Guest User 1/10/21 Guest User 1/10/21

Cultivate Gratitude

We’re gong to be in Psalm chapter 42, if you want to turn there. We are going, as a church, into January fasting season for the last ten years we’ve kicked off our year with a season of fasting. Not because we hate ourselves or we’re some sort of weird-o’s. But we really believed it’s cultivated some good things in us.

Series: As For Me and My House

David Stockton

There are four questions we’re trying to answer in this season. The first is :

1. What do you want Jesus to do for you? What do you want God to do for you? You can write that down as we go through the service.

2. What are you going to do to limit the “junk food”?

If you don’t know what that’s talking about, we talked about that last week. We put up a list of things like social media, tv, news, friend group, if you’ve got a boyfriend that’s junk food you should probably take a break from that for a while, or forever.

3. What are you going to do to eliminate hurry from your life and create space?

Sometimes we just try and jam more good or Christian or self-help type stuff in there. But the point of this is to actually create more empty space for the presence of God to move in. In that regard, we talked about dedicate your lunch hour to quiet yourself before God. Quit your job. Quit the extra hours at your job. Dedicate an hour before bed. Dedicate your drive time to be silent before the Lord. Some things like that.

4. Who will you spend time with that is hungry?

If there’s somebody you know that seems to have a hunger for God, intentionally spend some time with them. Or if it’s someone that you know is in a dry spot, or actually is hungry physically or in a hurting situation. It’s amazing when you link your life with somebody like that how your prayer life or your hunger for God goes up quite a bit as you’re trying to call out to God on their behalf, not just your own behalf.

Write some things down. I think it would be a good practice for us to engage in. Then please, above all that, join us on Wednesday nights. We want to be a praying church. I know a lot of times we say, “Hey come to the church and we’re going to pray,” and you didn’t even hear me when I said that; or it didn’t sound good because there’s nothing sexy about it, there’s nothing cool about it. “Go pray at the church.” But I really think that it’s an important time. I think it’s something that blesses the Lord’s heart. And it’s good for us to be together in that way. So we’re going to be live-streaming it and we’re also going to be doing it in person. Fast on Wednesday. It just means don’t eat food. And then come pray together. Make sense? Everything else is online too, if you want to find out more details on that.

1 Thessalonians 5. We’ll start out with this little intro. There have been a lot of Sundays this past year where I’ve walked up these little stairs knowing I need to say something about some troubling news or some disturbing event that has happened during the week. I mean, 2020, so many times I walked up those stairs, going, “uh…here we go.” I’m supposed to say something that makes us all feel better after we saw something really hard or challenging. And I was hoping that was just a 2020 thing.

But this is a new year and this week brought about the same type of things. COVID is still going strong. Our political unrest erupted into troubling and disturbing violence at the Capitol building. And for us, on a personal note at Living Streams a big change is upon us with Jay launching out. So there’s some heaviness.

It was neat because, as we were downstairs praying, one of the guys was like, “If you feel like the Lord’s speaking something to you, why don’t you just say it and pray it.” Everyone was saying and praying so much, I never got to say mine. It’s true. I felt like the Lord said something to me about Nathan, the guy who’s going to be hanging out with us for a while. It was just that he has a humility, a joy and kind of this light touch that he brings into a heavy room. I was like, “Wow, that’s so encouraging.” Because I am feeling like I wanted to bring some of that into a potentially heavy room. And it’s not all up to me because now the Lord is bringing somebody who’s going to help with that.

Then, as we were worshiping, I got the sense that, “Hey, wait a second. There’s a lot of people in this room that have been doing a lot of work this week to find their own soul in a place where they’re feeling light, they’re feeling joy in the Lord, they’ve been doing that work.” Then all of a sudden, the burden was gone. It’s not up to me. It never is. I’m thankful that a lot of you are already doing this work. You’re already seeking and finding the Lord and actually sharing that.

With all that being said, I want to offer something that I know has withstood the test of time, has seen many situations like we’re experiencing, as well as much worse, and has always been reliable, helpful, relevant, solid and stabilizing. It’s God’s word. God’s word is what we need to hear right now. God’s word has been there, done that for a long time. God’s word spoke the world into existence. It took the “to-hu va-vo-hu,” the “without form and void” chaos of the world, and brought about beauty and light and order. It’s God’s word that we need in our own souls and in our city and in our country these days. And God’s word is thankfully found in the library of scripture that we’re turning to.

This guy, Jon Tyson, said this about our society, which I think is so good.

The soil of secularism [progressivism, progressive Christianity, all these things] don’t have the nutrients for the human heart to flourish in environments like this. We need more for times like this than our culture as the capacity to give us.

Can everyone say ‘amen’? I mean, if you haven’t figured out that by now, I don’t know. I don’t know what to say to you. Our world is lost. We have blind leading blind. No doubt about it. Yet, we have before us the scriptures. In 1 Peter 2 (MSG), Peter is writing to the people he cares about, the people of God he’s connected to. He says this:

13-17 Make the Master proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God’s emissaries for keeping order. It is God’s will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you’re a danger to society. Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government.

I know there are a thousand different emotions that might stir up in you when you hear that, but guess what. Let God win. Let his word win. Submit yourself to his word. Don’t make his word submit to you. There is such a temptation in our day to do the wrong thing in this regard. God’s word. Peter is not talking to people to have it easy and rosy. They were dealing with Roman emperors and extreme persecution. And yet this is what he writes. So let’s let the word of God rule in our hearts and minds.

Then we have Paul, who is writing to this town of Thessolonica and this little church that he had helped form there. These are some final instructions he gives them. We’re going to unpack them in the next three weeks. But let’s read it right now.

1 Thessalonians 5

12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.

Seems a little self-serving there, right? We won’t focus on this part today.

Live in peace with each other. 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

So in this section, I see three different things that we’re going to bring up over the next three Sundays. The first one is cultivate gratitude, so we’re going to focus on that today. Next week we’re going to focus on what it means to consecrate ourselves. It’s going to get serious. Don’t come to church next week. It’s going to be serious. If you want to just keep doing life the way you’re doing it and not have to make any changes, don’t come to church next week. Because it’s going to be serious. It’s going to be good. The last week we’re going to talk about what it means to serve the Lord in our day and age. So we’re going to unpack those things on Wednesday nights as well. This actually goes along with all of that.

Cultivate gratitude. I want to focus on verse 16, 17, 18 and 19. So “be joyful always” is what Paul is admonishing the Thessalonians to do. To be joyful always. Does anybody know what “always” in the Greek is? Always. It’s not that complicated. He’s saying, “Be joyful always.” And then he says, “and pray continually.” It’s both and. There are always going to be situations where you need to be praying. But no matter how heavy the situation is, you need to be rejoicing. Rejoicing in the Lord always.

And Paul’s not talking to a people that, again, have it made in the shade. In the Thessalonian church, there was a bustling city, it was a happening place, but the Christians were being persecuted. Ray Stedman writes in his intro to Thessalonians:

The pagans of Thessolonica were severely persecuting the Christians, threatening them and taking away their property. So these early Christians were called upon to endure hard things for the cause of Christ. In that city, sexual promiscuity was common, was even regarded as a religious rite. To live a life of chastity was to be regarded as a freak. Therefore, as is the case today, there was great pressure upon these new Christians to fall into line with the common practices of their day.

So there was a challenge to their way of life. There was a challenge to the way of the gospel, to the way of Christ. Following Jesus was difficult and persecuted. It actually cost them something in the natural and in the practical. Yet Paul says to them, “I just want you to remember to rejoice in all things.”

And Paul, who’s writing these words, we know his situation. He’s been beaten. He’s been flogged. He’s been imprisoned unjustly. He’s constantly ridiculed, even by the Christians, as being not one who should be listened to because he wasn’t one of the twelve apostles. Yet he felt called by God to be this apostle and to speak in that way. In all of his trials and troubles, he’s a person who has realized it’s so important to rejoice always. We’ve got to figure out how to cultivate gratitude in this time, in this time of challenge in our world.

And another reason, if you look through the whole of scripture, gratitude and thankfulness is such an important thing. Actually it says that we access God’s presence, we enter his gates with thanksgiving. That’s how important thanksgiving is. The Bible talks about the joy of the Lord is our strength. If we can figure out how to find the joy in the presence of the Lord, we’ll be able to rejoice and that joy somehow becomes strength for us as we go into life and go into challenge and go into heaviness and despair.

If we’re not learning to rejoice in the Lord, we’re going to be kind of working off of our own joy. And our own joy is so fleeting. It’s so conditional. Which means our strength will be fleeting and conditional, as well.

If you look into the life of Jonah. You know the guy. "Go to Nineveh and preach forty days in judgment.” And he’s like, “That’s cool. No, I’m going the opposite way to Tarsus.” He’s down in Tarsus and he’s all, “Let’s get on a boat.” And, bam. A fish and he’s inside. He’s inside this fish. In Jonah chapter 2, he kind of goes into this kind of prophetic, poetic utterance. The way it starts out, “I cried out to you from the depths of Sheol.” Basically, Jonah thought he went to hell. Based on his understanding at that day and age of what hell was. It was darkness, it was burning, it was all those things that Jesus kind of unpacked a little bit more. And where is he? He’s inside a fish, so it’s dark. He’s inside a fish, there’s a little burning. It’s called stomach acid, but he didn’t know that. He thought he had died. He thought it was over.

Yet in that place, as he goes on, he ultimately gets to the end of this poetic, prophetic utterance. He says, “Then I offered to you thanksgiving.” And like the very next verse says, “And the Lord commanded the fish to spit him out.” Somehow when his heart began to turn towards gratitude, it moved God in a way that to him right where he needed to be.

