The Price Christ Paid for Our Innocence

Mark Buckley
Series: Origins of Innocence

Our topic today is the Price Christ Paid for Our Innocence. We’re going to look at four Scriptures briefly from Ephesians 5, 2 Corinthians 5, Hebrews 9, Psalm 51. I’ve been thinking about this topic since David assigned it to me a month or so ago. I was thinking about innocence.

My oldest grandson has just started junior high school. When he started this year, I was asking him, (his name is Matisse and he’s a little guy) I’m saying, “Matisse, so what was it like getting started?”

And he was telling me they had this gathering that was an introduction to junior high school. They were playing games. He said, “Well, we were all chasing around, trying to capture people.” 

I asked, “So, did you capture anybody?”

And he goes, “Yeah, I captured some girls. You get them, but then what do you do with them?”

“Yeah, I get it, Matisse.” Innocence. I love that innocence.

It reminded me of my sons, when we first moved to Phoenix, Matthew was about 10, Philip was about 8. We were driving down Tatum one day, and I pulled up to a stop sign, and they were like, “Check it out, Dad!” And I looked over and they were like, “It’s a Maserati! It’s a Maserati!”

And I look, and there’s this absolutely beautiful woman in this convertible, and they’re like, “Look at the wheels, Dad! Look at the wheels!”

Innocence. I love it. I just love it. As I thought about this, I realized that Jesus restoring us to innocence doesn’t mean that he’s going to restore us to a place where we don’t understand temptations. Where we don’t understand heartache, failure, brokenness. That’s not the innocence he’s restoring. He’s restoring an innocence that means that we’re pure, holy and undefiled. We’re cleansed. We’re renewed. We’re redeemed. We’re freed. We’re imparted grace that transforms us by what he did on the cross for us.

And that’s what we’re going to be looking at today. Let’s begin in Ephesians 5. This is a passage starting in verse 25 that’s talking about husband and wife relationships. And in the midst of it there’s some truth about what the Lord does for us and about what, in a good marriage, we can do for one another.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,

Let’s pray. Father, God, help me to declare your word and grant revelation today. That we could understand what it means to be cleansed, to be washed, to be innocent in your sight. Help us to understand the price that was paid and to live   the life that you’re calling us to live. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

A guy came over for dinner the other night and we were doing a little counseling with him. Afterwards he said, “Let me show you my new truck.”

We went outside. And he’s showing us his brand new truck. When you’re a guy and you’ve got a brand new truck, and you’re proud of it, you want to show it off. And everything in me wanted to say, “So, how much was it it.” You know? What was the price? What is the cost? Because the other thing guys like, besides having something new, shiny and big, is to get a good deal. 

I remember David’s dad coming home with boxes and boxes of shoes because he got a deal on shoes. “You want a pair?” He was literally giving them away, because having the deal made him feel so good. Getting a good deal.

In this passage we’re going to see that what Christ paid was everything he had. And he had a purpose. The purpose was to set us free. To wash us. To cleanse us. To make us holy. To make us the kind of people who could be free before God, who could give life to one another.

Let me read verse 26 again: 

to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Jesus gave his life for the church. What you pay for is what you value. He paid the ultimate price for the thing he valued the most, which was this family, us, me and you, his people. Not just here, but throughout Phoenix, throughout Arizona, throughout the United States, throughout the world. He has a family. And he doesn’t look at his family as we sometimes look at ours as we contemplate Christmas and who’s going to come and who isn’t going to come. 

We have a tendency sometimes to look at one another’s weakness. So-and-so, they come but they don’t bring much. Or they eat but they don’t help clean. There are costs, but what’s the benefit? We have a tendency to look at one another through the eyes of, “I’m not sure if this relationship is worth what I have to put out to maintain it.”

But when he sees his people, he sees his people as holy, as washed, as cleansed, as purified, without spot or wrinkle. Now, I used to think that what he was declaring was the state of the church in heaven. Some day, some way, somehow he would unify his people. Some day, some way, somehow we would be the family that he gave his life for, that he really wants. But I don’t think that’s really what it’s saying here.

It says that “he cleanses her by the washing with water through the word." The word of God is what cleanses us. It renews our minds. It gives us the right focus. We all have a tendency to deteriorate in our thinking, to drift in our thinking. What is so essential about getting into the word of God is that it clarifies, it focuses us with the truth and the truth cleanses us from the effect of living in a fallen world. 

He presents to himself a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish. That’s how he looks at us. He does not look at us in terms of what we were like because we failed. He does not look at us in terms of what we’re lacking. He washes, he cleanses us so that we’re whole before him. So that we’re free before him. So that we can give life to others as he gives life to us. That’s all he expects. 

When you have a child, you don’t expect a two-year-old to act as responsibly as a teenager.  You don’t expect a teenager to be as mature as an adult. You’re thankful for each stage of the development of a child. You’re pleased with the progress they make. 

My message to you is that if you’re in Christ, if his word has washed you, if his Spirit has imparted life to you, then you are holy and blameless in his sight. In John 15:3, Jesus said to his disciples, “You’re already clean because of the word I’ve spoken to you.”

Years ago, I got a message from some friends in England—they had a big discipleship house, and they had a young man there who had come from Scotland—and he wanted to come visit us in Phoenix. We said, “Sure, send him over.” He came over and he lived in our discipleship house that we had set up here. He became part of Living Streams and he fell in love with a beautiful girl in our church. He was fascinated by her. After his visa ran out, he was trying to figure out ways that he could stay. He really believed he was supposed to marry her one day. 

What I didn’t tell him initially, but what he discovered over time, as they developed their relationship, was that this beautiful, young girl had been married before. Her husband died from a drug overdose. She had spent time as a prostitute. She had been somebody who literally came out of great depravity before she became this beautiful woman that he fell in love with. She had been washed. She had been cleansed. She had been renewed. Eventually, they got married and they have had a wonderful, fruitful marriage. They’ve developed their own family, both through having natural children and also adopting children. They’ve been married over 20 years. 

He did not marry a woman who was damaged, wounded, scarred and should be under judgment because of the poor choices that she made. He married a woman who had been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. When he cleanses somebody, when he washes somebody, he gets the job done. He knows how to do it. His blood is sufficient. 

Let’s look at another passage. 2 Corinthians 5:14

14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 

[That is all of us have died spiritually because of the effect of sin.]

15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 

That’s a really interesting verse. So, from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view, That means that your status is not dependent on your worldly accomplishments. 

I went to the cardiologist recently. They didn’t set me up to see him. I was seeing his Physician’s Assistant. I wasn’t too keen on the idea because I like the pro, if you know what I mean. So now I get his assistant. I knew his assistant had just started. I had been introduced to him and he was sort of a gruff guy. We got to talking and he asked me how Kristina was doing. I told him she was getting a little bit better. I could tell he was really interested in her and interested in me. I started to warm up to him. 

Then I asked him about something and I told him I was preaching down at the Dream Center and I invited him to Living Streams. He said, “Oh, I’ve been to Living Streams and I love it. But I feel a little more comfortable at the Dream Center.” And then he said, “I spent 19 years in prison.”

I go, “Really?” [I hope you know what you’re doing here with my heart, you know what I mean?]

He said, “I spent 19 years in prison.” Then he said, “Can we pray together?“ He took my hand… Now I’ve been to a lot of doctors over the years, and we have a lot of wonderful doctors in this church. But I have never been in a doctor’s office and have somebody lay hands on me and pray like this guy prayed: blessing and healing and grace for me and for my wife, and for our ministry and our future. 

And I’m like, “Wow!” I had initially been looking at him from a worldly point of view. I didn’t know if he had the experience. “Oh, you’ve been in prison.” And all this stuff. And then here, I realize, “I’m with a man of God. I’m with a man who has been washed, has been cleansed.” And this next verse says :

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 

He’s a new man. He’s got the life of Christ. And he had more of the life of Christ than any experience I’ve ever had in a doctor’s office in my life. And as a matter of fact, I would just as soon meet with Jesus when I go to see the doctor, if you know what I mean. I would just as soon have the wisdom, have the grace, and have the power of the Spirit come upon me as have any kind of a formula, or any kind of advice, or any kind of prescription. 

And that’s what we have the opportunity to bring to people, because we’re not our old selves. Our old self, it said there in the beginning, had died with him and behold, all things are new. If any man is in Christ he is a new creation. The old is over All things are new. 

It’s really hard to believe that sometimes, you know what I mean? Because in our minds we haven’t forgotten what we used to be like. And we are still vulnerable to all kinds of doubts, and insecurities, jealousies and temptations and lust and on and on and on. That’s the natural man. But as far as how God see us, and how God wants to use us, we’re a new creature. And it’s best to get about the business of what he’s called us to. Because it’s in doing his word, it’s in giving life to others in Jesus’ name that we discover who we really are. 

I got a letter from a friend of mine, I’ve talked about many times. His name is Billy Payton and he’s been in San Quentin Prison ever since I met him, which was in 1982. He’ll probably never get out alive because he has a death sentence. This is what he wrote, it’s an excerpt from one of his journals, that he included with the letter.

Not all, but most of my friends are murderers. Not sure what that means except my friends are as anyones: some dear, some tolerated, but each important in the fabric of my life’s relationships. This reality does reflect the poor choices in life I once made, and the destiny reaped. 

However, fixed within that consequence has been an intimate experience with God’s loving compassion and mercy towards men like me. For in my friends there is good and bad to be seen just as anyone knows of their friends, although mine just happen to be those once lost in crime, drugs and darkness. Together we are thieves on the cross, often lost, but salvageable in Jesus’ eyes 

I imagine that, while on Calvary, Jesus knew any man could easily have become one of my friends. This fact causes me to understand God’s grace and love towards all of his creation.

I’ll tell you one of the main reasons I appreciate about my friend, Billy. I’ve said this before, but when you visit him, if you’re able to look through this little slit in the glass door when they have visiting in an open area, when he departs handcuffed in the back and the deputies lead him away, there’s a sign that says, “Condemned,” just so the prisoners don’t forget that they are all condemned. He goes under that sign and into the cell that they lock him into for the rest of the day. What I really appreciate is, in spite of the fact that he wears that judgment, he has not given up. He has not quit. He continues to let God use him. He writes to people like me. He prays for people. He reaches out. He shares his faith. Because there’s something more powerful than the condemnation of man, and that is the righteousness of Christ that has been given to him as a free gift, and he has chosen to believe in the value of the free gift.

When I was a little kid, I used to pray the prayer, Act of Contrition: 

Oh, my God, I’m heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all of my sins because of Thy just punishment. But most of all, because I have offended Thee, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. And I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to sin no more and to avoid the mere occasion of sin.

I used to pray that on a regular basis. The problem that I had in my life was not believing. I believed in Jesus. The problem that I had was that I continued to do the same sin that I was sorry that I had done. I was stuck in a rut for years. 

This morning we want to pray for some of you who may be stuck in a rut. You may have something blocking you—something hanging you up. We want that block to be removed.  

What I needed was an understanding of grace. What I needed was the word of God. I needed to read it, which I had never really done before. I needed to hold onto it. I needed to fight with it, because I had all these other pressures that were fighting against me. I needed something to fight back with—something beyond, “You’re a nice guy. You’re a good person.” Something beyond, “You’ve got potential.”  “Oh, you’ve got gifts, you’re going to be able to do whatever you want in life.” No. I needed something more tangible—something more powerful. And I think you do, too.

You don’t have to know the Act of Contrition that I just quoted. But in Psalm 51, there’s an act of contrition that King David used to pray. He prayed it first after he had fallen with Bathsheba, after he had Uriah murdered, after he had been exposed as a hypocrite by the prophet Nathan. This is what he prayed: 

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
    blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash away all my iniquity
    and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is always before me.

