized, vertical religion, but not horizontal Jesus. Says internalized religion where our whole faith is just completely internalized, but not real world, earthy is the new holy Jesus. So to their shock and awe, He says, when that situation comes to mind, I want you to leave your gift there in front of the altar. Like, wait, wait, did He say grieve? But He didn't say leave. Did He say grieve? I think He said. Like what, you want us to leave it? Wait, like we're already there at the altar. Like it's been days, maybe it's been hours, maybe it's been awhile. And we're finally all the way to the place where we're one, two, three, four, we're seventh in line, honey, just seven, just seven more people, we're almost there. And then I remember this thing back at home and I'm supposed to just leave my gift there? I mean, if I leave it there, when I get back, it may not be there. When I get back, it may have wandered away. What do you mean just leave it there? And Jesus says, yeah, because the reason you're shocked, the reason you're dismayed, the reason this is so inconvenient is because you have things out of order. You're still thinking like a religious person. You're still thinking like an internalized religious person. "First," first, as in of first importance, as in more important than what you came to do, "go and be reconciled to them". Here's what they heard. Wait, Jesus, wait, Jesus, Jesus, wait. You want me to put them before God? And Jesus would say, no, this is how you put God first. This is how you put God first, by reconciling with those whom God loves. You put invisible God first by reconciling with your visible brother. Brother-in-law, sister, that neighbor, the guy at work, the lady at work and it wasn't a big deal, but you can tell, you know what you said wasn't. He says, yeah, if you wanna, if you wanna be right with God, you just get right and stay right with the people God loves. You put invisible God first by reconciling with the people around you. And then if you want brownie points, you put God first by reconciling with your enemy. I mean, this was a complete category scramble for them, as it is for many of us. He said, oh, don't wanna leave you hanging. And then once you've done that, come back, maybe somebody will hold your place in line, maybe they won't. "And then you come and you offer your gift". To which we say in our modern world, okay, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait. Can't we just forgive them in our heads and believe in you in our heads? Can't we just kind of keep this all in our mind? Can't we just, I have forgiven them and I'm not gonna have anything to do with them, I'm certainly not going to reach out. But I have forgiven them, so I forgave them in my mind and I believe in you in my heart. Isn't that enough? To which Jesus would say throughout the Gospels, well, if you wanna be a believer, but not if you wanna be a follower. And heads up, believers didn't change the world, believers that in shape Western civilization. It wasn't people who believed things that capture the imagination and the fascination of the Roman Empire. It was the followers. So if you're gonna follow me, that means you have to do what I did. And at this point in his journey in the Gospel, He could've smiled and said, folks, I haven't done nothing yet. You just wait. Because not only has your heavenly Father come up with a plan to remove the obstacle of sin between you and your heavenly Father, I am the vehicle. And if you're lucky, and if you happen to be in Jerusalem that mid-morning, you'll have the opportunity that people from this point forward for thousands of years would long to come back and see, except they would probably turn their head. Because your heavenly Father is gonna offer His Son as a sacrifice for sin so that He no longer has to hold your sin against you. That's how far He's willing to go to reconcile with you. So get out of line and go reconcile with your brother and your sister. It seems like a really big price to pay, but not in comparison to the price that's about to be paid. And even if you don't go with me down that way of thinking, that train of thought, just know this. Your Father in heaven is glorified by your love for others on this earth. You can't just forgive them in your heart and believe in me in your head. Not if you're gonna follow me. Internalized religion lets us off the hook, doesn't it? Read the Gospels. Neither Jesus, nor His brother James, read his letter, had anything good to say about that approach to God. Jesus is actually inviting us, this is what's so powerful, He's actually inviting us to a better way of living that makes the world a better place to live. It's our way of teasing out or living out or walking out the essence of what we say we believe as Christians, that as God reconciled us to Himself, we have the opportunity, the responsibility to do everything we can to reconcile others to ourselves. In fact, here's one way to think about it. Every time you pray, every time you pray, pray for yourself, pray for a friend, a neighbor, somebody's health, or whatever it might be, your kids' grades, your kids. Anytime you pray, do you know what you're doing? In fact, if you're not really even a religious person, but every once