And you think about Paul. Same thing. Before he went to Thessalonica to plant this church, he was in a place called Philippi. And he had been arrested and put in prison. He and Silas were in locks and stocks and they were in the prison. They are just kind of lying there all tangled up. It says at midnight, what did they do? They started singing. “Way Maker, Miracle Worker, Promise Keeper, Light in the Darkness.” They probably sang a different song. But they started singing it out, filling the whole jail with gratitude and thanksgiving for all that God had done for them. For who Jesus was, with them right at that moment.

And what happened? An earthquake. Everything started shaking and the stocks and the locks came off and the prison doors opened. And they just kept singing. They kept singing until the Philippian jailer was about to kill himself. And they’re like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Chill out, man! We’re all still here!” And then he ends up giving his whole life to the Lord, and his family, as well.

So Paul is coming off of this. He knows the power of gratitude. He’s seen it in action. So he’s calling to the Thessalonians, “Hey I know you’re going through hard times. I know I didn’t get to spend time with you long enough. I know you’re new in faith. I know you’re new in the Lord and not sure what to do in the face of all these challenges.” But he said, “Here’s some final things. Rejoice always and pray continually.”

And then he takes it a little deeper. He says, “Give thanks in all circumstances. Just in case you weren’t sure what ‘rejoice always’ means, give thanks in all circumstances. All circumstances.” Paul is not naive. He’s not ignorant. He’s saying, “all circumstances,” because he knows some circumstances suck horribly. Give thanks in those circumstances. This is what the people of God do. This is what the followers of Christ do. They give thanks in all those circumstances.

Then, to take it even further, “for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” It’s very rare that you see that. We’re always, “God, what’s your will for my life?” There are a few times in scripture where it actually spells it out. This is God’s will for you. This is one of them. 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Give thanks in all circumstances. God’s will for you.

1 Thessalonians 4, just a chapter earlier, it says, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified; that you should avoid sexual immorality;” Bam. Next week. Can’t talk about it now. Consecration. It’s all there. Coming at you.

1 Peter 2:15 “For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.” We read that verse already in light of all the chaos.

Then 2 Peter 3:9, it says, “It’s God’s will that no one should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” This is God’s will for us.

One of the things that is God’s will is that we are thankful. I know it seems silly. I know it seems almost New Age-y or something. There are all kinds of psychological, sociological studies that you can do that show the benefit of your own soul if you can cultivate gratitude and thanksgiving, if you can dwell on the good and think about those things. But it’s deeper than just some sort of self-help in this regard.

This is what he’s saying. Then what’s so interesting, and I think verse 19 is kind of the key to this whole section. Basically, I look at verse 19, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.” It’s like, if we do the things from 12 through 24, then we’ll find ourselves stoking the Spirit’s fire within us. But if we neglect these things, we’ll find the Spirit dwindling and diminishing.

That’s our hope this whole fasting season. We’re wanting to develop a hunger for God. A hunger for righteousness. We want to see the Spirit of God stoked into a bigger flame than it’s ever been in our hearts, as we go into another year that might have all headwind against us again.

Somehow, when we cultivate gratitude in our own soul, cultivate gratitude in our marriages or in our households. Yeah, I’m talking about your roommates or your friends. “Let’s take time to give thanks.” Cultivate gratitude. Stopping before you eat. Cultivating gratitude. Giving thanks. All of these things are beneficial practices. Ultimately, in our world, if we could figure out how to cultivate gratitude instead of standing against and fighting and adding to the noise—be a beautiful contribution that the church would be making to do this type of stuff.

I’ve been unpacking this. I talked about it last week a little bit. It’s a lesson that’s ongoing in my life, so I’m sorry if it seems a little confusing or redundant. Last week I talked about how my wife sat us down for prayer. My daughter, Bella, said she saw 2020 as a ship in a storm, but then 2021 she saw flowers everywhere. I was like, “Oh, that’s a nice thought.” I made some jokes about it.

But then I went home and this guy emailed me and said, “Hey, your daughter’s not just blowing smoke there. It’s actually the Bible says that, as well.” He sent me Song of Songs 2. And I can read it to you.

10 My beloved spoke and said to me,
    “Arise, my darling,
    my beautiful one, come with me.
11 See! The winter is past;
   the rains are over and gone.
12 Flowers appear on the earth;
    the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
    is heard in our land.

I just know, because I’ve watched the Lord interact with my daughter, and I know this was just like a confirmation, making me realize that it wasn’t just a sentiment from an 11-year-old daughter, but it’s actually the Lord wanting to speak to this. It was so encouraging to get that. I need to put this everywhere. I need to put this in my office, in my houses, this verse, because it’s confirming.

But then Wednesday happened. I was playing basketball with these guys and they kept showing me, “Check this out, check this out.” And I was like, “That doesn’t look like flowers.” Some of those guys did not look like flowers. And you know, it was this crash between, “Maybe the Lord wasn’t really saying that. Maybe I got it wrong.” Or, “Maybe the Lord was saying that and it’s coming.”

I was wrestling this through, but then I started thinking about my daughter, Bella. And it made perfect sense to me. My daughter, Bella, when she wakes up, she doesn’t see flowers. You know what she sees when she wakes up? She sees a wheelchair. And she jumps in that thing and goes through life. Her life is full of flowers, if you ask her, though.

And then, I’ve been on dates with my daughter. So I’ll get in a wheelchair and we’ll go together. A wheelchair date. It’s kind of fun. And I’ll get to see the way people see us, the way people see her. So many people, when they see my daughter, Bella, what they see is a wheelchair. And they are the stupidest idiots in t he world. Because that is such a miniscule part of her life. She’s a chef. She has been a cheerleader. She gets up on the stage at our Christmas plays and just like, bam, steals the show. She can memorize lines. It is so crazy. I wouldn’t get in front of anybody, ever, when I was a kid. She’s been a Disney model. She’s a great swimmer. She’s a total goofball. She’s hilarious. She’s great at telling stories. And she is the sweetest, most comforting thing that you have ever met in your life.

The other day, it’s a weird other story, but we have these two goats. And I don’t know what was going on, but they were just screaming so much. And they usually don’t do that. But this day they were just screaming all the time. And I was like, I said, “Bella, could you go hang out with the goats for a little bit. I think if I go out there, it won’t help.” And she was like, “Yeah.” Because she knows. We named her Bella Rapha, which is beautiful healer. Because, although she needs healing, we know she’s going to give healing to the world. And we’ve seen it time and time again. So she went out there and I didn’t hear the goats anymore.

And we watch football. She can’t watch football games with us, at least not to the end. Because she knows one team’s going to lose. And she’s like, “They just put the camera on them for so long and I just can’t…” She can’t take it when she sees a team lose. This is who she is. And if you miss that, you’re an idiot. And it’s the same thing. She has to cultivate gratitude. When God says there’s going to be flowers everywhere, Bella believes there’s going to be flowers everywhere. It doesn’t mean that everything’s going to change for her. She’s still got challenges. But the flowers are there for those who will find it. I love that in Song of Songs. It says, “Arise and come with me.” It’s like you need to come up out of the situation you’re in and let me show you the flowers.

And I think about when Jesus said to his disciples, “Hey, guys. You’re going to go through hard times. I know you are not Romans, so you have no rights. You have oppression. I know you’re not well-to-do Jews. You’re kind of the lower class, the worthless. And you’ve left all you have to follow me. And you basically have nothing at all.” But he said, “I want you to, every once in a while, when it’s feeling really heavy, I want you to look and see the flowers.”

The best way to do that, and we’re going to finish with this, is right here. The word eucharist describes this moment, this bread and this cup. The word eucharist actually means thanksgiving. I’m not sure if you knew that. I forget it all the time, and I’m like, “I think it might,” and I look it up and I’m like, “Oh, yeah, it does.”

What we’re going to do is to cultivate some gratitude that’s not based in wishful thinking or some sort of hopeful sentiment. But this is historical reality. That God sent his Son into the world because he knew the world was stuck and lost and confused. And not only that, but we were trapped in our trespasses and sins. So Jesus came and he lived a sinless life. And this bread represents his body. Perfect. And yet it was broken. It was broken by our sin. It was broken by the anger and corruption in the world. It was broken by the attack of the devil. It was broken for us.

And as we remember this, we do remember the horrors of that day, but what we remember is that Jesus did it because he loved us. And he did it so that we could be made whole. So with a grateful heart, let’s take this bread.

Jesus, we do. We take this and we remember what you did for us. And we are grateful.

And he didn’t just make us whole through his broken body, but he allowed his blood to flow, to wash us clean, so that we could stand before the Father without any fear, without any shame, and know we would be received.

So Jesus, we remember with gratitude, with joy, with thankfulness, that you have washed us clean of all of our sins.

Let’s take the cup.

And now, this is a time for you to spend some more time with Jesus. You can sing to him, if that’s what you want to do. You can sit down and write some of the commitments you want to make to him. You can come forward for prayer. We’ll have some people up here for prayer. But don’t leave this place without really pressing in to the Lord and see what he has for you.

Watch

Guest User 1/3/21 Guest User 1/3/21

What Are You Hungry For?

Series: As For Me and My House

David Stockton

We’re gong to be in Psalm chapter 42, if you want to turn there. We are going, as a church, into January fasting season. For the last ten years we’ve kicked off our year with a season of fasting. Not because we hate ourselves or we’re some sort of weird-o’s. But we really believed it’s cultivated some good things in us.

So what we’re going to do going into this next year, is we’re going to focus the whole month of January, I’m kind of giving some vision and perspective for it today. But then next Sunday we’re going to start 21 days of a fasting season. So, for sure, what we want everybody to do is join us on Sundays. And I’m going to be helping us get a real vision for the righteousness of God, and kind of what God’s been putting on my heart.

We’ve got these booklets that are going to guide us. You can pick one up on the way out today. Twenty-one days of just kind of some thoughts broken up into three sections. The messages for the next three weeks, I’m going to start with January 10, talking about, “As for me and my house, we will cultivate gratitude.” We’re going to try to cultivate gratitude as we go forward. We have some biblical backing for that, why we would pick that.