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
    and justified when you judge.

5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
    sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
    you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
     wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

9 Hide your face from my sins
    and blot out all my iniquity.

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me from your presence
    or take your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    so that sinners will turn back to you.

14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
    you who are God my Savior,
    and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

15 Open my lips, Lord,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart
    you, God, will not despise.

18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
    to build up the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
    in burnt offerings offered whole;
    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

He was in agony. He was having a battle in his soul. We have battles our soul. We all have to fight the good fight.

I remember going into my parents’ bedroom several times as I was growing up. The question I would often ask my mom was—she’d be changing or something—  and the question I would often ask my mom was, “Mom, are you pregnant?” And she’d say, “Yeah.” I mean, it happened seven different times while I was growing up. It was a pretty easy ask.

And it was no big deal. She got bigger and bigger and she still took care of us all and made our lunches, made wonderful dinners. Then she’d go away for a couple of days to the hospital, come back with a new kid. And we did it again a couple of years later. It was not that big of a deal, really.

Then when Kristina got pregnant, it became a much bigger deal, because I got the behind-the-scenes emotion. We had a miscarriage. That was a great grief. I never  even thought there was anything to those. It was like, “Okay, it didn’t work. Try again.” No. It was a big, big deal because our hopes and dreams died. 

Then, right before our first child was born, she told me that the doctors had told her never to get pregnant because she had a bad heart and she could die. I’m like “I wasn’t counting on this.” And it was a battle, almost 60 hours of labor. And there was agony, and angst, and there was anxiety. And then there was blood. And I hate blood. It was horrible for me. (I just had to say that, you know? Only thing worse would have been if it was my blood.) I had a new appreciation for the cost.

When David wrote Psalm 51, he was in agony in his soul. He believed God was merciful. He believed God was good. He believed God would forgive. But he never really had the chance to know what Jesus did for us.

When I got ordained, we were having a whole bunch of people over for dinner. Kristina was making a big meal. My priest from my upbringing was there. My godfather was there, my brothers and sisters were there. Everybody was there. Kristina made a big feast. I made a big, giant table with 4’x8’ sheets of plywood. Then I thought, “We’re going to the Carpenter’s Hall for the ordination and there’s not even a cross there. What are my friends and family going to think?” 

So I quickly went around the side of the house, got two great, big boards and cut them with my Skill saw, and started making a cross. And I was in a hurry and I smashed the nail and missed and hit my thumb. And now it’s bleeding all over the place. I’m thinking, “Well, no sense wasting this blood.” And I put blood on the two places where Jesus had his hands on the cross, and I put blood up on the top and down below. Then we put it in the truck and after dinner took it to the Carpenter’s Hall and I nailed it to the wall of the Carpenter’s Hall that we used to rent for our Sunday services. It was sort of a brazen act of a young, 24-year-old kid. They left that up there for years. 

For most people, it was, “Oh, look. They have a cross in Carpenter’s Hall.” For me, it was a little different. I knew there was blood on that cross. I knew that represented pain. I remembered my throbbing thumb. And I realized that I had no idea how much Jesus suffered for me. I only had little bit of a sense from one hammer blow. I had no idea what it would have been like for him. But I guarantee that he believes that what he did for you and me was worth it. 

As we close this service now, we want you to have the full benefit of everything Jesus did for you. We’re going to open the altars for prayer. We’re going to worship and we’re going to examine our own hearts and say “Lord, is there anything holding me back? Is there anything that’s a barrier that I need to let go of?” Because this is the day that the Lord made. Let’s draw near to him. 

Lord Jesus, we’re here to seek you, to do your will, to let your kingdom come and your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We don’t want what you suffered for us to be in vain. We want your cleansing, Lord. We don’t want to hold back because of the pain that we’ve experienced, because of the disappointment in our hearts, because of our failure and the failure of others. We don’t want to shrink back. We want to press on and press into you. 

If there’s something that you need to deal with, now is a good time to start by saying, “Lord, I want to renounce this. I want to get past this. Help me. I want to overcome this.” And I want to tell you, too, that this isn’t just between you and God. This is important for all of us. It’s important for your family, your marriage, it’s important for your friends that you keep growing. It’s important for your destiny. So I want you to share it.

 ________________________

©️2018 Living Streams Church

7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

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.

The Prodigal's Father

David Stockton
Series: Origins of Innocence

I want to start out with some review. We’ve been in this Origin of Innocence series for quite a bit now. This is our fifth teaching in Origins of Innocence. I want to make sure we’re all getting it. We have some material to go through. I’m going to try to slow us down a little bit. I’m going to go back over some of these teachings to make sure that some of this is formalizing and crystallizing. 

What we have is this Origins of Innocence timeline. This is something we’ve been operating on. In the beginning, when God created humanity, they were created in innocence — garden, idyllic. There was no sin. There was no death. There was no shame. But obviously that’s not the world that we exist in, that we operate in today. We are now, after the fall of Adam and Eve, the sin of Adam and Eve, we are now people who exist in this shame. 

We don’t teach our kids how to sin, they just figure it out on their own. They’re good at it. It’s like something inherent within them is broken or bent toward things that are not of God. Obviously it doesn’t mean that they are evil, bad children. They do good things and they are beautiful because they are made in the image of God. And you have this dichotomy going on, where you have this image of God—this beauty and innocence of this child. Yet at the same time this child grows up to know shame, cause shame, and experience all of those things.

And so what that is, basically, is innocence, the image of God that he created in us, he gave us his image, and that has never stopped. And sometimes we hear about the fall, about sin and rebellion, and we talk about the sin and struggle of mankind, and that is a reality, but it is not the only reality. God has continued to keep his image on us. And he has continued to give us access to him and his innocence.

So you have stories in the Old Testament, like Abraham, which says that Abraham, because he believed God, it was accounted to him as righteousness. And when he read his story in the Bible, we’re like, “What a loser! The guy’s messing up all the time.” Yet, when we read about the example of faith that he is, somehow there’s a beauty to his life that God brought about even though he was a man of shame.

That’s basically where we are. On this timeline, we have the cross where Jesus stepped into our shame and our humanity and died on the cross. And yet after the cross he didn’t all of a sudden make the shame go away. Those of us who are born after Christ died on that cross, we’re still born with this reality of shame inside of us and in the world around us. And yet we have this longing and this call from God to live in this innocence and this righteousness and it’s a struggle and a challenge. 

There will be one day, the Bible promises, when Jesus will return and he will get rid of shame forever. Oh, what a day of rejoicing that will be! But for whatever reason, we live in between. We live in this challenge of both.

So in Romans 7, the Message translation (MSG), I want you to grasp the concept. Paul is trying to teach us about that reality of innocence and shame, how we’re kind of dualistic in our nature. He’s trying to wrestle it out and make it make sense to us:

17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

Can anyone relate? But then the very next chapter, 8:1

 8 1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. [and shame]

When Jesus came, he made a way where there was no way. The only way I can describe what that means is to harken back to last week. Gary and Melissa Ingraham got up here and this is the picture in my mind. They were standing up here, and they were like, “Hey, everybody. So you see this bucket right here that I’m carrying? This is all the shame that for a long time kind of ruled over me and kept me hiding and afraid, and kept me from really being able to interact with anybody, But now I’m in a place, because of my relationship with Jesus Christ, where you can look at it if you want. It doesn’t have any power over me anymore. 

And they’re up here just being clumsy with their shame. They’re not being nervous and afraid and shrinking back and being fearful and saying, “But let me paint it in a better light. Let’s not talk about this, let’s just talk about the good.”  It just had no power over them anymore. To stand in front of a room and share that stuff.

And all of us—I remember I was sitting there, and at one point it was getting so real, I was like, “I don’t know what to do with my arms. Like, I feel like if I move my arm right now, it will attract attention to me and I don’t want it.” It was just so real and refreshing.

And a bunch of you came up to me after church. I had so many people, more so than ever, they came up to me and were like, “We just want to be a part of this church.” And I was like, “Did you just hear that message? That was crazy!” And they’re like, ‘Yeah. We’re tired of the fake. We want something real.”

Paul here is not just saying, “Oh, yeah, pretend that shame is not there anymore and you just ignore it.” He’s saying, "No. It’s still a reality. But it doesn’t have to have power over you. When you make a mistake you don’t have to go into the same cycle and disappear again.”

You make a mistake and you say, “Yeah. I know I’m very capable of making mistakes and I’m going to confess it. And I’m going to let it be out there and I’m going to let God heal it right away.” It’s interesting. I’ll tell you what, we’re not good at it. It’s not natural to us. It’s something that we need to learn. 

So that’s the first thing. Then you have Galatians 4, which was the second message. Paul is describing the same thing, but he’s saying it in a different way:

When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives.

(NIV) Galatians 4:4-7 But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. 

(Our Origins of Innocence.)

You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.

So what did God do in this time where we’re living in between the innocence that God created us in and the innocence of the new heaven and new earth that God has promised us? What has he done? He’s given us his Spirit. This is where Christianity gets bizarre. And again, it’s only bizarre if it’s not true. At one point they thought it was so bizarre that people were saying the world was round. And then, all of a sudden, they realized it was true and it was like, “Eh, seems pretty normal.”

But how did God leave us? How did Jesus leave us to deal with this shame and innocence challenge that we have? He didn’t leave us alone. But he actually wants his Spirit to dwell inside of us to help us navigate this extremely challenging thing. So first he just says, “There is no condemnation for any mistakes you’ve made or will make. And not only that, but now I’m going to put my Spirit as something to empower you to begin to grow and learn how to live as a person of innocence, of righteousness—living out of your original glory, your original design. Your OGD, for the gangstas.

And then he goes on to describe what that’s like in Galatians 5 (NIV). 

22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—

How hard does the tree work to produce fruit? Have you ever heard a tree out there groaning? Or stretching? “Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Uh!” 

Have you ever seen a tree working out or reading books? What God wants to do in your life, if you’ll trust him, he will produce. All a tree has to do is stay planted in the place it’s supposed to be. And you guys are right here. You’ve planted yourself in a place where you’re going to receive from God. And if you’re only doing it one or two hours a week, you’re going to be a really dumb tree. It’s not going to produce anything. We’ve got to keep planting ourselves in God because he’s the one that brings fruit. And listen to this fruit. The fruit is …

things like affection for others, 

(Instead of anger, hatred.)

exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

That’s what the Spirit of God wants to produce in us, in you, if you’ll trust him, if you’ll stay planted in him. It will happen. 

So those are some Scriptures that are helping us try to find this Origin of Innocence, this challenge of innocence and shame. 

Then the next week we had Ryan Romeo. He came and spoke about Genesis 3 and really started to help us to understand the real shame aspect. I think all of us understand the shame in our lives, but it’s hard for us to pinpoint it or to acknowledge it, or to even name it. But I think that’s an important practice, as we’re seeking healing.

And so the question he brought out was, in Genesis chapter 3, when God came to visit Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, in their intimate relationship, the ease of their relationship, and he said to them, “Where are you?” Not that God didn’t know physically where they were. But “where are the Adam and Eve that I was with yesterday?” Because they had been changed. They had been de-formed. And they were aware of their deformation and began to try to cover it, by blaming other people. By making their own fig leaves and those type of clothes. And that’s basically what we do now.

And then last week, what Gary and Melissa really encouraged us to do with our shame comes from James 5:16 (NIV), 

…confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. 

Basically, one of the most important steps that we can do when we come to terms with the reality that we have shame is to let other people know about it. That’s very scary And then to walk with other people toward that healing. Accountability.

I’ve tried to define innocence and shame for us. Innocence is the sense of being naked and not ashamed. Or honest and unafraid. 

Shame is when we’re hiding from what God calls us to be. We’re striving to be ok with ourselves. We’re putting up facades that we think people will like more than the real us. Shame kills intimacy.