in a while, you kinda shoot up a prayer, and you're not sure how it works, but you just kinda shoot up a prayer, you almost can. In fact, I've told this before. I have a friend who was used to be a pastor and he's an atheist and he admitted it, and it wasn't a gotcha. It was just kind of funny. He'd prayed for so long in his life. He said, "Every once in a while I accidentally pray". You just look up, it's like, oh my gosh, or oh my somebody, or to whom it may concern. If there's anybody out there, help me. It's just kind of that, it's a human reaction to look up when we need help. We don't look down when we need help. We look up when we need help. Did you know, regardless of your theology or if you even have any, every time you pray, you are celebrating and you are leveraging the fact that God did not stop with forgiveness, that He went the extra step and reconciled you unto Himself so that you can have a relationship with God. The reason you imagine or actually believe or are confident that God hears your prayers is because your heavenly Father forgave and reconciled. And every time we pray, we are leveraging, recognizing, and celebrating that fact. Which means in those moments, we're reminded, every time we pray, we're reminded that we've lost our right to just close the door on other people, roll up the welcome mat, pull up the drawbridge, throw up our hands and say, I don't care. And if they're ever willing to come around, I'm around, but I'm not making any more effort. He reconciled with you in order to have a relationship with you. So number three is I will make the first move regardless of who moved away first. And then the fourth, decision. Again, we've talked about it all along, I've just not challenged you to decide. The fourth one is simply this. I will, in fact, keep the door open and the welcome mat out. I'm deciding. I know it's the right thing to do, I've thought about it. It's difficult. But you know what, have you decided? And when this person comes to mind or this group of people, have you decided? I'm deciding I'm gonna keep the door open and I'm gonna keep the welcome mat out. Now, to be clear, I don't ever recommend and nobody in their right mind would ever recommend you try to reconcile with someone who is unsafe physically or emotionally. But those people aside, this is an extraordinarily important decision, for several reasons. Number one, this has to be a daily decision for some of us as it relates to some people 'cause the hits just keep on coming, don't they? Every Thanksgiving, here it is again. Every Christmas, here it is again. Every time the family gets together, here it is again. Every time we say we're gonna do A, then you know, suddenly, I mean, it just keeps on coming. Which means there are people perhaps in your life where this is a constant thing. Something's always happening. Something's always changing. They're always stirring the pot. They're always making it worse. They're always making it bad. And there's something in you and there's something in me that's like, you know what, okay, I've had enough. I'm gonna cross my arms. I tried, I don't care. They're out, and I've done everything I can do. And I just don't have it in me to do anything else. And that's when we remember the goal isn't to fix them and the goal isn't to fix it, the goal is no regrets, and this will reduce your regret. This will potentially keep you healthy. This will pretty much ensure there's no bitterness build up. This decision, as we talked about last time, keeps the hurt connected to its actual source. It makes it difficult to transfer the hurt from one relationship to another. But the moment you close the door, the moment you roll up the welcome mat, the moment you say never ever again, you're out, and there's still that angst and that energy and that stuff, it's gonna go somewhere. And chances are, it's gonna go with you to another relationship. So if I could pry for just a minute, I wanna ask those of you who are married an emotional question. And this may be something your husband or wife has suggested in the past and you lost it and they decided, we are never going there again. Or maybe they brought it up two or three times. And every time they do, they have to just kind of gear themselves up because they know what's coming. And every time they bring this up, there's something in you that's like, I should pay attention to that because that just churns me up. So I'm gonna ask it from the safety and distance of the stage. The safety of a camera lens. Is it possible, I'm no counselor. Is it possible that your father or your mother is haunting your marriage? Is it possible that your father or your mother is haunting? What do I mean by haunting? I mean, their presence and the angst of what happened in the past, it just sits there, it infiltrates, it causes you to overreact or under-react. You go ballistic or you just shut down, and you're not even sure why. Because you look at the details of the situation or the argument and you're like, you know what, I don't think this created that. But if anybody else brings it up, oh, pity the fool, right? 