The next thing will be, “As for me and my house, we’re going to consecrate ourselves this year.” So we’re going to talk about what it means to consecrate ourselves in the bliblical perspective and narrative, as well as hopefully bring in some application to today.

And the third thing we’re going to do is we’re going to talk about, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Again, biblical backing for that and what that could mean for us going forward, so that we can kind of start off with some sure footing on some solid ground as we go into the rest of the year.

In addition to the Sunday mornings, on Wednesday nights we’re going to be gathering everyone in person who is healthy and comfortable with that. We’re going to be broadcasting over a livestream for some prayer nights. So, on Wednesday, we’re asking everyone who’s a part of Living Streams’ family—it’s probably the worst way to start out the year if you’re trying to grow a church, but we’re trying to grow the church, not necessarily grow a church—we’re going to start off, Wednesdays we’re going to ask everybody to fast from food all day and then join us here on Wednesday nights. We’re going to have some soup at 6:00 and at 7:00 we’re going to have a prayer time. We’re going to pray further into each of these things that we’re discussing. It should be a good time.

So, Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights, no eating on Wednesdays, if you want to do that, if you’re able to do that. If not, talk to me and we can figure some things out. But also, as you’ll see at the end of this message, for those twenty-one days, we’re asking you to think about some other things that you could adapt into your life that would be considered some sort of fasting or whatever, as we go forward, so we can cultivate a hunger for God. That’s our goal through all of this, to become hungry for God.

So what are you hungry for in 2021? It’s not third service, so it shouldn’t be food quite yet. What are you hungry for in 2021? A new job because you lost your job? Are you hungry for some healing or a vaccination? Are you hungry for some Acai bowls? Because I’ve been eating those lately. Those are good. They’re like forty dollars a pop, but they are delicious and you feel so good.

Are you hungry for some pad Thai? Anybody seen that new Postmates commercial … besides me? It’s like some elderly living community commercial but then they’re just joking. They’re like, “Wouldn’t you like to come and live here and have some Pad Thai?” And they just kind of subliminally put …. It’s hilarious. I love pad Thai too. Or how about nacho fries? Come on, you’ve seen that one. Yeah? You craving those nacho fries?

Or maybe it’s better to frame this, what are you longing for after 2020? Maybe you’re not even ready to really think about what you want 2021, but what are you longing for? Maybe it’s some good news, some safety, security, some peace, release of the tension, maybe some stock in toilet paper or something like that. Or, as you’re considering your appetites, your longings, your desires going into this new year, do you have desires you wish would go away? That would quit bothering you? Enslaving you? Desires that you’re ashamed of?

Would you say that your appetites at this point are in control? Or out of control? What we’re going to do is talk about longings, appetites, desires, as we go into this new year.

There’s a guy, Ronald Rolheiser, who wrote a book about longing. He’s says:

“There is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full peace. This desire lies at the center of our lives, in the marrow of our bones, and in the deep recesses of the soul.”

He’s basically talking about there’s something within us, and whether it’s our sinful nature, whether it’s just the reality that we’re not made for this world, whatever it might be, the Bible kind of speaks to different realities to it. He says the desire is there and it’s strong.

… Spirituality is, ultimately, about what we do with that desire.

It’s an answer. It’s a guide to how to navigate the reality of this desire or the desires within us.

“What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain…”

When they go unsatisfied for too long…

"…and the hope they bring us, that is our spirituality." – Ronald Rolheiser

That really is the sum total of how we’re getting along in the world. Ultimately the Bible makes it very clear that God has put some sort of longing, he’s put eternity in our hearts. So there is always this longing that ultimately can only be satisfied by him. No matter how hard we try in this world, we will never be satisfied, because, ultimately, God is trying to draw us back to himself.

James chapter 4. James, who’s kind of the big jerk of the Bible. I shouldn’t really say that but it’s funny because he’s really intense. James chapter 4 says this about desires:

1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.

James is just saying all of the tension in the world is because you have these desires that are being unmet and you just take it out on everybody else. Desires are a big deal in our lives. They’re driving forces. Our appetites really do add up to what our life does, or what our life is. It’s important for us to talk about these.

Psalm 42 (ESV) , this is what I want us to kind of take away. This picture of the writer of Psalms here, and as he’s writing this Psalm, this is what’s in his soul. This is what he’s speaking out. This is what he’s singing out.

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
    so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?[b]
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
    and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
    a multitude keeping festival.

This writer is basically describing how he’s so hungry for God. He pictures it as a deer who’s thirsty and is trying to find water. He’s thirsty for God. He’s longing for God. And where does this longing come from? It’s coming from hard times. Tears have been his food day and night. He’s fasting. Maybe because he doesn’t have food. Maybe because he’s so unsatisfied by food. Maybe he’s so troubled he can’t even eat. But what it has cultivated in him is this longing for God.

The people around him are saying, “Where is your God?” He’s going through hard times. And then, it’s interesting, after coming out of 2020, he says,

“how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God”

There are many among us, those online especially, who used to, in these times of uncertainty or trouble, they used to come to this place to come be with then people of God, to come be in a place where the praises of God are sung. And they’ve been deprived of that for whatever reason, because of health concerns or health concerns of people they love. And yet, they find themself in this trying time. My hope is that they are hungry for God, hungrier than ever for God.

And then, if you’re not feeling hungry for God, if that’s not the first thing that comes to mind when I ask what you are hungry for; I like this from a guy named Meister Eckhart. He said:

The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love; …

It’s good and right. We need to cultivate this longing.

…but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God. – Mesiter Eckhart

That’s a relief right there, huh? I love that because I don’t know if I can say that right now I’m longing, hungering for God like I want to, or like the Psalmist is describing. But I love that he says, “it’s okay, it’s okay, child, to long for the longing is a good start.” That’s what I really hope happens as we go through this month. I want us to at least get to a place where we are longing for the longing. We are hungering to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Because I think that’s a prayer that God would love to answer. That’s a promise given to us in the Beatitudes. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled.

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness and we will be filled. God loves to fill the hungry with every good thing. So it’s important for us to allow that hunger to be there, and actually to cultivate that hunger, but make sure it’s pointed in the right direction.

A picture in my mind is the garden. Where God said to Adam, “You can eat of all the trees,” but there were two special trees in the garden. Two special trees, right? There were all the trees that were good for food. And they could eat of all of them except for one. The two special trees were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The one tree they were not supposed to eat from: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But every other tree they were allowed to eat from.

And the picture in my mind is of Adam and Eve, they had access to the tree of life. They could eat from the tree of life, the sustenance, the life of God. But if all they ever did was eat of the other trees, they would have been missing out on the tree of life. And we have before us in our world—God has given us so many wonderful things to enjoy. But if we forget to really enjoy him, we’re really missing out. Really missing out.

A picture that I always go to about this kind of longing for God, a place I want so badly for my own soul; I talk about this story a lot. So if you’re sick of it—sorry, it’s in the Bible. But it’s Moses on that mountain in Exodus 33. He has gone through life where, at first he was hungry for the full authority and power of the Egyptian empire, right? He was raised that way. But then, at some point, he had this desire, this longing, this conviction of some sort, rise up within him to see his people not be oppressed or abused. It even got him to a point, where James says, he killed a man, literally.

After that, he was hungry to get away from it all because now he felt guilty. So he ran to the land of Midian just to kind of forget it all, to get away from it all, to start over, to not be known, to hide, to be at peace, hopefully. But then he met this burning bush, and the burning bush began to talk to him about his own deep challenges and problems and past and longings. Now he had this longing to set God’s people free and lead them to the Promised Land. That was the desire that was ignited in him.

And he brought them out of Egypt. He brought them across the Red Sea. Now they’re camped around this mountain called Sinai. And he’s called up into the mountain, and he goes up there. For forty days and forty nights, he’s got no food or water that we know of, yet he is completely sustained by the presence of God.

Then, in Exodus 33, Moses says something so interesting. He says, “God, don’t send us to the Promised Land if you won’t go with us.” A big shift happened in his heart. No longer was he hungry for the Promised Land, although that still might have been there, he was now more hungry for the presence of God. He had realized that the presence of God was everything. Whether he would have to go back to Egypt, stay in the wilderness, or go to the Promised Land, he didn’t care, as long as he could be with God’s presence. That’s what he truly longed for.

And that’s our goal. To find that place where we are longing for God’s presence, satisfied with God’s presence so it doesn’t really matter what place we find ourselves in. Again, if that’s challenging and you’re like, “Oh, no!” Go back to Mesiter Eckhart. It’s okay to just long for this. It’s a good place to start.

Ultimately, that’s what the Bible teaches us. That our primary existence, everything that we have is ultimately so that we can know God. The reason you have a brain inside your head is not so that you can make a lot of money. It’s so that you can know God. The reason that you have emotions and a heart and a soul and all of these things is not so that you can feel good all the time. It’s so that you can feel what God feels. The reason that you have a voice is not so you can tell everybody else what to do or get a lot of followers. It’s so that you can communicate with God what’s in your heart, and sing his praises and tell others about him.

I’m not saying that we need to become some sort of weird, stoic people that never smile ever again. God made all the trees for our enjoyment. We can enjoy all the things in life. That’s great. No problem. But it has to be subsequent, it has to be submitted to, it has to be prioritized underneath knowing God. Like the Westminster catechism says, “The chief end of mankind is to know him and enjoy him forever.” Ultimately, that’s what worship is. It’s enjoying God. Just taking time to enjoy God, however you do that. That’s what worship is. Finding his presence and enjoying his presence, and letting your longings get back in line like his.