And that’s what we saw in the Garden. God had intimate relationship with Adam and Eve, but now they felt shame and the relationship was strained. It was hard. My fear is that there are people in this room who are incapable of true, intimate relationships because they’ve never been real with themselves, with God, or anyone else about their shame. And I don’t want that to happen anymore.

Check this quote out: 

We learn to wear these masks so young, 
  like a prison that keeps joy from getting through; 
And an angry silence grips our tongues, 
  these weapons and our walls become our tombs. 
We’re the kids who’ve seen the darkness, 
  always looking for the light. 
You fall in love and then the rains come down, 
  and only part of you survives. 
Come surrender your hidden scars. 
  Leave your weapons where they are. 
You’ve been hiding, but I know your wounded heart. 
  And you don’t know how beautiful you are.

(You Don't Know How Beautiful You Are —Jon Foreman)

Yeah. That’s a message from Jesus to you. It’s actually another Jon Foreman song—Switchfoot—I just talk about it too much. But it’s such good stuff, man, I just can’t get away from it. 

Sermon notes. You can pull these babies out. This is Origins of Innocence #5, if you want to fill in your sermon notes. 

Favorite Thanksgiving Day food, you can throw that baby in there if you’re bored already. My favorite is when you get a bite of all of it in one. Sorry about that. 

This is another quote from last week: Shame is the raincoat over the soul repelling the living water of Jesus that would otherwise establish us as the beloved of God.

The beloved of God is what you are. And shame is always trying to keep you from really acknowledging that, experiencing it and living there. 

We have been formed by God. Don’t ever forget that. Formed by God. That means something. Designed by God. That’s you.

We have been deformed by sin. And this could be the sin that you have committed that have brought you sin; or it could be sin that others have committed that have brought you shame. There’s a reality to that. And that’s how it is. We have become deformed by sin. It actually changes us. Things people say or things people do.

But then we are re-formed by Jesus’ love and blood. I didn’t know Jay was going to sing that little chorus about the blood of Jesus washing us white as snow, but all week long I’ve had this picture in my mind of the blood of Jesus. This might sound creepy or whatever, but stick with me. It comes like an oil or like a lotion and it just renews, restores and reforms. 

My daughter, Bella, just got casts off her feet. And her feet looked dead. They were flakey, dry, white. There were a couple of sores on there. I was like, “Man! Yikes!” And we started to wash them and put some creams and oils on there. We just rubbed and rubbed them. It was just a matter of time, when all of a sudden they were just fresh as can be. And she has the most beautiful skin. As we continued to rub that in, it was like all of that life came back out to the surface.

That’s basically why these messages, why we spend time with Jesus, why we spend time in his Spirit. It’s just this oil, this lotion, it’s his blood, it’s his love that continues to rub on our souls and re-form us. To take us from cold, dry, flakey and dead to something bursting with life. And it takes time. That’s how we’re re-formed.

So now I want to get into the story of the Prodigal Son, the Prodigal’s Father. Luke 15 is where it is. Many of you know the story. I’m going to read it and then we’re going to unpack a few things in here. 

Luke 15:11 (NIV) Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

This is a familiar story. Most of us have heard it many times. I read it just in case someone here hadn’t heard it before. Jesus is talking to some people who are not feeling the same way the father in the story feels. They’re religious leaders. They feel like people need to get their stuff together and God will love them. They feel like they need to earn something, they need to earn God’s respect, God’s love.  God helps those who help themselves might be a little bit of their slogan.

Jesus who is here, speaking about the things of God, as God incarnate, as the One who was with God in the beginning, who knows everything, is trying to help them understand God’s perspective. This is the story of the Prodigal Son, but to me, I’ve always looked at it as the Prodigal’s Father. Because his perspective is the thing that’s bizarre to me. The Prodigal Son, I think, “Oh yeah, I get that. No surprise there.” Go and squander all the goodness God has given us. Find ourselves in a place of shame. Yeah we’ve got that down. I could just go on the timeline and “Watch this. There I am. I get that.”

What’s so hard to believe, what’s so foreign to us is that Jesus is trying help these people see how God feels about that. That in our moments of absolute betrayal to our Creator, who describes himself as our Father—we spit in his face. We deny him his place. We run and go away from him all the time. We think we have better ideas for us and the ones we love.

Yet, in that moment, what we see is the father is coming to the end of his property every day to see if, by chance, he can get a glimpse of his son. And day after day, he goes out, probably in the evening, to look and see if by any chance he’s coming back. And then he goes back and does his business. On and on. The reason we know that is because this one day, it was not planned, the father was at his post, at the edge of his property, looking out to see—when he saw his son coming in rags, coming in shame, coming hungry, scrawny, weak, unable to look his father in the eyes, with his head down. He’s got his whole pitch, In the son’s perspective, he’s saying, “Maybe just maybe. I know how kind my father was to me. Maybe just maybe he’ll let me be this second class, hired slave in his house. Maybe. Because that would be way better than what I’m experiencing now.”

And as he comes, the interaction is the father runs out to meet him. And he starts going, “Oh, my father, I have sinned against you.” And his dad’s like, “Shut it. Hey, bring the robe. Bring the ring. Start the party that we’ve had everything prepared for just in case this day might come.”

And I think about the challenge there. The son was so ashamed and the father was not at all going to entertain for one moment that the son had to go through this relational healing before he could be established once again as the son. And yet that’s what we do with God.

On your notes you have these four different notations: The Spirit of______, The Spirit of _____, The Spirit of ______, The Spirit of ______.

The father only had one option for the son and that was full sonship on full display for everyone to see. “This is my son wearing my robes sitting right here next to me at the table.” There was no other option for the son. Think about how the son felt about that. Now everyone was looking at him. Everyone had known what he had done. No doubt about it. He had probably said to everybody in some sort of pompous way, “I’m going to do this, suckers.”

They all knew. And yet for some reason the father didn’t want to say, “Hey, let’s kind of have you come and do some good things and then we’ll have you kind of work your way back up and then we’ll give you the full presentation.” That was never in the Lord’s mind.

This is a study that I heard from somebody else, actually Alan Meyer, the guy who was here and helped us kick this off. There are four different relationships that we can have with God, and actually only one is legitimate. 

The first is a spirit of a slave. Remember? That’s what the boy was hoping for. “If I come back, maybe I can just be a slave. And  that way, at least I will get to eat something.” And maybe he actually thought that would be better than to be a son because it would be too embarrassing or too shameful to be called a son again. 

The spirit of a slave, that’s how we relate to God or the people who love us in our lives. It’s a fear based relationship. We have no standing. If we do something wrong we’ll be killed, basically. We’ll be out. We have no credit built up at all. It’s bitter toil going between pleasure and displeasure all the time. 

Some of us, in our relationship with God, that’s where we’ve landed because of things we’ve done or said. Because of the way we see ourselves, that’s all we’ll ever do. And it’s a completely illegitimate relationship with God. You’re just pretending and you’re the only one who thinks that because God doesn’t see you that way at all.

The second thing is the spirit of a hireling. The spirit of a hireling has limited loyalty. Basically thinking, “What’s in it for me?” Our relationship with God is like, “Well, I’ll keep being faithful to God and love God as long as he gives me what I need.” And that’s also an illegitimate relationship with God. You’re making up because that’s not where God is at at all with you.

The third thing is the spirit of an orphan. This is where you’re powerless. You feel like you are second class. You’re thankful for the fellowship and all that, but you never really see yourself as being beloved of God. You actually look at other people—a lot of comparison here—and you think, “God really loves them and it’s nice that they let me be around them, but I know God would never see me that way.” And it’s an illegitimate relationship with God. It’s not even an option in God’s mind.

And then you have the spirit of a son—sonship. It’s not a masculine thing. Obviously it’s sons and daughters. It’s the idea that you belong. There’s a security. There’s a confidence that comes in your relationship with God when you see yourself as his son. The verse that says, “I am my beloved’s and he is mine.” John 17, where Jesus says, “Father, I pray that they may be one even as you and I are one.” That’s heavy stuff right there.

The truth is, there are people in this room who have been walking with God a long time and maybe you’re saying, “Uh-oh. Wait a second. When you describe this one or this one, that’s where I’m at. That’s where I’ve always been.” You need to know that there’s more. That God’s plan for you is not to be a slave, a hireling, or an orphan — but a son or a daughter with full access to him and all that he is. 

That’s the message of the Prodigal Son story. The extravagant, foreign, non-human love of God that has been proven over and over again, but never proven more clearly and more seriously than when God sent his son to die on a cross for you and me. He who did not spare his own son, how will he not give you everything you need? He has invited you to the table.

We don’t have time to go into this next thing. We can touch on it next week. 2 Samuel 9 tells the story of Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth’s name means “out of the mouth of shame.” Mephibosheth is someone that King David invited to sit with him at his table, even though he was a son of Saul, and we could go into a bunch of stuff. But there at the table with the king, Mephibosheth, who was, it says, “lame in his feet,” he was deformed, literally. He couldn’t walk. There’s a whole story behind that. But King David invited him to sit. And there at the table his shame was covered. At the table he was equal with everyone else. It’s something I’m familiar with. When my daughter wheels up to the table, it’s so fun because everybody is just the same at the table. No one notices anything that’s going on under the table. And that’s what Mephibosheth got to experience. 

But the greater than David, the real King of Kings, he doesn’t just invite us to his table so we can be covered. He invites us to the table so we can be covered and be healed by our love for him, by his love for us, by our relationship with him, by trusting him, by taking the steps he asks us to take. Eventually, we find ourselves healed. 

Just like the man who stretched out the withered hand. Jesus didn’t just set him free from shame, he actually healed his hand, as well. And that’s God’s plan for us—to heal us from our shame, to forgive us from our sins, but also to bring about ultimate healing. To make everything sad become untrue. And yet, somehow having been better for once been broken. That’s the gospel. That’s what we need to continue to put in our lives because it has power to reform us. Amen?

Let’s pray. And again, prayer doesn’t just mean that I’m going to talk now. When we say, “Let’s pray,” it’s, “Let’s spend some time listening to see what God might say in this moment.” And you can feel free to talk to God as your heart is moved. But he’s definitely saying something to each one of us right now. And his words can create. His words can reform. His words upon your soul can be like the oil, the cream that brings healing and restoration. Thank you, Lord.

Lord Jesus, we’re so thankful for all that you have done, and all the promises you’ve made to us. And Lord we pray that you’ll show us the next step that we’ll get us further down the road with you. That we won’t settle for any pretend relationship with you, or any relationship with you that’s more on our terms. But Lord, that we would completely accept your terms and you would teach us how to live that way. I pray for anyone in this room who doesn’t know you at all, who doesn’t have your Spirit living inside of them, guiding and directing them. Lord, I pray that today they would make a decision to cry out to you, to reach out to you and you would come, Lord and bring about great salvation. I thank you for everyone in this room, Lord, that you have good plans for. I pray that your love would not be blocked by any shields or facades that we put up, but that your love would have its perfect work in us. Thank you, Jesus. 

 _______________________

©️2018 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Original Glory

Gary & Melissa Ingraham
Series: Origins of Innocence

Good morning everybody. It’s good to see you. Thanks for being here today. We're going to be in our Origins of Innocence series again. We've been talking about the innocence or really what God has created us for; the hopes, the dreams that Adam and Eve experienced and that, in the end, the Bible says we will experience, and also teaches that we're supposed to experience even now in Christ Jesus. And so we’re wrestling with that and talking about the innocence there.

We’ve also been talking about the shame that that keeps us from, or diminishes, our ability to walk with God in the way that Jesus made possible. And one of the ways that shame seems to get a grip on most of our lives is through our sexuality. 