'Cause you got hurt, I mean, and anybody can see this, genuine hurt. I mean, you have every reason in the world to be angry and hurt. And somewhere along the way you decided that you didn't care. And when you decided you didn't care, you rolled up the welcome mat and you shut the door. And consequently, you didn't mean to do this, you became a carrier. Because when core relationships break, something in us breaks as well. And most of the time, we really don't know what to do, especially when we were young. And then we do the wrong things and perhaps make things worse. But now you know. And the reason I wanted to focus this on that is I wanna challenge you to decide, would you decide, no regrets, no regrets? I'm not gonna get to the end. I'm not gonna get to a funeral and wish I could go back. I'm not doing that. That's not gonna be my story. You gotta decide, that's not gonna be my story. I'm not gonna wait until I get that call and go, oh, you know, I should. No, that's not gonna be my story. You're not gonna let that be your story. No regrets. I will get back to, I am not gonna get back at. I will own my slice of the blame pie. It is so tiny, it is so insignificant, but you know what? I wanna see that relationship clearly. And if there's anything in my eye keeping me from seeing clearly, I want it out. And I'm gonna make the first move, even though I'm not the one that created the mess. I'm gonna make the first move even though I'm not the one that moved away, relationally speaking. And I'm gonna keep that door open and I'm gonna keep that welcome mat out. And when I think it's too much and when I think I've stretched as far as I can stretch and when everything in me wants to close that door, I'm gonna remember what my Father in heaven through Christ did for me. He does not count my sins against me in my relationship with Him. So by His grace, I'm gonna do for Him, I'm gonna do for her and I'm gonna do for them what through Christ my heavenly Father did for me. I'm gonna keep the door open. No regret. Now, I wanna take kind of a hard right turn for a minute. And I wanna say something to those of you who are not Christians, you're not Jesus followers. Not religious, maybe a different religion. Used to be, walked away from it. In fact, you're only listening or watching because you're staying at someone's home and this is what they do or they made you come to church. I understand that. And I'll say this too. I say this all the time. If I were to hear your story, I probably wouldn't be a Christian either. I mean, if I experienced what you experienced, so I'm not criticizing you at all. I wanna end by extending an invitation directly to you. And the reason I want to extend this invitation specifically to those of you who might fall into that category is this. Often, not always, but often, a broken relationship is the catalyst for a broken faith. Oftentimes, a broken relationship, somewhere in the past or maybe currently, maybe a family member, maybe another Christian or a group of Christians, or a break with a relationship with a church. I don't know what your story is. But more often than not, a broken relationship is the catalyst for a broken faith. And I'll be honest, that's difficult to admit because you're smart and you know that those two things really are mutually exclusive, but it felt connected when it happened. And as difficult as it might be for you, it could be that those dots are actually connected. Because more often than not, they are. So as much as I hope that you'll reconcile with your brother and your sister, and as much as I hope that you'll reconcile with your prodigal son or your prodigal daughter or your prodigal father or that friend next door, or that neighbor, that person at work, and it wasn't a big thing, it was a little thing, and as much as I hope that you'll take those steps and make these decisions, I wanna urge you and plead with you and invite you to be reconciled to God, to be reconciled to your Father in heaven. The Apostle Paul, he was so direct to brand new Christians in Corinth. Listen to how he said it. This is where I got the words. He says, "We implore you," we beg of you, "on Christ's behalf," because of what Christ has done for you, "be reconciled to God". Be reconciled to God. I know your story, he would say, I've heard your story, I was there for your story, I get it, you have every reason in the world, but be reconciled to God, who removed all the obstacles and went looking for you., not to get back at you, but to get back to you. He's the Father in the story of the prodigal son who's done everything he can and he's waiting and he's wanting and he's wishing and he's longing and he's imploring, be reconciled to me, be reconciled to God. Because in spite of you, He loves you. And when you're ready or if you're ever ready, we're here for you. Because as hard as this may be for you to believe, every single one of us, starting with me, we all have a be reconciled to God story of our own. So I invite you, stop resisting, stop rehearsing that narrative, look beyond what he did and look beyond what she didn't do. And would you please be reconciled to God? When it comes to repairing relationships, no one responds well to being convinced, coerced, convicted or controlled. Yet we try those approaches over and over again. www.andystanley.com www.sermons.love www.northpointcommunitychurch.com