Now that we’ve talked about this need to cultivate a hunger for God; and we’ve talked a little about our plan going forward, how we’re going to do this practically as a church, I want to talk about a couple of things for us to think about practically that could maybe help us in the process. And I say ‘maybe’ on purpose; because God is not a genie. You can’t just rub the lamp and get what you want. But there are practices within the scriptures and with church history that help us get into the places where we can see the grace of God revealed. If that makes sense. So God’s the one that gets to decide what kind of hunger is best for you to have. But there are certain things that can get us in the place where we can find ourselves hungry for God.

So there are three things I want to talk about. The first is: We need to limit our intake of junk food. Limit the junk food. You can all hear your mom right now, saying, “Don’t eat that. You’ll spoil your dinner.” Right? It’s just this common, simple thing that, if we want to be hungry for the good food, we’ve got to make sure we’re not nibbling all the time at the junk food.

The second thing is: We need to eliminate hurry from our lives. We’ll unpack that a little bit.

Then another thing that is important for us to do is to spend time with the hungry. That can go a couple of different ways. We’ll talk about that.

First. Limit the junk food. Yeah. This is not fun. My kids hate it when I limit their junk food. Yet, this world is so full of junk food. It’s just that same picture of all those trees. Adam and Eve could have been satisfied by all the other trees and never eaten of the tree of life. And here in our world, God has given us so many good things, so many things to enjoy. Each other. Cardinals (sometimes). Maybe. I don’t know. Basketball. It’s given to us to enjoy. Nacho fries. Acai bowls. There are so many things that we can enjoy. And all those things are good and right. It’s good to enjoy those things. But we’ve got to make sure that we don’t get so satisfied with all of those things that we never have any hunger for the real things.

John Piper tells it like it is sometimes. He says this in a book called A Hunger for God:

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It’s not the x-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality that we drink in every night. … The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.
–John Piper, A Hunger for God

Amen? Amen? It’s hitting home. You can admit it. I’m admitting it. In the world that we’ve created as Americans too, the convenience of all of these pleasures, our ability and our voracious, consumeristic idolatry is absolutely unfathomable to generations before us. Prime now! Not Prime three days from now. Remember that? How horrible that was? You had to wait three days for something. Prime now. It is unbelievable how consumeristic we are. And yet, we’re made to enjoy things. Absolutely. And that’s fine. But we can find ourselves so satisfied our counterfeitly satisfied by the things of this earth, that we are never really hungry for God.

The way John puts it in 1 John 2, he says:

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Now again, this can go a couple of different ways. But, basically, he’s connecting, if we love the world we’ve lost the love of God. That means we’re not receiving the love of God, the love of God is not cultivating a hunger for the love of God, the love of God is not in us cultivating a love for others. And the people around us, when they come hungry for the love of God, we don’t have anything to offer them, if we find ourselves endlessly nibbling at the table of the world. So we’ve got to check those things.

My hope and prayer is that, at least as we get out of January, we’ll know some of the idols that we have picked up. Not whether or not you have idols that have stuck in you. But you’ll know how to name the ones that you have. Because it’s so easy for us to let things in this world get a grip on us. Like Mario Kart on Switch. Love it. Trying not to love it so much.

So that’s the first thing. Limiting the junk food. The second thing, we’ve got to eliminate hurry. You are too busy. Who am I talking to? All of you! All of you. I’m talking to every single one of you. You’re American. If you’re not American, you’re still too busy. I don’t know. We’re just busy. We’re way too busy. We’ve got to slow down.

The tyranny of the urgent. You guys have probably seen this. We’ve got a little graph to help. But basically it’s real simple. It’s the concept that we find ourselves filling all of our time answering what is urgent and not what is important. Basically this is the ding on the phone, the incessant emails in your inbox. It’s all of the things that are constantly clamoring for your attention that are urgent, but aren’t meaningful, aren’t important. Yet we find ourselves constantly there, trying to check the emails and never getting to the things that we really need to do—the important things. And our world is full of this. Our world is trying to get our attention and is so good at it, better maybe than ever before with the access that we’re given to it. And we forget times for what’s important.

I’ve had to get to a time in my life where, literally, I schedule every week my times with God. My times to study and get ready for Sunday. I’ve blocked them in. When people say, “Hey, can we meet at this time?” I’m like, “Uh, I have an appointment.” I’m not lying, but I am. I have a meeting scheduled in there that cannot change. It’s locked. I’m meeting with God. And that’s fun to do. Because then they’re like, “Well, who are you meeting with?” If they feel like I’m being a little fishy. I’m like, “I’m meeting with God.” Then they’re like, “Oh.” And then everybody’s mad at each other and there’s ore emails and things like that.

But no. We’ve got to get to what’s important. And if you are not intentional and violent with the urgent, you will never get to the important. I think there should be a lot more amens going on right now. If I’m missing it, that’s one thing. But if I’m hitting it, throw out an amen because it’s hitting me big time. We’ve got to slow down.

John Ortberg wrote a book called Eternity is Now in Session and he kind of popularized this idea from Dallas Willard, who then John Mark Comer wrote a book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, but I love it. This is so important for us. It’s basically this conversation that John Ortberg had with Dallas Willard. He was stressed out. He was wound up. He couldn’t get straight. He was hungry for God but he was feeling no hunger at all. He said to Dallas Willard, “What do I do?” And Dallas Willard thought for a minute and he said, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” He was like, “Okay, what else? What else? How do I get hungry for God? How do I grow and development in my spiritual formation?” Dallas Willard thought again and said, “That’s it. Just ruthlessly eliminate hurry,” and walked away. John Ortberg was like, “What? What?” But then he started thinking about it.

Really, the biggest obstacle to our spiritual formation, the biggest obstacle to our longing for God is that we’re too busy. It’s funny because we as Christians, or we as Americans, are like, “All right. I need to long for God. The pastor guy said, ‘long for God,’ so I’m going to long for God. So I’m just going to add that to the list of all the other things I’m doing. I’m going to jam a little longing for God in there.” It’s like, open up the closet and “Where am I going to put this longing for God. There’s a hole. Boom. Jam it in there.” And we can’t figure out why we never long for God. We’ve got to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives.

Remember what Jesus did? It says, often he withdrew to a quiet place. Jesus was someone who was hungry for God. In fact, the night before he went to the cross, he went away to a quiet place to pray and to cultivate a hunger for God. It was so strong that, even there in all of his agony on the cross, what did he cry out? “I thirst!” He wasn’t thirsty for the vinegar sponge that they offered him. No one’s ever thirsty for that. He was thirsty to do the will of God and complete the job that God had given him. He was thirsty to do what his Father wanted him to do.

We’ve got to find ways to stop, to be still. God has promised us he will speak to us in a whisper. And the only way he could get our attention is if he screamed and freaked out. But he promised us he won’t do that. He’s going to keep speaking to you in a whisper until you finally quiet yourself enough to hear what he has to say. This is our opportunity to ruthlessly eliminate that hurry and find a hunger for God welling up inside of us.

The last thing is to spend time with the hungry. Again, this can go two ways. You could find people who are hungry for God and go spend time with them. Tell them what your secret is and they’ll say, “Eliminate the junk food. Ruthlessly eliminate hurry.” And you’re going to think, Man that pastor guy’s always saying that. I don’t know what they’re going to say. But you can spend time with them. That’s something that can happen.

The disciples spent time with Jesus. We just described it. He was hungry for the will of God. He hungered and thirsted for righteousness, and his disciples were totally consumed with that hunger. They did not look at the world at all in the same way. They were not satisfied by fishing anymore. And the other things they did. They were satisfied by God and his presence and doing the will of the One that had sent them into the world.

For me, there’s this guy, Jim Wright, who I remember, right after high school I had a lot of different ambitions and hungers, and he was this guy that took me to Mexico on a mission trip and then signed me up for this school of ministry. I just remember him as someone that was hungry for God. He was kind of goofy, but when it came to the things of the Lord, he was so intense. He was so resolute and focused and hungry for God. It just compelled me to be hungry for God.

Another way that this can go is spending time who are hungry for God, but then, honestly, just spending time with people who are hungry. When you engage in society’s pain, when you go and sit with someone who’s in pain, what happens is you find yourself wanting to cry out to God more than you ever did before. After spending time with all those people, those kids in Belize, and seeing what their pain was, and what they were going through, my prayers changed drastically from what I was praying before. It became a lot less selfish prayers.

When you’re with people who are hurting, people who are struggling, people who are hungry, there becomes a desperation for God to move. It takes you to the Beatitudes, right? Jesus said basically you’re in the right place, you’re ready for what the Lord has for you if you’re poor in spirit or you’re with the people who are poor in spirit. If you’re standing with the people who are mourning or persecuted or meek; or if you’re with those who are hungry or thirsting for righteousness because they’ve experienced so much injustice or unrighteousness in their life, then you’ll find yourselves hungering. And the promise of the Lord is, if you’re hungry for righteousness, he’s going to get you filled. It’s a prayer the Lord loves to answer. So, by spending time in those places, we can cultivate that hunger, as well.

I want to just kind of go through some things, a little bit of practical stuff now, so if you’ve got a pen and paper you can write this down and pray about these later, that’s fine. As we go into this 21 days—you can start now or you can start next Sunday, either way—I want us to kind of think through, under each of these categories, here are some practical ideas of things that maybe you could apply, in addition to your Sunday mornings and your Wednesday food fasts and all of those things, here are some things that you could do.

Limit the junk food intake of your life.

You could think about your social media, your apps, your games, etc. You could think about your news intake. You could think about tv, Netflix, Prime, Hulu, videos.
You could think about your friend group. Maybe there’s a group of friends that you’re spending time with and it’s just junk food all the way.
Maybe there’s a boyfriend or a girlfriend that’s total junk food for you. Now I’m going to get email. “Hey my girlfriend broke up with me because you told her to.” I’ll be like, “Well, quit being junk food, man.” I am trying to get more mercy this year. That’s one of the things the Lord’s been trying to do in my heart. So I’ll try to be more merciful. But don’t be junk food.
Music. The music we listen to really does have a big impact on us, whether you listen to the words or not. Whatever.