So today we're going to have Gary and Melissa Ingraham come up here. They're going to share with us some of their journey through life to Jesus him there journeys since they've met Jesus and in particular they've devoted their lives into helping people with experience brokenness and sexuality find healing and wholeness in Christ. I'm very excited about this plan was a while ago they've shared with our staff, they share all over the country. Will you please please welcome them and and listen closely to what they have to say.

Gary:
Good morning it’s great to be with you. Full house. One of things we wanted to just start off with is just to explain a little bit how important for us the series we're talking about right now actually is, and how it connects to this idea of original innocence and the origins of innocence. To talk about that, one of the things that we are frequently doing as a ministry is talking about the reality of original glory. That’s kind of the foundation for a lot of what we do. And we do work with individuals or, more than anything, we actually are working to equip the church how do you actually talk about — how do you actually develop opportunities for people to be known in their brokenness instead of most people coming into church leading double lives, putting their best foot forward in a sense, and casting an image of who they are. It’s all the good stuff and we keep all the other stuff back here. You know what I’m talking about, I’m sure. And we want to see people integrated in terms of who they really are, and for the church to minister to them in that specific way. 

Melissa:
We’ve heard a lot in this series from Genesis. And one of the key verses for our ministry is Genesis 1:27, which says, “Created in the image of God, male and female he created them.”

And if you’ve grown up in church, and maybe you haven’t, we’ve heard this over and over. And one of the things that we encourage, that we challenge men and women to think of is, what does that verse actually mean in your life? What difference does it make? What impact does it have? Whether for good or not. Gender, being created in the image of God, male and female, has never been more confused than it is today. Would you all agree?

Whether that’s gender confusion, whether that’s identity confusion, whether that’s power struggles between men and women, that’s been going on since the garden.

Gary:
Yeah. Absolutely. I love some of the writings of John Eldridge. One of the statements that he makes that I think is so powerful is “I dare say that we’ve heard a bit about original sin, but not nearly enough about original glory.” 

Haven’t we heard a lot about original sin? And we need to, right? I mean, we struggle with that. As we are made in the image of God, male and female, that is our foundation of identity. For every human being on the planet, saved or unsaved, we are first and foremost made in the image of God, male and female, in very distinct ways. That’s God’s intention.

But we also need to know that in us, even though we struggle with sin, and sin is a part of the  fiber of who we are, it is a part of our identity, we actually, in Christ, can live in a way that is beyond and outside of the confines of — in other words, we’re not just sinners saved by grace.

Melissa:
One of our favorite authors, Andrew Komisky, writes this in his book Strength and Weakness, “In Paradise, the power struggles now common to male-female relationships did not exist. There Adam and Eve complemented one another in a way that revealed the best of each. I believe Adam, in his greater physical strength, loved Eve powerfully, encircling her softness in his desire to secure her in love. And Eve, in her more feeling heart, responded to his strength with powerful love, a love that awakened his heart and satisfied the emptiness within him.”

And  you know what I wrote in the margin the first time I read that? “Wow.”  Like, I want that. And that had not been my experience,

Gary:
So, if you’re following along in the notes, the first fill in, we’ve already mentioned is that we are created in the image of God, male and female. We don’t want to just quickly gloss over that. I know I already mentioned it already. But a lot of our ministry is based on the reality that we are not just human beings made in God’s image. Right? Women have an expression of the image of God, an imprint of the image of God that men don’t have. And men have an expression of the image of God that women don’t have. 

And we do great harm and dishonor to one another, as well as dishonor to who God is when we don’t learn how to value the differences between men and women. And we’ve done a lot of that actually. Misogeny is certainly a problem not only in the culture, but in the church.

Melissa:
And so this leads perfectly into just a little bit of my story, which is that, when I first heard the idea that there were differences between men and women, in my brokenness, what I heard was that women were less than men. Just watching my parents struggle in their marriage, being exposed to pornography at an early age, cable tv. Basically, I viewed women as to be used and abused by men. And frankly, I did not like being a woman. I couldn’t have told you that back then, but I internalized a very negative view of women. 

So the first time I heard this idea, I heard a pastor preaching out of Genesis, I mean, I just got mad. I later learned I get mad easily. It’s a sign that there’s something going on, let’s just put it that way,.

Gary:
One of the things I don’t think Melissa is going to mention—we could talk for hours—one of the things Melissa talks about is the fact is that, at a point in her life, she hated women. She hated men. She was basically a hate crime waiting to happen. It’s was kind of a tough place to be in. At one point in her life she couldn’t even have told you that. I think there’s many of us going through life who feel really disconnected from ourselves, who feel…and the next fill-in is about shame. Understanding the power of shame. And that’s what Melissa is talking about. Some of the early formations and early experiences, when there’s trauma involved, when some of those experiences are connected to deep emotion, they don’t just work through our system and we forget about them. They actually stay in us. We remember them.

For me, early shame set in. I was an “oops“ baby. I’m the youngest of five kids. My mom and dad did not plan on, nor did they want any more children. So I came along five years after my next oldest sibling. And they were not happy. We had a poor family and they were not looking for one more mouth to feed, they weren’t looking to pour emotion into one more kid. So, honestly, the very first experience was this reality of not being wanted even before being born. So, then my mom coming around to loving me. My dad and I not really bonding and connecting.

Another early experience for me was about five or six years old, some older neighborhood boys invited me to play with them and their only desire to have me over, their mom and dad weren’t home and they knew where their dad’s hardcore porn stash was, so they got it and they flipped page after page after page for this five or six year old boy to look at this stuff. And I tell you that I walked out of that home a very different child than when I walked in. And what I experienced is nothing today to what many kids experience.

So shame set in. Some other things happened, this awakening of sexuality that should have never been awakened at that point. I started crossing wires in terms of what is intimacy and how do I get my needs met. And I became really confused with sexuality.

But shame is one of the most powerful and negative feelings we can experience. And we will do almost anything to a void it

Melissa:
And just a quick definition of shame is: Feeling uniquely flawed without hope for change, So its not guilt, which is “I did something wrong,” but “there is something wrong with me.” And as a result of our life experiences, some of us are carrying around a tremendous amount of shame. And that impacts how we relate to other people. It impacts our workplaces, our schools. It impacts how we relate to God. Often we can wind up performing, doing, doing, doing in order to be accepted.

For me, I went looking for love in relationships with men. I went looking for a sense of security and identity in relationship. And when that left me unfulfilled, I wound up in college in an emotional and sexual relationship with a woman. And I thought this is what I’ve been looking for my whole life. 

And so, being motivated by this emptiness deep within, this longing with these needs that God created us with, that have not been met for whatever reason, can drive us to do really crazy things.

Gary:
Yeah. And the thing about shame, too, it’s not just about things that I have done. Melissa made a distinction between guilt, which is a very good thing. But shame isn’t just about “I’ve done something and I don’t just feel guilt about it, but I feel like I’m uniquely flawed. But it often isn’t what I’ve done, but what someone else has done against me. 

We might know, logically, the abuse that happened, whatever that may be, whether it’s physical, emotional, sexual abuse that happened to us. Or other kinds of things. Labeling of other kids toward us. I was constantly called fag or queer in school, and just being pushed outside the world of boys and men. Not fitting in in terms of sports or any of that kind of stuff. I wasn’t culturally accepted as a boy or a guy. And so, getting shoved outside of that. And we can even know, “This wasn’t my fault,” experientially, We have an intellectual understanding, right? Well, we also have a an experiential understanding that we live out of, to a deeper degree.

We can chuck the verses that we know. We can chuck the theology that we know at times, and we function out of this experiential place which is often ruled by shame. What shame often produces (and this is that next fill-in along with shame) “a false self.” Shame can produce a false self. And here’s what I mean by that. When I talk about this idea that we in the church often live double lives, that’s what I’m talking about. We present a good false self.

When I was living in the Chicago area, I wound up growing up in a Christian home, and then going to Bible college, getting booted out of Bible college because of all the emotional stuff I was struggling with. I remember thinking, “God I hate you and I hate your church. I want nothing to do with this any more.” I found my first gay bar. I felt like I’d finally found my people. Like Melissa said, it was the most powerful experience to feel like, at 19 years of age, I finally fit in somewhere. Because I didn’t fit in my family, I didn’t fit in the church, I didn’t fit in the culture of men, typically. So I fit in here. For quite a long time that was pretty euphoric.

But then, God was drawing me back, and calling me back and eventually I began to see that he wasn’t the ogre I believed he was, growing up, that wasn’t a slave master that demanded that we love him. He’s different than that. So I began to surrender my life to him. But I went back into homosexuality after a number of years of being out of that. Lots of reasons why.

I was now not just a religious kid who had said the sinner’s prayer when I was a child, which frankly, meant nothing because there was no surrender in it. I was concerned about buying fire insurance essentially, but there was no surrender in any of it. It wasn’t until my early 20’s that I actually surrendered my life to Jesus.

I was living in Chicago at this time I was in church. I was also really wrapped up in going to gay bars and some other things too. I was going to a Bible study actually. So I’d go to the Bible study. Because I had grown up in church, because I’d gone to Bible college, I could talk Bible better than any of these people. So that’s what the conversations were about. We were doing this book study. They were trying to love me and care about me, but it didn’t go very deep, frankly, which is often the case in some of our Bible studies. I’m not against reading the Bible, don’t say that I am. 

But what I would do is I would leave this thing and I would go out to a gay bar afterward. And I would hate myself the entire time I was going. I’d think, “What is wrong with you? Here God is giving you this opportunity, you’re around people who love him. They’re trying to love you.” And yet, what I realized a couple of years later is that I was emotionally starved even after being with them. Why? Because I was projecting an image. It’s the good false self. 

And even though your experience might not be as dramatic as mine, or ours, maybe it is, we tend to project a good false self because of shame. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Melissa:
Unfortunately, in Christian circles, we applaud the false self. Because usually, that part of us is the one that wants to do. We’re there every time the doors are open. We volunteer for everything. We have trouble saying ‘no.’ And so we perform and perform and perform in order to be loved and accepted. But it only goes so deep.

And another quote in here, Andrew talks about shame being the raincoat of the soul, repelling living water—repelling love, really, God’s love, from exactly where it needs to go. 

And so we need to understand the power of shame and the false self. What we’re really talking about, fill-in number 3, is that some of the greatest contributors to shame are wounds. So these are experiences that we’ve had that continue to affect us today. So it’s a big lie that time heals all wounds. Time heals nothing. It doesn’t. And for those of you who have experienced something hurtful, (and all of us have to one degree or another), if you think about it, it probably feels like it happened yesterday. What we need is to be able to bring those experiences into the light of community and to be able to say, “This is what happened to me. And this is how I feel about it as a result. And by the way, this is how I feel about God as a result.”

I really struggled to believe that God was present for me—to believe that God loved me, that if I came to him with my needs that he would meet those needs. Because I had spent so long trying to meet my own needs. I had been very self-sufficient, a lot of self-protection, and I was exhausted by the time I came to Christ. That was in my early twenties where I heard for the first time that just because I felt something, it didn’t make it right. I had been totally living by my feelings. And it felt so right to be with this woman. But I was still empty on the inside and that was just growing. The Lord revealed that he was actually the answer. And so I surrendered to Christ. And then everything was perfect. Not even close. Not even close. 

And that leads us into God’s remedy, which is fill-in the blank number 4. God’s remedy is confession and community. And honestly, that’s what I needed. That’s what we all need. If we go all the way back to the Creation account, God said, “It is not good that man is alone.” We were created for significant, deep relationships with other people. We cannot do this just God and us. It doesn’t work. Yes, we need a strong relationship with God. Yes, we need to build that relationship. But often, when we’re wrestling with the types of things we’re talking about, we’re blocked. It’s the shame or it’s the guilt that blocks us sin our relationship with God. 