Eliminating hurry.

You could dedicate your lunch hour to quiet yourself before the Lord.
You could quit your job. I mean, it might be the problem. You’re losing your soul and you know it. Quit it. Or at least quit the extra hours you’re working at your job, thinking you’re getting ahead.
Dedicate an hour before bed to be still before the Lord. And try and stay awake.
Dedicate all drive time. When you’re in the car driving maybe that’s the time you just say, “All right This is all your time now, Lord. I’m just going to be silent before you.” Find ways to eliminate hurry from your life.

Spend time with the hungry.

Take someone who seems hungry for the Lord out to lunch. Not on Wednesdays, but some other day.
Volunteer with a ministry agency. We can get you connected. There are tons of great places. If you’re having trouble connecting with someone who’s in one of those places, we can find someone.
Spend some time with someone you know is hurting.
Serve in a soup kitchen.
Become friends with someone who is homeless.
Get involved with foster care. Those foster kids are so hungry for righteousness. Because it has not been their experience in a lot of those cases. And as you join your heart with theirs, you find yourself hungering for righteousness on their behalf, let alone your behalf.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, we thank you that you love us enough to forgive us, but you love us enough also to grow us, to move us forward, to shape us, to form us. And we just really ask that you would, Lord. I pray that this would become one of the hungriest churches in all the world. Hungry for you, Lord. And it would show up in our prayer lives, it would show up in our evangelistic endeavors, it would show up in the way that we treat our spouses and families, it would show up in our worship times, it would show up in our church times, it would show up in our life groups, it would show up everywhere, Lord. But we know that it’s you that can cultivate this hunger and we pray that you would. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Watch

Guest User 12/20/20 Guest User 12/20/20

Good News About Evil

Series: The Arrival

David Stockton

We’re all looking for good news these days. And all you have to do is turn on your tv and go to CNN and Fox and find all the good news you want, right? No. Yet we Christians have the best news of all. First, we have the best news because it has been verified by years of prophecies fulfilled, years of lives transformed, years of unmatched historicity and mountains and mountains of proof that Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin, crucified for the sins of the world, and rose from the dead in order to set humanity free from the curse of sin and death. That’s just the first reason we have the best news of all. And second, because of the news of the deeply gripping and wonderfully coherent future that Christianity present.

We’re going to dive into that a little bit today. We’re going to dive into it a little in our Christmas Eve service. But there’s something about the promise of what’s to come in Christianity that is very different from all the other promises. It’s deeply, deeply coherent with the reality of humanity’s pain. It doesn’t just wave a magic wand over it. It doesn’t just talk about an escape from it all. And sometimes we can fall into thinking that, but that’s not what the gospel presents. That’s not the good news. It’s way deeper than that, way more wonderful than that.

So we’re going to dive into some of that today as we talk about the first advent, as Jesus came, also knowing that Jesus promised to come again. So since we’ve spent five and a half months looking at the Apostle John’s account looking at Jesus’ life in the flesh, I thought it would be good to look at another of John’s writings where he helps us see Jesus in a whole other light. The book called Revelation.

So let’s read basically another depiction of the Christmas story from John in his apocalyptic book called the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

12:1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

So Christmasy, right? This is awesome.

3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.

Merry Christmas! It took a little turn there.

5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

Okay, so, it’s a little bit more Christmasy. Not much.

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God,
    and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
    who accuses them before our God day and night,
    has been hurled down.

Again, starting to sound like good news. Starting to sound pretty positive. The Book of Revelation trying to give us this insight. Now, John, as he was writing this was living in a time where the world that he lived in was not very wholesome. It was not right. Roman oppression, Roman domination, Roman leadership had become absolutely horrific in many different ways. The persecution that had come to the Jews and to the Christians was prolific. Many were being killed. It was a really dark time, a really twisted time in a lot of ways. So John is writing to encourage other believers.

He’s writing to encourage Christians, but he’s not using promises like, “Hey, it’s going to be all right.” Because many of them were being killed in horrific ways. He wasn’t writing to them to just say, “You know, keep on singing, keep on praying and the Lord will keep you from all pain and agony.” Because that wasn’t what was taking place at all.

So what he was writing to them was trying to help them see a little bit bigger, broader picture of what God could do, what God was willing to do.

There’s a guy named Michael Kruger. And I like the way he wrote a little bit about eschatology. Eschatology is basically the study of final things. He wrote:

Christian eschatology recognizes that there is currently something very wrong with the world. It is a place that is filled with sadness, cursed by sin, groaning as it awaits its redemption, and in the final consummation, those sad things will be made untrue. The curse will be rolled back. The world will be changed.
Eschatology is not so much about millennial positions or the structure of Revelation, but is primarily about…how one deals with the sad things in the world.
And at the Christian worldview, I believe, has a compelling and coherent eschatology. It can explain why the world is the way it is (the Fall), it can provide a definition of evil (violation of God’s law), and it can provide a real hope for the future (God will destroy evil and set all things right).
For this reason, eschatology is not a topic that should be reserved for theologians or scholars. It is a topic for every Christian, and, for that matter, every person. We all live in a dark world, and there is no message more relevant to those living in a dark world than a message about how that world will one day be changed.
—Michael J. Kruger, N.T. Professor

So when we have this book of Revelation, I know we’re reading this and even me, I mean I spent a lot of time just trying to say, “Okay, Revelation 12, where does this happen in the timeline of eschatology? How does this fit in with everything? Is this really a depiction of what was taking place in Bethlehem that night? Is it much broader than that? Is it actually this kind of second thing that will happen later on? What is going on?”

Again, all of that can be a fun study, but, ultimately, what John is trying to do is he’s trying to remind us that God is in control, and that the devil is at work, and yet, God can thwart the plans of the devil.

We’ll get into some more of this. But, actually, in this time, what he’s saying here is, “Now has come the salvation, and the power of the kingdom of God, and the authority of Christ. Because the accuser of the brethren has been hurled down.”

There’s going to be this time where there’s kind of this rising of evil, but it will always be followed with the mercy and victory of Christ. The rising of evil, any time it comes it will always be overcome by the authority and power and glory of Christ. You kind of see this in Revelation, these ebbs and these flows going on.

One thing we need to see here in verse 11 is how they overcame him:

11 They triumphed over him
    by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
    as to shrink from death.

So this is really good news about God dealing with unrighteousness. It’s really good news about the salvation of the Lord coming. But for the people of God, the way that they overcome all of these things is through the blood of the Lamb, which we sing about at this point as a beautiful, wonderful thing; but at first, it was a cross. And it was wounds, and it was pain, and it was agony.

And then they share their testimony. The word of their testimony, which is basically how God has shown up and helped them overcome things in their lives. So even in there you have the pain of the way things were, and the joy of the way things are. And on this side you can have that joy and rejoice, but on that side it just feels a lot like pain and things are wrong.

And they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Basically these were people that sought the Lord not for their comfort and ease, but they sought the Lord for his glory and the salvation of the people around them.

I was very nervous as I was studying this week, because I ultimately realized that the message I’m going to share today is probably not going to be well received by people who are seeking the Lord for comfort and ease. And I’m a little nervous sometimes, being an American and knowing my own heart, and living among Americans and knowing their hearts, that sometimes our whole Christianity is just about seeking the Lord for comfort and ease. If that’s what we stick with, Christianity is going to be very disappointing for us. And even more so, Jesus is going to be very disappointing.

But if we’re seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness, if we’re seeking the Lord for his glory and the salvation of the world around us, Christianity will be very fulfilling.

12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens
    and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
    because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
    because he knows that his time is short.”
13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

And then it goes on to talk a little bit more about the dragon. And we’ll get to maybe some of that in the weeks to come. But basically what I want to see here is that there’s a lot of good news in this depiction from Revelation 12. The three things I want us to draw out here, we’re going to spend our time on these things:

1. The devil cannot thwart the plans of God concerning you.

The devil is at work. He is an adversary. The word Satan means adversary. The word devil means accuser. All the accusation and all the adverse things you experience in your life, the devil is at work in the world. He was at work in Jesus’ day. Even calling himself the god of this world who could give all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus. He said in this, “to lead the whole world astray.” And you can see the works of the devil everywhere in these days. The deception, the pride, the evil, the injustice. The devil has great influence in the world today. However, no matter how great his influence, God has a way. He always provides a way of escape.

Here you see in here the dragon tries to destroy the baby but fails. He tries to destroy heaven but fails. He tries to destroy the woman but fails. He tries to destroy the woman’s offspring, but if you read ahead beyond this chapter, this doesn’t work either. When we apply this to where this could be speaking of Jesus’ birth there in Bethlehem, we can see the devil tried to get Jesus to be killed by influencing Herod, as he did a massacre of all the two-year-old baby boys and yet failed. And he meets Jesus in that wilderness to try to tempt him after he hasn’t eaten for forty days. He tries to influence him and yet he fails. And then there on that cross he influences the Romans, he influences the Jews, and they turn against the. Savior of the world and they have him crucified, thinking to get rid of him forever. But even that failed.

If Jesus went through that kind of difficulty, if he went through that kind of hatred, if he went through that kind of adversarial reality, we have to know that that’s going to be us, too, who follow after him. But we can take heart. We can rejoice in the good news that, just like all the times in the past, nothing is going to change. No weapon formed against you shall prosper, in the name of Jesus.This is very good news for us, especially as we see evil seem to be on the rise, and the confusion and deceit. And people instead of, in moments like this, turning to the Lord, they turn further into humanistic ideologies. We can rejoice. Like 2 Peter 2:9 says:

…the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials…

The second thing that is really good news in here is

2. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end.

So here, when it says about this man child that was born. That she gave birth to a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. This kind of harkens back to this first time when there was a woman in a garden. Then there appeared a serpent in that garden. And there was this interaction, right? Just like there was here. It’s kind of like John is basically, and I heard this from Dan Riccio. He was talking about how in Revelation, John is using the colors of the Old Testament to paint this apocalyptic prophecy. You have this stuff woven in so much. Here you have the same thing. In that moment, once again, there was this curse that was laid upon humanity; but even in that curse, God said to the woman that “Your offspring is going to crush the head of the serpent.”

Here is this promise that the one who was born was going to rule with an iron scepter. The picture of that iron scepter is basically that, “This one will rule forever.” That iron is something that can’t be destroyed. That iron is something that can’t be challenged. Ultimate authority. Everlasting authority. And it’s going to be so refreshing when Jesus finally takes command of everything and crushes the serpent head and becomes that unbreakable, everlasting King. Not a king who will die someday or be defeated; not a king who can be bribed, corrupted or deceived; but an everlasting King.

I love this. In 2 Thessalonians 2:8, it says:

8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

Sometimes we think that there’s this rivalry between God and Satan going on. Like, who’s really going to win, you know? What’s really going to happen? But there is no rivalry between God and Satan. Satan is a created being, and God is eternal, unlimited, sovereign over everything.

So in 2 Thessalonians, we’re told that, when Jesus does appear, when he returns, he’s going to destroy the lawless one. He’s going to destroy all evil with the breath of his mouth and the splendor of his coming. Again, I just think about Kung Fu Panda every time. He just fights so many battles with just his majesty. It’s just like, “Bing” and everybody’s done.

But it’s true. When Jesus shows up, it’s not going to be a battle. It’s just going to be over. So we can rejoice in the good news that Jesus Christ has conquered everything and can never be conquered. It’s just a matter of time.

And then the last thing that we really can see in here, and this is a little deeper. It’s going to take a little brainwork for 8:00 am service.

3. Where sin and evil abound, God’s grace and goodness abound much more.

This is a consistent theme throughout the scriptures, and especially in the book of Revelation. That when you see evil on the rise, you shouldn’t be afraid. In fact, when you see a lot of evil, don’t think evil is winning, just remember the devil is raging because his days are numbered. When you see a lot of evil, don’t think evil is winning, but know God is purging the world of all unrighteousness. He’s waking up the nation Israel. He’s shaking up the heathen so they can know him. He’s making up a kingdom of priests out of those who follow Jesus.

And when you see a lot of evil, don’t think evil is winning, but rejoice because God can turn evil into something really good. If God can undo death, what else is he planning to undo? If God can make something beautiful and triumphant out of a cross, what beauty and triumph will he make out of my pains and agony? This is where our minds are supposed to go as believers, when sin and evil abound. We can know that grace is on the verge of abounding much more.

I think about this with my daughter, Bella. I remember this moment in her life where she was learning how to swim. My daughter, Bella, if you don’t know, she has really no feeling or function from her knees down. She has something called Spina Bifida. She’s in a wheelchair and she can’t walk. She can’t do a lot of things. So when she was first learning to swim, she just thought this was something she couldn’t do. Then little by little, she was learning more and more and more. And then she could swim. It was so funny to see this kind of trigger happen in her mind, where all of a sudden, she was like, “If this thing I couldn’t do is something I can do, then what else out there I can’t I do that I actually can do?”

It was just this moment of confidence. It was this shift that happened in her little heart. And all of a sudden the world wasn’t full of so much doom, dread and disappointment. But now it was full of stuff that, “I just need to overcome.” There was a massive shift in her heart and mind. I’ve seen her overcome so many other things now.

I think that’s what John is trying to get through to us. Because it’s very easy to see the evil. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed and think, how are we going to see any good change out there in our world, and our government, in our society and then, if we’re honest, right here in our own hearts and souls?

But then that’s where we look at Jesus and we look at his life, and we look at what he’s done and what he can do. Then we look at the others around us, or in the scriptures, or even around us today, and we start to see what God can do. And we think, well, if he can do it there, maybe, just maybe, he could do it right here.

That’s the hope that’s supposed to give rise. That’s the good news of the gospel, that where sin and evil abound, God is not turning away. He’s not saying, “Forget it.” He’s actually making a plan to show and reveal that his grace can abound much more.

So there’s this illustration I want to share with you guys that’s been helpful for me in unpacking this concept. I’ve said things like, “Everything sad will come untrue,” which is as quote from Lord of the Rings. It’s a nice thought about everything sad coming untrue. And I do believe that the gospel declares that in a lot of ways. But there’s only one little problem with that. It’s funny, my wife was telling me, “I don’t like when you say that.” I was like, “I say that all the time. Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

But the whole idea of coming untrue, and I do think you give us enough time on the other side, that we really won’t even remember the really horrible things that happen to us here. So in that sense, yes, but what the gospel does is, it’s not trying to just make those things untrue. So here’s the illustration:

I heard a pastor talk about this stool that he had. It was kind of like a family heirloom, this wooden stool that they had. It was a special thing and he put it in a special place in his house. He came one day and his son had taken nails and nailed them into the stool, a whole bunch of nails into the stool. And he was upset about it. When the kid saw how upset he was, and realized what he had done, this kid was crying. So he took the kid and he said, “It’s okay. We can pull the nails out.”

He was using this illustration to say you can pull the nails out, but the scars of sin still remain. And though that is absolutely true, what you sew you will reap, I’ve always just kind of played with this analogy in all of my theological thinking and said, “Okay, God what is the good news of the gospel? Is it just that you can remove nails and then we’re left with the consequences the rest of our life, staring us in the face? Or is your gospel, is your forgiveness so deep that it actually pulls out the nails and, in time, removes the scars? Is that what your gospel is trying to say?”

And I think in some ways there is some of that. There is healing. There is recovery. But even then, I think that’s still way too cheap of an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because, ultimately, what God does is different. And we see this in the life of Christ. Jesus was pierced like that stool was. And Jesus, when he rose from the dead, he was the first fruits of this New Creation. He was now in this glorified state. We talked about it last week, maybe? A couples of weeks ago? Resurrection. We talked about it two weeks ago—resurrection. Jesus rose and he was glorified. His body wasn’t in the tomb. So somehow his glorification incorporated his body, but it was something different, obviously, because they couldn’t quite recognize him. But then they could recognize him. But if you remember, he still had the scars. He still had the scars.

So the glorification, the resurrection life that he entered into, wasn’t something where all the scars were gone. But those scars no longer represented what they used to represent. When he was given those scars, it represented pain and agony and sin, because he died for our sin and evil because he was crucified as an innocent person. That’s what they represented.

But in this glorified situation, now what those things represented was the New Covenant. They represented how much God really loves us. We sing about those scars. We sing about the cross now. Not in the same way that we would have back then. We sing about it as this beautiful thing, as this meaningful thing, as this demonstration of God’s love. Those scars were redeemed.

Not only that, but those scars actually meant something very significant to Thomas, who was locked up in fear and doubt and confusion. And those scars, instead of getting rid of those scars, those scars became a useful thing to help Thomas finally get free and to get forward in his relationship with God.

Then in Revelation, time and time again, when we see Jesus, we see him as the Lamb that was slain. Somehow the most horrific moment in human history, the most evil injustice that was ever done, is the way that we see Jesus in the end.

I think the reason for that is because, when we see Jesus and we see those scars, we’re never going to have to wonder where we stand with him. Those scars are actually going to become the most important sign in all of heaven, that we belong, that we are welcome. It’s like whenever my wife sees my ring or I see the ring on her finger, I know where we stand.

This is applied into my life, a number of times. Whenever someone comes to me and asks me to meet with them because they have suicidal thoughts, or they have a loved one that is. And you would think that’s a little weird, except that for I’m a pastor. But that’s not why they’re asking me, because I’m a pastor, because I seem so wise. They’re asking me because my dad took his life when I was twenty years old.

And in those moments, it’s so interesting to sit before someone and they’re like, “Hey, could you relive all your pain for me?” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah.” They’re not really asking that. They don’t know what they’re asking. They’re just hurting and they’re saying, “Hey, I could use some help.”

And I remember, I always have this conversation with the Lord. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to kind of like pull the scab off and start bleeding again.” But Jesus just asked me if I will. And I see the scars on his hands and I say, “I’m happy to, Jesus.”

So Jesus takes those scars, those things that are so horrific, and he actually can turn them into something so meaningful and helpful for the people around us. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s not some magic wand that just kind of erases. It’s way deeper than that. It’s a deeper magic from the dawn of time, as C.S. Lewis would say.

And if you will give your life—the good, the bad and the ugly—to Jesus; and you will let him work day after day, month after month, year after year, he will remove the things, remove the sin that is causing all of the pain. He will bring healing to what needs healing. But even better than all of that, he will use your scars. He will use your hurts to bring him glory, which is what we were made to do; and to help others know his love, which will change their forever.

That’s the power of the gospel. That’s the good news of Jesus Christ. That’s why Jesus came into this world. Not just to give us a nice Christmas story, but to defeat the dragon. To break the curse and make it possible for us to be glorified forevermore. Let’s pray:

Jesus, we thank you so much that it’s just not surface-y, it’s not some sort of like magical or done-up-with-a-bow type thing that you came to give us; but you gave us something so deep, so profound, so rich, that for many, it’s hard to believe. But for those that you are saving, Lord, it is everlasting life. And so, Lord, I pray that you would help us this morning to believe. You would help us to offer you every part of our lives, to not hide anything from you.
And I pray that, somehow, your good news, your gospel, your love would penetrate deeper into our souls, Lord. And I do pray you would teach us, Lord, teach us how to use the hurts and the scars and the pains to bring you glory. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Watch

Guest User 8/11/19 Guest User 8/11/19

Church as God's Greatest Creation

We’re going to be starting a new book today: Ephesians Chapter 1 is where we’r going to be. I’m going to give you guys a little bit of insight into what we’ve been working on this whole year. We’ve been trying to sneak attack you guys a little bit.