What I needed was to actually say to other women, “This is where I’m struggling.” And I had so much shame that I couldn’t even say the word lesbian or masturbation or any of the other things that I was struggling with. And I needed to begin to open up my struggles with that. 

A clear example is one night I went to a Bible study, I had been invited, which was awesome. All it took was an invitation and I came. But I was dealing with a lot of shame. And they were worshiping and I felt so much shame, I felt like I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t be in the presence of God because I felt so much shame. So I went to get up to leave. And one of the women who lived in the house kind of intercepted me at the door. She said, “What’s wrong?” And she took me to the back living room. I told her I was dealing with so much shame. And she actually took the time to sit with me, and opened the Bible, and read out of Romans 8. She put my name in there. She personalized it for me. That was a stone of remembrance for me. I will never forget the Lord using her, using another person to break through that shame that I was feeling.

Gary:
Let me just take a quick step back to the wounds piece and then step forward with where Melissa’s talking about in the community piece.

Another sort of nursery rhyme that was around when I was a kid, I don’t think it’s said all that much these days. But the idea that “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” What a load! I mean, that’s so ridiculous. It’s actually the exact opposite. Bones will heal. But unless we’re being very intentional, what we don’t recognize is those labels, those names will actually damage us deeply. They stay in us until we actually begin to do something about them. 

When it comes to this idea of wounding, I think it’s hard particularly for men, and for some women too, to be able to actually stop and think, “I’ve been wounded.” And we are not about a victim mentality at all. We don’t believe that we are victims. We don’t believe anyone should live as a victim. But we have to get honest about what actually happened and how I related to what happened. And the fact that something happened back when you were ten, or fifteen or whatever, six years old, the fact that you might fifty or sixty years old right now—again, time by itself doesn’t heal us. 

If we’re in relationship, many of us are married, and many of us as men, and as women too, but many of us as men have difficulty really entering into emotional intimacy with our spouse. I can’t tell you, and Melissa is a licensed counselor, and I was on staff as a pastor for twelve years in upstate New York—I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve talked to, women, who said, “He couldn’t keep his hands off me before we got married. We said I do and it’s almost like, what on earth happened? You don’t even want to be with me.” 

Or maybe the physical part is still present but there’s very little emotional support or care. There’s a reason for that. What we’ve done oftentimes is we’ve damaged our own, or through the sins of other people against us, our hearts have been damaged. We don’t trust very well anymore. It’s so essential that we actually begin to look at first and foremost, what are the wounds.

We know so many men and women—the stories that I hear of men who have said, “My dad never even told me he loved me.” How is that even possible? “He wasn’t physically affectionate with me at all.” “I never heard that he was proud of me. He didn’t come to my games.” Or maybe, “He did come to my games. I did everything almost exactly right, but I had one failure and that’s all he pointed out. That was the life I grew up in.” That has an impact on us in profound ways. Those are wounds. Those and many other things are wounds sitting with us. 

What our hope is, as you’re listening to us and as we’re wrapping up and we’re talking about the solution, what are those for you? What is the Holy Spirit, right now in your life, in the silence of your own heart, as you’re listening to us, what are the two or three wounds that you recognize, “That still bothers me. It still is in the way of the relationships that I care about most. And I’m having difficulty breaking through.”

When it comes to this, Melissa already mentioned the solution. James 5:16 is very clear. It’s not a suggestion. “Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you might be healed.”

The truth is, (can we be honest?) —what we’ve found in terms of inner healing of these areas that are wounded, the only prescription God gives to us is community and confession. That’s the fill-in there. The final one. The only prescription he gives to us. The truth is, it’s the last thing we want to take. We will take anything else. We will take alcohol, drugs, pornography, sex. We will take food. We will even try to do some good things. We want to take anything but that need to actually get with somebody else in the Body of Christ and begin to open up and get real about what’s going on inside of us.

Melissa:
In the Protestant church, we haven’t done such a great job of confession. We may say “God forgive me,” (in our prayer closet), “about whatever I did last night.” Or whatever. “Yelling at my wife on the way to church.” And then we pull into the parking lot and we’re pasting smiles on. 

Gary:
Or yelling at my husband on the way to church. Either one. It’s equal opportunity. Or yelling at our kids.

Melissa:
Yes. Well, I was just about to tell on myself. Or driving crazy, as our good friend will tell you. But just actually saying, owning what we’ve done or what was done against it. I mean there’s something about naming it and bringing it into the light. And then, because we are a priesthood of believers, we can actually say, “In the name of Jesus, you’re forgiven for that.”

How many of us need to hear that in areas of deep shame or guilt—that we’re actually forgiven in Jesus’ name. We might know it, but we haven’t experienced it. And so that transaction—with women a trusted sister, or for men with another brother, it’s so important. 

Gary:
In this program that we really love called Living Waters, and Melissa got involved in that many years ago—and in 2004 I went to my first training, it’s a 20-week program but the training is a week—and I actually met Melissa at the first training that I went to. And we were both working out our stuff, we’re both working out what does it mean to be a man in God’s image; what does it mean to be a woman in God’s image. As much as I, for a season in my life, tried to embrace what has become very popularized now, which is pro-gay theology; as much as I wanted that, I knew that Scripture was very clear, not just about homosexuality, but about sex outside of marriage, which is a rampant issue in the church—and pornography addiction and all that, rampant issues in the church. A far bigger issue—heterosexual brokenness in the church—than LGBT stuff, honestly. 

But I knew that being a man made in his image was not me being with another man, as much as it felt like that was my identity. As I began to just lay down my will and say, “Lord, I want to surrender.” I’d made a mess of my life. That was me coming to Jesus in my early twenties. My salvation wasn’t just this nice, neat little prayer on the Roman road, like I’d tried before. I said, “Jesus I’ve made such a disaster of my life. If you want what’s left, you can have it.” And he took me up on that.

But it was in this group of Living Waters or similar groups where we could sit down and meet as men together and do what we all were scared to death to do. And I’m talking about big, strapping, muscle-bound guys, farmers in upstate New York. There was this was this one guy I was connected with, we wound up teaching something later in life. He was like 6’2” 300 lbs probably. He was the owner of a local bait and gun shop. He was in one of my men’s groups. Do you think this guy wanted to actually open up in front of him about my stuff? Forget about it, right? But you know what? This guy was willing to say, “You know what, Gary? I don’t know what it’s like to feel like that, to have same-sex attraction, but I sure know what it feels like to almost lost my marriage because of adultery.”

The truth is, most of us in the church won’t even say that to other people, because, again, we’re living out the good, false self. We’re not even giving people hope Everybody thinks that everybody else has it together except for them. When you come to Jesus, you come broken, but the rest of the Christian life is about acting like you don’t need a Savior anymore. And so we desperately need this open communion. 1 John 1:7

Melissa:
“But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

It’s really this process of walking in the light and we have fellowship with one another that we’re living out. Who Christ created us to be. He died … all those songs we sang this morning, everything Jesus has done for us works itself out in community.

Gary:
If you go two verses later, in 1 John 1:9, it says, “If we confess our sins He (God) is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

That’s an awesome verse. But we love to pull it out of context. The entire context of that has to do with what Melissa just read in 1 John 1:7. That verse of 1 John 1:9 is couched in community. But we love to pull it out and say, “All I have to do is this little confession thing between me and God.” Forgiveness comes to us. But healing comes through community. We see that over and over again in Scripture. 

The last verse we want to touch on is Hebrews 3:13 “But encourage one another day after day as long as it is still called today, so that your hearts are not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

I’m absolutely convinced that if we, as Christians, not the world, but we as Christians, if we could actually have our souls and our emotions x-rayed like we do on an x-ray of our bones, I believe that we’d actually be like skin and bones, like an anorexic person, because we don’t know what it’s like to have regular meals of emotional encouragement, of deep love, of affection. We don’t know what that’s like fully. We get the little crumbs here and there. We are so ashamed that we actually have need for love and care. Even as men, we’re actually so ashamed that we have those needs that we push away from it

So what we want to leave you with more than anything else is, hopefully, prayerfully there has been a stirring in your heart about what are some of the unfulfilled needs in your life. God’s prescription for that is community and confession.

Father, we do just come to you right now. I’m reminded of an Amy Grant song, the name of it is Innocence Lost and there’s a line in there that says, “I want my innocence back.” And later she says, “I can be pure again.” God, I thank you that you didn’t just call us to — your power enables us. You grace is empowerment and it calls us from our deepest, darkest places, regardless of what it is. In our sexuality, when it gets broken, when our hearts get broken, when we feel like we are totally addicted and wrapped up, whatever it is, God. You want and your desire is to call us out of that place, to empower us, but, Lord, you call us into community. Lord, I pray for my brothers and sisters that really do need — they’re bound. They’re struggling. But they need to be known. We all need to be known. I pray, Lord, for them to embrace courage in the face of their fear, the courage that you are putting out there for them, in the face of their fear, to reach out and to say, “Yes, I want to be well and I’m going to pursue help and support to do that.” In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.

________________________

©️2018 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

The Big Questions

Ryan Romeo
Series: Origins of Innocence

Genesis 3 (ESV)

Two weeks ago David started a series called Origins of Innocence. The heart behind it is this: we were praying for our church. We just went through a season where a lot of us went out. 300 of us went out on the foreign mission field. Over 250 of us went out into Phoenix to impact Phoenix. That is beautiful. That’s what God wants us to be doing as a church.  

But if you know David, he is all about rhythm—proper, healthy rhythm in our lives. In our church life there is a proper, healthy rhythm too. He came to us in the executive team and he said, “You know we just had this season where we’re pouring out.” And he said, “I just feel like it’s when you’re exhaling and we need a moment in our church where we can inhale a little bit. We need a moment where we can kind of breathe in what God has for us. Set aside some things that were okay in the previous season and now, in the next season they’re not going to be okay.” And he said, “We’re going to be consecrating ourselves, setting ourselves apart for what God has for us the next time that we’re going out.”

That doesn’t mean that this year we aren’t going out—we are definitely going to be going out. But as a church, the heart behind Origins of Innocence is for us to understand that righteousness and holiness is not just a “muster it up, try your best not to sin;” But it really starts with understanding that first innocence that was seen in Genesis 1 and 2. 

And David is saying that, if we could just paint a portrait of what that looks like, and understand that that was so beautiful, but that when Jesus died on the cross, he gave us access to that original innocence again. We can go back to Genesis 1 and 2—not because we’re denying our past; not because we’re just burying things. We can, in a healthy way, go back to that innocence because of the sacrifice of Jesus. But to understand that, to understand the heights in which Jesus is bringing us, we have to understand the depths in which we were. And that’s where we are in Genesis 3.  

The best place to start with Genesis 3 is with Genesis 2:25 (ESV). 

25  And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

They were both naked and not ashamed. I loved that Eden kind of intimated at the end of the worship set. And really, that word ashamed in the original language, in Hebrew, is this word bosh which means “to be utterly dejected” especially in front of somebody else. That’s why, when you’re ashamed, and later on in Genesis chapter 3 they cover up. But they were naked and they were not ashamed. They were working the garden, they were working with their hands and the tools while they were naked (which would probably uncomfortable for most of us in this room) but they were not ashamed. 

This word bosh also has another ingredient added, almost like you’re making a stew and you add a dash of this ingredient. The ingredient is this word confusion. When you look at the definition, it’s like the idea that, “Everything has unraveled in my life. I’m so confused. It feels like I got hit by a freight train. I didn’t see it coming. How did I find myself here? How did I get to this place where I am so low?” That is that word ashamed in the original Hebrew.  

Shame is the word that we’re going to dive into. But they had never felt that. They had never felt somebody sinning against them and violating them. They had never felt what it felt like to sin themselves and see their lives unravel. They never felt any of that at all. They were unashamed. That’s the original innocence that they were in.  

Now let’s dive into Genesis 3 (ESV).  

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

This question in the beginning, “Did God actually say..?” Satan knows what he’s doing. It says that he’s more crafty than any other creature that God had created. He is the master manipulator. If you think politicians and lawyers are manipulators, they’ve just learned it from the best here in Genesis 3.  

When you dive into it, everything that Satan says is on purpose. He handcrafted everything that he said. He really only gets the floor twice. He really only says three sentences and he doesn’t over-talk it with Eve. He doesn’t try to convince her of how great sin is. What he’s doing here at the very outset is on purpose. An he said, “Did God actually say..?” Did God really say? 

It’s the thing that society is asking right now. Did God really say that Jesus is the only way to heaven? Did God really say proper relationship is between a man and a woman. Did God really say these things? And what you have to understand is that Satan is not attacking the rule. We tend to get into that, where we’re attacking the rule and going, “That rule is not good.” Or “that rule is good.” Or “why is that rule good?” 

What Satan is doing is, he’s not attacking the rule or the validity of the rule, he’s attacking the character of the Rule Giver. What he’s really doing is saying, “Did God really say that to you? This God that you walk with every day, Eve. Did he really tell you that?” And he’s laying this foundation of doubt. The undertone of that question is this: God is not trustworthy, What God says doesn’t matter. He’s not looking out for the best for you. He’s not a good Father. Satan is laying a foundation of doubt, of saying, “You need to second guess the character of this God that you walk with.” Satan knows that if he can plant this seed, if he can get Eve to second-guess that her Father is good and has good plans for her, then he can take her to the next level.  

A lot of us focus on sin. We look at this over here and say, “Man, I want to stop doing that.” But Satan lays a foundation before you even sin, before you’re even tempted, what he’s trying to bring is doubt in the character of God. It’s his first thing, and he hasn’t changed his tactics since Genesis 3. He says this line:  

 “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 

Again, he knows exactly what he’s saying. What he’s saying is this, he knows that God has said, “You just shall not eat of that one tree.” But what he’s doing is planting in Eve’s mind this idea that “God doesn’t want the abundance of this garden for you. He wants you to say no to every tree.” And it’s the lie that we hear all the time, that following Jesus and being in God means you have less freedom, that you can’t do anything.  

But that is not the case. God is saying, “I’ve given you this entire garden.” You have so much freedom. There is way more yes in God than there is no. But what he’s saying is that there’s one thing. God says, “There’s just this one thing that I don’t want you to do. And it’s not because I hate you and it’s not because I have bad plans for you. It’s because I know will hurt you so bad. I want you to say no to it.” 

And Satan is trying to deceive Eve by saying, “Shackle yourself to that one tree. That’s real freedom. Shackle yourself to that one tree. That’s the real freedom that God brings.” And again, Satan is trying to get you to second-guess the character of God. 

When I was a kid my dad started his own business. And if you know my dad, he is actually a bit of a mad scientist. He didn’t start a business like a CPA group, or a coffee shop, or something normal. No, my dad started this company in our back yard with a bunch of equipment to make carbon fiber mirrors and structures for imaging systems. And if that sounds complicated—it’s very complicated. 

The thing is, he started in our back yard. Our house was small. What the house lacked in interior square footage, it made up for with exterior square footage. Our back yard was really big. My dad had laid this giant pad of concrete in the back that ran the whole length of our house, and I loved that. Growing up in Tucson, I had no pool. I had nothing fun. I had a dirt yard. And I would play on the concrete, and that was like my favorite thing in the world. I would skate on it. I would break rocks on it. And anything that a little boy likes to do in the back yard, that was my place to do it. And as my dad started his company, he started buying equipment. Now, it’s not like drills and saws. No. My dad had these big chambers and these crazy transformers out there. And it was nuts. And slowly but surely he started to take up my beloved patio with his own equipment. 

I remember one day I was out playing on my swing set—because I  couldn’t play on the patio—and my dad came out. He said, “Hey, buddy, how’s it going?” I said, “Hey, dad.” And he said, “You see that machine that’s running over there?” I said, “Yeah, I see it.” He said, “You see there are wires coming out of the side of it?” Which again, if you know my dad and the mad science and there’s always wires. It’s like this Medusa head of wires coming out of the side. He said, “You see those wires?” And I said, “Yeah, I see those wires.” He said, “Just so you know, buddy, those are really high current, and if you touch those, you will die.” And he said, “Just thought I would let you know. I’m going to head inside, I’ll see you later,” 

Now, I’m the dad of a son, a ten year old little boy. And if I told my son, “Don’t touch that thing.” If you know little boys, that is the invitation for them to go, “Oh, I wonder if it would kill me.” I mean, my son gets Dennis the Menace hands when he’s staring at something I tell him not to do, especially if I tell him it’s dangerous because all little boys can be idiots sometimes. 

But there was something about this that was different. Now my dad is Italian, so he is prone to be a bit of an exaggerator; but he is not prone to exaggerate in this area. He can be a little bit dramatic, but he is not an exaggerator or a liar. And when I was staring at those wires, I remember going, just for a split second, “I wonder if they will kill me.” And then I knew, “No, they will kill me. My dad is not the kind of dad that will tell me something like that just to be dramatic. He probably literally means it’s going to kill me.” 

And I knew—and not a lot of people in this room have this—but I had a good dad that had good intentions for me. And I knew I could trust his character in this. I knew if I touched those wires it would kill me. It wouldn’t just hurt me, but it would kill me. And I was not tempted very much to touch those wires because I knew the character of my dad. And that is the foundation that statement is trying to hit right here. He’s trying to say, “Your Dad is not trustworthy.” 

And even those of us in this room who didn’t have a dad, maybe they were gone or maybe they violated everything, I really believe that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God can remind us and bring healing and show us that he is a good, trustworthy Father.  And our attention starts to get less on trying to really hard white-knuckle following the rules. And it gets a lot more on the heart and the character of the Rule Giver. It starts to diminish the power of what we’re looking at over here because we see the power of God and beauty of God and the love of God over here. That is where Satan is trying to distract Eve.  

4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  

Everything that Satan says is a lie. He has a little bit of a lie sandwich right here. He says, “If you eat of it, your eyes will be opened,” That is true. Adam and Eve’s are going to be opened. They don’t understand what that means, but their eyes are going to be opened.  

“And you will be like God.” Not true. Eve does not know that what she is going to open she cannot handle. She is not equipped to handle what she’s about to open.  

And then he says, “…knowing good and evil.” Eve already was very familiar with good. She walked with God every day. Eve was very familiar with good, but what she was about to be shown was evil. 

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

If you are a filler-outer type person and you’re looking at your outline going, “Ryan, what should I write here?” The first question is Did God Really Say? It’s the big question that Satan is asking us—Did God really say this? Attacking the character of God.  And the enemy’s strategy, we see it happen here and it happens really quick. The first foundation of sin is doubt, doubting the character of God, doubting that God is a good, good father to us. Doubting all of that.

Then we move into temptation, sin and shame. Doubt, temptation, sin, shame.  See, when doubt comes in, that step between doubt and temptation is long. Eve has to thing about this. She has to really think, “Okay. Do I trust the character of God? Do I trust what he’s been telling me?” But the minute it moves into temptation, she sees the fruit, and she thinks, “Actually, that looks really good.” Then it goes from temptation to sin to shame so fast they don’t even know what hits them. It’s that bosh. That confusion of “What just happened?”  

And Eve and Adam, when they’re sitting there, and they eat the fruit, they themselves cover up. Because that’s what shame wants us to do. Shame wants us to cover up. Shame—That utter embarrassment and shame in front of someone else. It’s not just, “I did something wrong.” Because she ate the fruit and then she covered herself up. They don’t even seem like they connect with each other. But when the sin came, the shame came and said, “Cover all of it up. Cover up the bad. Cover up the good. Cover up everything.” 

Shame is the perversion of conviction. Conviction says, “I did something wrong. I need to fix that.” Conviction gives you hope and says, “I can change this through the power of the Holy Spirit, I know God is going to bring me into greener pastures.” 

But shame tells you, “This is not just something that you did. This is who you are. You are now defined by the sin in your life and you will never, ever change.” There is no hope in shame. And it brings us to this very heartbreaking moment. If we really put ourselves in Genesis Chapter 3, this truly is a dark and heartbreaking moment in our history and in Adam’s and Eve’s lives.  

8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,  

The same thing they used to do every day with God.

and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 

I love this. Only a man can blame two people in one sentence. “The woman that you gave me, God.” (It’s really your fault that you gave me this woman.)  And if you think Millennials are the first generation to feel entitled or pass the buck, it’s not true. It goes all the way back to Genesis 3. The immediate thing that they start doing is blaming each other. 

But the true heartbreaking part of Genesis 3 is this question. And this is the second question in your outline: Where are you? 

Now, God spoke creation into being. He said words and the entire universe was created like that. God was not confused on where Adam and Eve were. He was not going, “I can’t see you. Share your location, you know, on your iPhone with me.” That was not his question. His question was, “Where are you?” Where are you, Adam and Eve? Where is this person that I created, that I created on purpose? I didn’t make any mistakes when I created you. Where are you? Where is this person that I made, and hand knit in your mother’s womb, this person that I have called you to be, Where are you?  

You see, shame didn’t just cover up the sin. Shame starts as this lie of, “I’ll just cover up this sin.” But what happens is that shame covers up the good and the bad. Shame covers up everything in you. And you can’t have any of the good things that God has planned for you come out of you because you are so in prison to shame. Shame is a really big deal and we need to be praying and going after the heart of it. There’s a woman named Colleen McMahon in our church that does prayer sessions, that’s a great place to start to dive into the heart of shame that you might be dealing with in your life. 

But God is saying this. “I have this original you that I created. This original purpose that I had for you when I created you.” This innocence that maybe you felt as a child, this sense that, “I was drawn toward something big” as a child—God is saying, “I still have that for your life. You have made a lot of mistakes. You may be covering it up. But I still have that for your life.” 

Self-help books and Oprah Winfrey didn’t invent this, making the best you possible. God invented that. And what God wants for you is for you to emerge as the person he created you to be, You are unlike any person that ever lived in history. You—right now—were handcrafted and created to be unlike any other person right now or in history. If you really grasp that—if you really take a moment and say, “Okay, God, I’m not defined by my sin. I am who you say that I am, God. I have an original design that you created me to walk in before I even walked the earth…” If you really believe that God has good plans for you and you trust the character of God, then you will desire and yearn to go back to that Genesis 1 and 2 existence. That is where we are at home.

In Genesis 3, if we took this all by itself, we are all in trouble. And the Bible says the heart is wicked beyond repair. It’s completely wicked. Everything about it is dark. And later on there’s a prophecy that says, “I’m going to give you a new heart. Not a heart of stone, but a heart of flesh.” That is the good news of what Jesus has done for us. We don’t have to be shackled to that one tree in the garden anymore. Wee can walk in a lot of confidence in what God has for us because it’s what he has for us. We can be confident in our Father and that’s going to create confidence in ourselves and that’s going to bring out the best in us. 

A couple of months in the year I do a thing called Outcry, And I go on tour and we do a lot of arenas and a lot of big things like that. When we first started Outcry I thought we needed some type of logo. And we created this logo out of this little boy shouting into a big megaphone, this crazy megaphone. And it became the logo for our tour. I needed somebody that I could trace their face and I went to my son. I said, “Hey, Toby, can you do this?” And he did that. We took a picture and we traced it out and put it as part of the logo. So my son’s face is on the logo of Outcry and it goes to his head. Because we print thousands of shirts and he comes up and he says, “Oh, look, my face is another shirt” or a hat or something. And it really goes to his head. 