David Stockton
Series: Ephesians

We’re going to be starting a new book today: Ephesians Chapter 1 is where we’re going to be. I’m going to give you guys a little bit of insight into what we’ve been working on this whole year. We’ve been trying to sneak attack you guys a little bit.

Our leadership team went away last August. We were really seeking the Lord for the year 2019, which is the year we are in. We really felt that one of the things that kept coming up was the idea of “Family Strong.” We wanted to see how we can strengthen families. As we defined it more and more, we ultimately landed on, we wanted to see the households that you and I foster, that you and I create, that they would become more spiritually strong. So that’s something that we’ve done this whole year. We want family strong.

Up until this day right now, we’ve been focusing more on the biological family. We did Origins of Innocence where we kind of talked about generational type stuff, we did prayer and fasting at the beginning of the year. Home Full of Hope was our goal for fasting and prayer. We did things like Other Hours and all of those sermon series, Freedom Immersion. We’ve done all of those things. We did classes. Because, ultimately, we were trying to get whatever kind of good resources we could into our households, hoping that they would become places where the good things of God could grow more easily.

What we’re shifting into now for the rest of this year is the same, exact concept—same banner, “Family Strong,” but we’re going to try to get a vision for what is church as family. When we read the Bible and we see Jesus’ life, he talks about the church, the people of God being family. Even, at one point, he said, “Who are my brothers? Who is my mother?” When his actual mother and brother were outside looking for him. And he answered that question by saying, “The people who follow God are my brothers. They are my mothers;” in so doing, in some way, kind of elevating the relationship that we have with the people of God, even above our own biological family. The Bible is very clear about making sure we don’t neglect our biological family. Some of you are like, “Man, my biological family, I’ve been neglecting for years. They’re crazy.” But that’s not exactly what we’re talking about.

We’re really trying to see the people of God, the Church family, not just here at Living Streams, but all around Phoenix, all around the world, every tribe, every tongue—it’s really a fantastic, amazing thing to get a vision for. And that’s what we’re going to be trying to do over these next few months. Not only get the vision for it, but let that vision kind of direct our lives into all that God has for us in the Church as family.

We also are going through some time as a nation and as a people, where things are a bit heavy. I wrote this in a weekly email, but I want to bring it up today, as well.

When our eyes have been blinded by the searing pain of deadly shootings, the heavy burden of poverty’s constant ramifications, and the crippling curse that sin has brought upon humanity, we need a vision. We need a vision in days like this. We need a vision or else we’ll find ourselves succumbing to the sorrow of the Slough of Despond.

Now, that phrase comes from The Pilgrim’s Progress, which is a book describing the life of someone who’s trying to find his way into the life of Christ. As he’s going on his journey, he comes upon this bog of some sort, this swamp. And it’s called the Slough of Despond. Even when you say that, “The Slough of Despond,” that describes perfectly what I go through at times in my life.

What that is helping us to identify with, the Bible is very clear that we, as a people, are living in a cursed world. I know we hate to hear that. It’s so frustrating and there are other truths that are just as real. But that is a fact that the Bible does not beat around the bush about. So there is a heaviness. I’ve been experiencing it recently. And it’s triggered by things in the news and all of that at times. Sometimes it’s triggered by my own soul. Or loved ones that I know are going through hard times.

But the Slough of Despond is basically a description of what it’s like to live and be really aware of the curse that came into our world because of sin. Because Adam and Eve decided that they had a better idea than what God was leading them to do. They caught a vision that was not the vision of God and they leaned into that. And ever since then, we’ve been struggling under the weight of the curse of sin. Even when we try to do right things in our marriage, in our family, in our church, in whatever…so often we can end up hurting somebody or ourselves. And it’s a troubling place.

What do we need when we have a spirit of heaviness? We need a vision of God. The Bible says, “Put on the garments of praise for a spirit of heaviness.” And the concept there is, when you have that spirit of heaviness, you need to lift your eyes. You need to first see God and then get a vision from God for what he’s planning on doing in the world and in our days.

So, I’ve been there recently. And some things that have come to mind: Revelation 21. I want to speak this over you, just in case you might have a spirit of heaviness today.

1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven [the cursed heaven] and the first earth [the cursed earth] had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

And the sea represents the division of the people.

2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

That’s the vision of God. That is the end of those who follow in his way. They’ll be put together like a beautiful city, like a bride. And he will wipe away every tear and every stain that the curse of death has brought upon humanity. The old order of things will be gone and remembered no more.

I have a guy that I go to often when I’m looking for hope. His name is Jon Foreman, and he writes songs. He writes, basically in response to this,

Until the sea of glass we meet
When at last comported and complete
Where tide and tear and pain subside
And laughter drinks them dry
I’ll keep waiting, anticipating.

The song that he writes all of that in is called “Restless.”

Then I had another friend—he’s not very famous—but he wrote a song that I love and I think about all of the time, again, in light of this same vision.

We will soon be with him forevermore
Where we can walk with him on that crystal shore
And talk with all the saints of old
And bow before the might throne of God

This is a vision that is not just revelation. It’s not just a vision in the end. But this vision actually begins in Genesis, as well. This concept, God has has this vision that, “They will be my people and I will be their God.” At first, the vision was for this family, that, “They and their family will understand that, they are my people and I am their God.” And that family turned into a nation called Israel, which means “Governed by God.” And that nation turned became someone that God intended, “They will be my people and I will be their God.” And that nation kind of crumbled and faltered. Then Jesus came and gave birth to something else, called The Church.

But the vision is the same throughout. “They will be my people and I will be their God.” And it has never wavered. It has never been in jeopardy. The vision of God has always been there and always will be there. And one day it will be completely fulfilled. Right now, the Bible teaches us that we see in part. “We see through a glass dimly,” is what the King James says. It’s like we’re looking through a glass and it’s all foggy. We can’t quite see what’s on the other side. But one day we will see face to face. That day when our faith becomes sight. Oh, what a day of rejoicing it will be.

And when we come to the book of Ephesians, what we’re getting is a guy whose name is Paul, writing to us because he is getting, like a prophet, a vision of what the church is supposed to be here and now. We know what the vision in the end is. But what is the vision right now? What is God doing in this thing called the Church? We did not replace Israel. We were grafted in. And God has plans for the Jews, no doubt about it, to be grafted in again as a people that belong to him.

The Church is much bigger than us at Living Streams. It’s much bigger than us in America. It’s much bigger than us in this twenty-first Century. It spans all ages. All nationalities.—On that road trip to Texas last week, we went to Roswell.—It might even span the aliens! I don’t know. My wife is kind of into it. She was like, “Man, there’s some convincing stuff in that little museum.” I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Whatever. Totally different discussion.

All right. Let’s get a vision for the Church. Some of you come to the Church and you have these ideas of what the Church is, what the Church isn’t. Some of you have been totally beat up by the Church. Whatever it might be. Let’s get God’s vision that he put in the heart of Paul the Apostle on what the Church his supposed to be.

Ephesians 1:

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Now, that’s a bold statement right there. And when you think of Paul, who’s writing this, a couple of things we need to keep in mind. First of all, Paul is not writing in the Twenty-First Century, where Christianity has become the dominant religion; where Christianity has been able to spread its wings and touch almost every part of this planet; where you can’t go anywhere in the world now and not find some little, old lady serving people in the name of Christ. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

Paul’s writing when the church was, maybe, ten thousand people. Just a very, very small movement. And yet, he’s getting a vision of what the church is supposed to be. So keep that in mind.

The second thing to keep in mind is that Paul used to be called Saul. And Saul was a jerk. He was a big time jerk. Actually, he’s introduced to us in the book of Acts as someone who was breathing out murderous threats. That was Saul. He was so upset, so in turmoil, and so frustrated that he was actually persecuting a people group. He hated the Christians, the people who were following the way, the people who were saying that they know Christ is risen from the dead and has empowered them to walk in a new way. He hated them and actually put them in prison. He tried to remove all of their authority and power. He tried to keep them on the run and persecute them into nothing; and even oversaw the death of some of them.

We don’t know why Paul was so angry. We know he was a Pharisee. We know he was legalistic. We know he was trying really hard to be good and do right—which is really one of the most frustrating things there is, because he was doing it all in his own strength.

And then, one day, breathing out murderous threats, breathing in the toxic stuff of life and breathing out murderous threats, he has an encounter with Jesus. And they talk some things over. And the next time we see Paul, he is someone who is still breathing in all the same smog of life, all the same cures of humanity. None of those things changed around him, but, for some reason, now when he breathes out, it’s not murderous threats, but it’s words of life and love and grace and peace. He starts all of his letters that way, basically: “Grace and peace to you. I no longer say to you murderous threats. I now say to you grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What a change. What an amazing thing that Paul, who is someone was persecuted, someone who has lost everything for the sake of the gospel, someone who is living in the most bizarre places as he’s sharing the grace and peace of Christ around the world, someone who’s been beaten almost to death, someone who’s been whipped forty times, someone who’s lived with nothing at all. He writes to the Ephesian church and says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. What an amazing thing to be able to speak that out, to write that firmly.

My question to us and to myself is, “Do I feel like I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms?” My answer, honestly, is, I think I’ve felt it at times. There are definitely moments when I can say, “Lord, I think I really do have it all.” Sometimes it’s been in good moments and sometimes it’s been in real, real hard moments.

Paul is wanting us to understand that God has not withheld anything from his people. It’s not that, one day you need to gain something so that you can be more Christian or experience more of God. You have it all in Christ Jesus. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. We sang about it today.

So it goes on:

4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

So in this little chunk—bam. Paul is the king of the run-on sentences. I love it. It gives me freedom to do run-on sentences. He starts gushing. He’s just gushing as he’s got this vision of what God is saying to him. He’s understood what God is doing in the Church. There are four things that I want us to notice here. I put it in a little different language. We’ll catch it in Paul’s language too.