So we go out on tour. And we go out in all these cities and Toby owns those cities. He gets on his skate board. He gets like five backstage passes for some reason. And he just starts skating all around the area, All the security people go, “Hey, Toby.” Everybody gets to know Toby. And he does this thing he calls shopping. Now, it’s not shopping at all, it’s completely free. He shows up at our merch table and he says “Hey, can I get some merch? I want a hat or a shirt,” you know.  

And we have this guy that travels with us. He puts all of this together. And in one of these cities, I wasn’t present, but Toby rolls up with his backstage passes and his skateboard, comes to the merch table, and instead of our normal merch guy being there, there are two college students that are very kindly volunteering for us, selling merch. And Toby rolls up like normal and says, “Hey, I’ll get a shirt and a hat and all this.” And the girls go, “Hey, little boy, I’m sorry but we cant give that to you.” And the merch guy told me later that Toby got this indignant look on his face and he said, “Hey, you know whose face is on that tee shirt? That’s actually me on that shirt. And you see that book over there that says ‘Outcry’? My dad wrote that book. He basically runs this place. So could you please give me a shirt and a hat?” And they give it to hi. 

This little boy, he’s nine years old at the time, and he’s manipulating these college students to give him free stuff. And I, on the inside, I’m going, “Ah, Toby, no buddy! The last will be first and the first will be last.” I was thinking “I’ve got to tell him this is not okay. We don’t throw our weight around like that, buddy,”  

I came home, and I was telling Nick, who runs our production. And if you know Nick, he’s amazingly sharp, and he has these moments of profound insight. I told him that story and he said, “Man, can you imagine if we all walked around with that confidence in our God? Can you imagine what it would be like if we walked around with confidence knowing who our Father is like that.”  

That is what God is asking us to do. God is not telling us to bury who we are in shame. Our job is not to continually look at sin an go “I need to stop that. I need to stop that.” It’s to look at God and to say, “God, you want to turn me into something that I’m not right now, and I am going to say yes to it.”  

I love when David was talking about Gideon last week. He said the enemies knew what Gideon’s real identity was before Gideon even knew his true identity. The enemies knew “Oh that’s got to be Gideon.” When the angel said, “Gideon, you mighty man of valor,” and he’s hiding. God knows who you are before you start acting like it. He knows who you are before you start acting like it, and he’s not giving up on you.  

That brings us to question number 3. It’s the most important asked in Scripture. In Matthew 16, Jesus turns to his disciples and asks, “Who do people say that I am?” And they say, “Some say you’re Elijah. Some say you’re a prophet.” And you can almost sense Jesus’ purpose as he’s staring all of them in the eye and he says, “No, who do you say that I am?” Peter says, “You’re the Christ. You’re the Messiah. You’re the Son of the Living God.” 

That is the question that God is asking us all the time. Even after we accept Jesus, he’s looking at us saying, “Who am I in your life? Who do you say that I am? If you think I’m a grumpy God that never wants to give you anything, that wants you to be shackled to one tree your entire life, then you’re going to act like it. But if you believe that I’m a good Father to you; if you believe that I gave everything for you because I count you infinitely worth it; if that’s what you truly believe in your heart; everything changes.” 

It’s not like sin goes away. It’s not like shame goes away. You’re still going to be dealing with those when you follow Jesus, but you look at it through a wholly different lens. Who do you say that I am? 

In Psalm 139, David is talking to God. It’s a prayer, it’s a song, it’s a poem, it’s worshipful. Everything about it is shifting his mindset off of all of his imperfections into what God has done for him, how purposefully God has made him. And it’s for you and me.  

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. I’m going to read it to you. I want you to internalize it and shift it back to God as your own prayer:  

Psalm 139 (TPT) 

Lord, you know everything there is to know about me.

2 You perceive every movement of my heart and soul,
    and you understand my every thought before it even enters my mind.

3–4 You are so intimately aware of me, Lord.
    You read my heart like an open book
    and you know all the words I’m about to speak
    before I even start a sentence!
    You know every step I will take before my journey even begins.

5 You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way,
    and in kindness you follow behind me
    to spare me from the harm of my past.
    With your hand of love upon my life,
    you impart a blessing to me.

6 This is just too wonderful, deep, and incomprehensible
    Your understanding of me brings me wonder and strength.

7 Where could I go from your Spirit?
    Where could I run and hide from your face?

8 If I go up to heaven, you’re there!
    If I go down to the realm of the dead, you’re there too!

9 If I fly with wings into the shining dawn, you’re there
    If I fly into the radiant sunset, you’re there waiting!

10 Wherever I go, your hand will guide me
    your strength will empower me.

11 It’s impossible to disappear from you
    or to ask the darkness to hide me,
    for your presence is everywhere, bringing light into my night.

12 There is no such thing as darkness with you.
    The night, to you, is as bright as the day;
    there’s no difference between the two.

13 You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside
    and my intricate outside,
    and wove them all together in my mother’s womb.

14 I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex!
    Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking.
    It simply amazes me to think about it!
    How thoroughly you know me, Lord!

15 You even formed every bone in my body
    when you created me in the secret place,
    carefully, skillfully shaping me from nothing to something.

16 You saw who you created me to be before I became me!
    Before I’d ever seen the light of day,
    the number of days you planned for me
    were already recorded in your book.

This is what God says about you. This is the purposefulness in which God created you. And maybe some of you are feeling lonely. Maybe some of you are feeling like you’re alone in a crowded room. That feeling can be a marker of something beautiful. All of us, at times, feel alone in a crowded room. Because there’s only one person who truly understand us, and that’s Jesus. You can grow up in a family with all the same experiences and they turn out completely different. Because God has something completely different for you. And I do believe that there are some people in this room who have never said yes to Jesus. That question of “Who do you say that I am?” Maybe that’s a question that’s burning inside of you now. If you’re feeling this burning in your heart and you need to say yes to Jesus, not just yes to Jesus in salvation, but yes to his kingdom, yes to everything he has for me … repeat this prayer: 

Lord Jesus, I love you. I thank you that you paid a great sacrifice for me. I confess that I have fallen way short. Today I say yes to you. I believe you died for me and rose from the grave to bring me freedom.  Today I say yes to you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.  

©️2018 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org 

Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.

God's Good Intentions

David Stockton
Series: Origins of Innocence

“I want the world to sing in her native tongue, to sing it like when we were young, back before the pendulum had swung to the shadow.”
(©️Jon Foreman, Tim Foreman, Brent Kutzle) 

WHO GOD MADE US TO BE

That is the hope. We’re in a new series called Origins of Innocence. We’re trying to look back at what God intended for humanity, for creation, for you and for me, before there was a fall, a rebellion, before there was a mistake, a sin made by our forefathers—Adam and those guys. If we can see what God intended for us there, maybe we can get a better picture of what God intended for us in Christ Jesus. The concept that in Christ Jesus we are now the righteousness of God. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. We are made to be holy and blameless in his sight in Christ Jesus.  

We have so much in Christ Jesus. So we’re looking back toward the beginning to see what did it look like there. What did it look like when God first created the world? Maybe that will give us a picture of what we’re trying to find even now in Christ Jesus. 

That’s the concept. That’s the hope that we learn to sing like when we were young, in that native tongue. I wrote it this way: I want all of us to be who God made us to be, which is who we really want to be. So that we can do a lot of good for our people—the people that we love and the people that God has asked us to love. We just want to grow more into who we were made to be.  

We all know that there’s a part of us—a sinful, broken nature—that we don’t want to live out of. We’re tired of living out of that and producing what it produces. Not only in our own lives, but in the lives of the people that we love.  

So we’re trying to figure out what is this new nature that God has implanted in us in Christ Jesus. And how can we begin to live out of that nature, which produces things very different from what our sinful nature produces. This is the concept.  

This is what I felt the Lord was saying during our worship time. That it’s hard for us to believe, but this is what Jesus is speaking over us. That he can change your stars. He can change your stripes. He can bring new wine out of that cold, hardened, broken heart inside of you. You can’t do it. With all your will power, with all your clever scheming and strategizing, you just can’t seem to squeeze anything that good, beautiful and live-giving out of that heart that’s been battered and broken by your sin, the sin of humanity, by the sin of those who were supposed to care well for you. 

GOD KNOWS WHO YOU ARE

But if you’ll place that broken battered heart into Jesus’ hands, he can begin to transform it, re-form it and begin to bring new wine, living water out of that heart that he made in the first place, and knows exactly how it’s supposed to be, how it’s supposed to feel and what it’s capable of. But you have to trust him with it. Day in and day out. Storm or nice weather. And it’s tricky to do that. But take his hand and walk with him. He alone knows who you are, who you were made to be, and who you can be. 

That’s the premise of this series that we’re going through. We’ve got some sermon notes for you because I’m so serious about this sermon series. That one section, “I want the world to sing in her native tongue, sing it like when we were young, back before the pendulum had swung to the shadow.” That’s kind of a backdrop as we’re moving through the series. 

We have a little timeline that we had gotten last week. (See last week’s notes.) A timeline of innocence. We were created in innocence. God created humanity in innocence. Adam and Eve were naked and not in shame. That’s the picture that God inspired the writer of the book of Genesis to give us. It’s what it looked like if you were to picture this. Naked and not ashamed.  

But then, at some point, there was a fall. We call it the Fall of Adam or the Fall of Humanity. It was basically Adam’s rebellion. It was Adam deciding to go with what the serpent said, with what Eve had said. To go against what God had spoken to him. And it created this fall. And now humanity, each one of us born of the seed of the first Adam are now born into shame. 

See that gritty little line down there? Yeah. That’s what we know. That’s what we’re most familiar with. We are never naked and unashamed. We are naked and ashamed. We are born into shame. We’re so familiar with it. You don’t teach your kids how to sin and do wrong and try to cover up and be selfish. They just are good at it naturally.  

SHAME VS. INNOCENCE

So we’re  born into shame. Yet, what the Scripture teaches is that God’s plan for humanity, his good intentions for creation, his innocence that he wanted us to know and experience and live in—it never stopped. The gifts and callings of God are irrevocable, the Bible says. So what he created for humanity, it wasn’t like, “Oh, we lost it!” No, we actually begin to know something else, but it never stopped.  

So there were guys like Abraham who believed God and it was accounted to them as righteousness. They began to experience both. Yes, they were men of shame, wrestling with the sinful nature. But at the same time, they were also able to breath in the abundance skies in their lives. They were able to rise above for these moments and do something that was very, very godly. And they experienced a friendship with God like what was experienced in the Garden of Eden at the same time of living in this midst of shame. And that is our reality, our situation. 

Then we have the cross. The cross helped us understand all of this. There was a second Adam who came. He was Jesus Christ. He was God’s son. He came and he lived this life of righteousness. We learned in the book of Romans that he was the second Adam. And those who are born of his seed - those who are created in him, in Christ Jesus, are now born into this innocence and have this new nature living inside of them.  

Yes, it’s crazy and frustrating that we have these two natures inside of us. A sinful nature that wants things in opposition to God, that we got from Adam; and now we have this nature that has been born in us through Christ Jesus that wants the things of God. And it’s this wrestling match. We read about it in Romans 7 last week, where even Paul, this mighty man of faith is like, “The things I don’t want to do I keep doing. And the things I really, really want to do, I don’t even do them. And I find this struggle within me, this battle between shame and innocence. Who will save me from this body of death?” Is what he says. 

JESUS CAME TO SAVE US

Then we get to Romans 8 and he says, “Now here’s the good news. Jesus Christ can save us. Because in him there’s no condemnation for the shame, for the sin.” No matter how grievous or horrible it is, when you stand before Jesus Christ, there’s no condemnation. It’s amazing. Not only is there no condemnation, there’s no consequence for it anymore for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because Jesus actually paid for it on the cross. He took it for you.