In this, he says, first of all, the Church is God’s purpose from the beginning of time. Right there. He says, “He chose us in him before the creation of the world.” Well, that sounds a little interesting, because, really, the Church didn’t really form until after Christ, and that was two thousand years ago. But that was just the newest phase of what God has been doing since the beginning of time. Again, the vision has always been there. They will be my people and I will be their God and I will wipe away every tear. That’s the vision. That’s what God’s been doing from the beginning.

Somehow in that holy Trinity, that triune being of God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit that is in community within itself, created mankind, you and I, to enjoy that same community. Jesus prayed it. If Jesus didn’t pray it, I would not feel comfortable teaching it. But he prayed in John 17, “Father, I pray that they would be one with us, even as you and I are one.”

That’s heavy. That’s deep. That’s a vision beyond what we could ever come up with on our own. But it was God’s will from the beginning of time. So, when he made Adam and Eve, he had Revelation 21 and the Church and the Bride all in mind. When he made a covenant with Abraham, ultimately, he had the Church in mind. When he gave the law to Moses and said, “Let’s form this into a nation that’s going to be powerful and a witness to all the other nations, he had the Church in mind. When he whispered those things to the prophets, he had the Church in mind. When Jesus Christ was on the cross, it says that “He endured the shame for the joy set before him.” The Church was on his mind on the cross. And when he rose from the dead and he imparted to the apostles, he said, “Go be my witnesses,” the Church was on his mind. She’s a beauty. She’s a wonder.

Not only that, but the second thing, the Church as family. Here, the way Paul says it is, “In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship” [or daughter-ship. You could throw that in there, for sure.] In love he predestined us. His whole plan was that we would be part of a family. You could picture the table in heaven and there’s a place set for you, with your name on it.

Actually, the way the Revelation teaches us is even cooler. It says that you are going to be given a stone that has a name on it that is only known between you and Jesus. The name that’s going to be written at your seat, when you read that name, your heart is going to do a backflip. “How could he know me so well?” Because he’s your Father. In love he predestined you for adoption. He’s been watching you your whole life. He has such good plans for you to be a part of his family and to experience all that is there.

The next thing: Church is what is glorious in God’s eyes. The way Paul says it,

in accordance with his pleasure and will

All this was done in accordance with God’s pleasure. God’s not up there going, “Oh, man! It’s so much work trying to get these people all together. Wash them clean, give them vision. A bunch of squirrely people.”

No, it’s his pleasure. He is so thrilled at the work that is being done in the Church and through the Church. It’s his pleasure. It’s his joy. It’s kind of like that hobby that he has that just is like, “I can’t wait to go do some more of that.” It’s kind of like that video game on my phone right now that I can’t wait to play all the time. He loves the work that he does with the Church. Which is amazing to me, because I work with you people. I work with myself. And it’s not always a pleasure. There’s pleasure in it, but it’s real and it’s hard. But for God, it’s all pleasure. It’s pure joy to make this family, to ready this bride. He loves it. “According to his pleasure…and will.” It’s not just God’s will because it’s good. It’s his pleasure and will.

And then, the last thing is that the Church is what brings praise to God’s glorious grace. The way Paul says it,

6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

The Church is the message to the whole world of God’s grace. Bono said, “Grace, it’s the name of a girl and it’s the thought that can change the world.” And it is a mystery. Because we, as people, don’t easily understand grace. We understand rules. We understand cause and effect. We understand consequences for actions. We don’t understand grace. And so the work that God is doing in the Church, when we get it right, it’s this amazing, marvelous light that shines and shouts to the whole world of grace. Of grace. That God’s righteousness is more powerful than your unrighteousness every single time. It can’t win. No matter who much unrighteousness you do, you can’t outdo the righteousness of God. It’s his grace that is more powerful than anything else in the world. It’s a marvel and it’s a miracle, and it’s hard to grasp. But it’s the thing that the Church is called to make so clear and plain to the world.

Verse 11:

11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. [there it is again] 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

In this little chunk that we did right there, we have the gospel in a nutshell. I just want to unpack a few words here for us, as we do this. He says here, “You have been chosen by God. You have been predestined by God.” That means he has a vision for your life and he knows how to get you there, “You have been included into his family. You have been marked—sealed in some way. Your name written in the book. And you have been guaranteed an inheritance.”

When we say “yes” to Christ, when we turn our direction from the vision that we’ve come up with, the vision the our parents gave us, the vision that America gives us—whatever vision it might be—the vision that Drake’s given us—whatever it might be—God’s plan, God’s plan, right? And we turn from those visions to the vision of God, found in Christ Jesus, in that moment, that’s it! In that moment, we move from death to life. We move from tension to grace. And we realize that, all along, we’ve been chosen by God. We’ve been predestined by God. We’ve been included into his family. We’ve been marked somehow by him as one of his one. It’s like we’ve got Stockton on the back of our shirt now. We’ve got Jesus on the back of our shirt now. You’ve been marked. You take on his name. And you’re immediately guaranteed an inheritance, the kind of inheritance we talked about at the beginning of this message.

Those of you who have made that shift and surrendered to the vision of God over your life, that’s you. Those who have not, that is not you. This is found in Christ Jesus. But today would be a great day to be like Paul, to be like me, to be like so many of the others in this room and to go ahead and take a step in that direction, and begin to walk with Jesus. It’s only you keeping you from Jesus.

Today you really can get his vision for your life. And most of us are here because we’re so compelled by his vision for life that we don’t want to go anywhere else. And, yes, we still have pulls in other directions, but we continue to come back and say, “Ultimately, Jesus, your vision is the most beautiful.” But that’s a thing that can happen today. We’ll have opportunity for that later.

That’s the gospel in a nutshell. Let’s go on to verse 17 through 23:

17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his [Jesus] feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

This is the grand vision of God for the church, that we would be the body of Christ, moving at his leadership, his headship, and filling everything in every way. You can picture a frozen world as the light comes up and begins to thaw everything. That’s our job. That’s God’s vision. That we would fill everything in every way. We would bring the light and warmth of Christ to every person in every place forevermore.

I know the Church, for you, might not be a glorious thing. It’s a little tricky because there’s the Church organization, and there’s the Church organism. The Church organization is what we’re basically doing right now, in a lot of ways. We’re in a building. We have some pastors and leaders trying to show us the way to go. We have a Starting Point luncheon happening soon. And the organization is a man-made thing, sad to say. Living Streams is man-made. Mark and Kristina started it in 1984 in their living room. And Mark and Kristina are amazing in a billion a ways. But they’s also not amazing in some other ways. So we have to live with the beauty and we have to live with the stink.

That’s what I’ve told the staff a couple of times. “Hey, I’m leading the church. You’re going to know what I smell like. You’re going to have to live with some stink.” Because that’s reality. We have a board of elders. We try to do our best. We try to be the best organization of the Church we can be. Create the best environment for the organism to prosper. But at the end of the day, let Living Streams fade and be gone, if at all it’s not helping the organism. Because that is what Christ died for. He didn’t die for Living Streams in this building and the plans we have. He died for this bride, which is a people called by his name, fit together, carrying out his work in the world.

I’ll tell you, the Church organism is the single most dominant force for good the world has ever seen in any age, in any place. No doubt about it. No one in their right mind could argue that. Yet, the organization has had some very ugly times in world history, and maybe even in your life. I’m sorry for that. But Jesus isn’t the head of the organization. He’s the head of the organism. Hopefully he’s the head of the people in the organizations. They don’t always get it right.

The Church organism is beautiful and marvelous. As we’ll learn as we go through the rest of Ephesians, it is so precious and vital in God’s sight. We get to be a part of it, both now and forever. Forever. This incredible vision.

Let’s take some time and pray. Now, in light of these things, I’m going to ask four questions of your soul. If you want to bow your heads and just close your eyes, you can. If you’re not comfortable, that’s fine, as well. We’re trying to create a moment where we can have a conversation with God. I’m going to ask the questions, and you and God talk about the answers.

These questions come from that last passage we just read, where Paul prayed some things for the people of the Church in Ephesus.

1. How are you doing in wisdom and revelation? Do you have a vision from God that stirs your heart, and when you tell it to the people around you, it stirs their hearts as well? Or are you lacking in wisdom and revelation right now?

Jesus, I pray that you would give this people, your people, your vision. You would give them revelation that would capture their hearts and compel them to walk in your ways.

2. How are you doing on hope, knowing the hope to which God has called you? You can talk to the Lord about that. A spirit of heaviness or a spirit of hope. A home full of hope, or a home full of heartache.

Jesus, I pray that you would give these people hope, the hope that comes through Christ. Give it to me, too, Lord.

3. How are you doing at enjoying the richness found in God’s holy people? How’s your community? Do you have the blessing of being able to impart and receive with other brothers and sisters who know Jesus and are chasing Jesus? Or is your community lacking that?

Jesus, I ask like Paul did, that you would help us to experience all the riches that are found in walking with your people.

4. How are you doing at experiencing the power of God? Are the chains falling off? Are you able to see what you breathe in that’s hard and heavy turn into something that feels like blessing as you breathe out?

Jesus, I pray that, as Paul prayed for the Ephesus church, that you would bring your power into this place, you would empower us to be witnesses for you. Lord, that you would bring power into these marriages so that they could be unified in that peace, and power into these families so that they could be heading in the same direction, experiencing the fullness of what you have for them. That your power would come to the single people as they try and walk with you and fight off loneliness and temptation. Your power would come to those who don’t know you, Lord. That they would surrender to you and find your Spirit filling them and giving them a vision. Power for those who are caught up in addiction, that they’d be able to be free. Thank you, Lord. We pray all of this in your name, Jesus. Amen.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV®,
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Watch on YouTube