And then, he not only tells you “This is the right way to go,” but he puts his Spirit inside of you to help you war with that sinful nature, to help you overcome that sinful nature. It takes a while. It’s like riding a bike. You start trying to live after the Spirit and you’re like, “Come on, come on!”  And you’re crashing all the time. But over time, all of a sudden you’re getting one hundred feet, two hundred feet, you’re riding with no hands.  

Until the end of shame, we’re going to deal with this innocence and shame combination. But at that point, Christ returns. We’re going to talk about the last Sunday in this year. We’re going to talk about this innocence that has been promised to us, where there is a time, a day, an hour set by our Father where there will be no more shame. Our sinful nature will be no more. We will only have the innocent nature that Christ has given us. What a day of rejoicing that will be!

In the midst of this, we’re trying to learn how to live with shame and innocence all at the same time. Native tongue. Timeline of innocence.  

Here’s a question for you: How are you doing today, guys? How was your week? How much alone time do you spend with God, every month, every week. And when you spend that alone time with God, how close do you feel? Do you feel far away? In the same neighborhood? Or hand in hand? And yes, feelings are not 100% trustworthy. We all know that at this point. But feelings do help us. They are one way we can discern what’s happening physically, emotionally, spiritually. So those are okay questions to ask.  

Obviously, the goal is that we would spend most of our lives feeling very hand-in-hand with God. And some of you, at this point, are saying, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” And that’s fine too. Hopefully it will make some sense by the end of this message. 

WE WERE CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

So, what are God’s good intentions that he created in the beginning? First of all, I think it’s important for us to check out Genesis. That’s where we get the story, the poem of Creation, the biblical account. In Genesis 1:24-27, I want you guys to notice something here that is very important as you begin to understand who God made you to be. 

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds:  

So God has created a lot of living things and now he’s saying, “I want all of the creation to produce after it’s own kind. 

the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 

And the word ‘kind’ here is likeness. So, obviously, we understand that when a snake has a baby, it looks like a snake. You know? It doesn’t look like a monkey. It looks like a snake. In their own likeness, in their own image. 

26 Then God said, 

[paraphrase: “However, with this next part of creation…]

 “Let us make mankind

[check this out] 

“Let us make mankind in our image, 

Something very, very different is taking place in creation now. God made all the plants to create after their kind. God made all the animals to create after their kind. And then God said, “You know what? I want to make something that looks like us. I want to create something in our image. Imago Dei. Something that has our likeness. 

That’s wild. You. You have the image of the Creator. You were made in the likeness of God himself. All of the rest of creation, God had an idea, “I want it to look and feel and act like this. And then I want it to make everything after that likeness.” But when it came to you and me, God decided to make you and me look, reflect, act, know, be in His likeness. It’s amazing. So  

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
     in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.  

He didn’t create man in his image. He created male and female in his image. 

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 

And as they were created in His image, he gave them dominion over the rest to care for them, to nurture, to bless with dominion.  

So that’s the first thing. We were created in the image of God. You were created in the image of God. Whatever you feel about yourself right now, no matter how marred or broken you might be because of this world and the storms and the sin that come, you will never and can never lose the image of God that God created you in. You were made in His image.  

WALKING IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

Second thing that we have is walking in the image of God. What’s so interesting to me is what we see pictured for us in the Scriptures about what it was like when people were living and experiencing innocence. In Genesis 3:8 we have this little allusion where the fall actually happened. We have God showing up in the cool of the day to meet with Adam and Eve. To be with them, to walk with them, to interact with them. I don’t know what they did. If they just ate some food, or if God taught them some things, or they just enjoyed each other’s presence and laughed. I don’t know what it was. But it seemed like once a day there was a time where God and Adam and Eve hung out.  

It’s so interesting because, here in this innocence we’re trying to get back to, some of us think it’s like, “Oh, we have to be like spending time with God a thousand hours a day and working so hard and striving…” But when you look at what innocence was, it was not like that. It was spending time with God once a day, Taking time to remember the Creator and breathing in what he has to breathe. And hear his words and know his heart. And remind yourself of what your image is to look like.  

Not only that, but in that moment they walked with God daily they didn’t hide from God. When the presence of God showed up, they didn’t feel the need to hide. They could just be who they were before God. And hopefully some of you are getting to a point in your relationship with God where when you sin, when you blow it, when you have a bad attitude, when you do something worse, it’s quick and easy for you to go to God and say, “Sorry.” That can happen, where your relationship with God is easy in that way. 

I’m not saying it’s easy when you’ve got to go to your wife and say you're sorry that you were a big jerk. I don’t know how to make that easy. It’s always hard. But I have come to a place in my relationship with God where I feel I really can come to him with anything. And that’s a big change. 

That’s what innocence was. It was not being afraid of God ever again. Not only that, but they were not ashamed of their imperfections. They weren’t comparing themselves. “Well, should I go to God today?”  “Well, I’ve had a good day, so let’s go be with God.” They were naked. They knew they were not actually the image of God. God was still much more vast and broad and beautiful and everything, yet they were okay with who they were.  

Just like a child, a child doesn’t compare himself to me. Like my nephew I was talking about last week. He doesn’t compare himself to me because I’m way better than him in everything. I wish he was here to hear that. He’s very okay when I beat him at anything or I’m better. He’s like, “Whatever. I’m getting better.” And that’s a great attitude to have. And that’s what they had.  

They enjoyed and cared for creation. That’s interesting because we think about what God has created the world—there’s so many bad things out there. That’s the shame teaching us that. When God created the world, he created it with everything for them to enjoy except for one tree. God doesn’t want to limit your life and make you into this very safe, secure, small-minded, tiny, little person who is only able to enjoy church. I’m sorry, but if church is the only thing in Christ that you enjoy, you’re probably not fun to be with. Don’t call and ask me to hang out. I would rather hang out with somebody else.

God is not interested in making you good at church. That has never been his plan for your life. And church is - what? A few hours a week, maybe. For some of you, a couple of hours every year. God is trying to make you good at life, and is teaching you how to enjoy all of the creation he has for you without you being mastered by any of it. He wants you to enjoy everything. He made it for your enjoyment. But we kind of get it backward sometimes. 

TRUST GOD WITH THE RESTRICTIONS

The last thing is that they trusted God about their restriction. When it came time to wrestle with, “Something inside me really wants this thing.” “Something inside me is drawn to this one tree.” Or “I have this question in my mind of ‘maybe this is a good thing for me.’” That’s going to happen to all of us. And we have to trust God even more than our own heart. And they were able to do that and it helped them to experience innocence. 

We’ve got to trust God about the restrictions. No matter what the Supreme Court is telling us; no matter what the law of the land has changed in this way or that, for the good or for the bad—whatever. We’ve got to trust God about the restrictions. He knows your heart. And he is so interested in seeing it, like the Grinch, becoming ten times bigger that day. He would never restrict something from you that was good for you.  

HOW TO RECEIVE YOUR IMAGE OF GOD

So that’s innocence. And this last thing, Receiving our image of God. So we’ve go to do a little work now. Go to Galatians 4. It’s time for a little Bible study. Giving you a lot of freebies here. But now you’ve got to engage your brain and get to work. Because this is Paul and his run-on sentences.  

4:1 What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.  

Basically, he’s talking legal terms here. He’s talking about you, as a young person, have an inheritance from your guardian, your parents. But a lot of times those parents have an age set to where you won’t get the full inheritance until you come of age, at a certain point. And until then, they usually put a guardian or some sort of caretaker for you until you get to that point where you’re able to receiving everything.  

And that’s what Paul is saying. That was all of us. All of us were born into this situation but the inheritance has always been there. And God is constantly trying to teach us about this inheritance that we have in Christ Jesus. But all of us have lived under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. That’s very deep waters right there. We don’t have time for that. But it’s all these things that can master us. And Paul is specifically saying that one of the things, legalism, the law is what was a master for the Jews until the fullness of Christ came, where they no longer need the law as a guardian. Because now they have the Spirit of Christ that can teach them the way to go. 

For us, there’s all kinds of elemental spiritual forces, but  it’s basically the lies that we believe, or the guardians that are over us that are keeping us from the fullness of Christ. And he’s saying that, once we come of age we don’t have to deal with that anymore. 

4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.[b] 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?  

Paul’s saying that there was this time where you were in slavery. But in Christ you have been set free so don’t go back and settle for slavery again. Learn to live as a free person. And it’s hard to live as a free person. It’s like living left handed for those of us who are right handed. 

There is this time when Christ came and he changed things so that we no longer have to live as slaves to the elemental forces. We can live in this innocence and learn to walk in it. But it takes time.  

Go to chapter 5 and we’ll see how it looks in practical life.    

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. 

So he’s saying when you’re living out of the nature that Adam gave you it’s going to look like all of these things. But when you’re living out of the nature that Christ has born in you through his  Spirit, it’s going to look like these things.  

And I love this line. He says, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” That’s it. How do you learn to walk in this innocence? How do you learn to overcome shame and the strongholds and the lies in hour life? You continue to walk in the Spirit. 

TAKE GIDEON, FOR EXAMPLE

One of my favorite pictures of this in the Bible is a guy named Gideon. Gideon was a guy who we find in Judges 6 & 7. All of a sudden the movie camera pans over to this guy Gideon You can picture him. He’s kind of shrunk down, hiding out, he’s built these things around him and he’s trying to make himself a little bi t of food. The problem was, the Midianites had come and destroyed all the weapons in Israel and they had stolen all their food. They wouldn’t even allow them grain to make themselves food. And Gideon had snuck a little bit and was making himself a cracker. 

And this angel of the Lord shows up to him and says, “Gideon!’ I’m sure he hid even more. And the angel says, “Gideon!” And he kind of moves away. “Gideon!” And he’s totally freaked out by this angel. And the angel says, “You are a mighty man of valor.” Now Gideon is cracking up. He’s like, “You are insane.” 

And they go through this whole process with Gideon where God says, “I want you to set all my people free. I want you to overcome the Midianites.” You fast forward through multiple steps and then you have Gideon doing just that. It’s just a couple of chapters. You can read the story in Judges 6 and 7. 

This is a story of how God took someone who was living out of this nature where he didn’t realize that he was created in the image of God. He didn’t know how to walk in the image of God. He didn’t know what God had in store for him. He didn’t know all of those things. Or maybe he did and he was just having trouble believing them. 

But this angel shows up to him and says, “You’re a might man of valor.” And it’s so funny because Gideon does a bunch of weird stuff right there, just because he thinks that if he sees God he’s going to die. Which is just that same shame. It’s like, “If God shows up I’m going to die. I have to run. I have to quick make a sacrifice.”

He actually says to the angel, “Hey, could you wait right here? I’m going to go get a sacrifice.” And he runs away. And he gets the sacrifice and the angels is still there, and the angel’s like, “What is happening right now?”

And he makes a sacrifice and he says, “There. Now can I live?” And the angel is like, “You’re not going to die. You never were going to die.” But then the angel gives him one job to do. He says, “I want you to go into your father’s house, where he set up that idol in the middle of town, and I want you to tear it down.”

So how is Gideon going to get to become a mighty man of valor? Is it through strategy? Is through strength? Is it through striving? Did he start doing push-ups saying, “Here it comes. Here it comes.” No. He just learned to walk in step and stride with the Spirit. And the Spirit said, “First thing I want you to do. Take my hand and I want you to go and I want you to tear down that idol in your father’ house.”

So Gideon, this mighty man of valor, goes at the darkest time of night, in the sneakiest way possible, and does it, and goes and hides again. And the town is in an uproar, because “Somebody just tore down this idol and that god is going to be mad at us. And the Midianites are going to be mad at us. Who did this?”  

And they go on a search. And Gideon never once says, “I did it.” He just hides out until they find out he did it. But then they don’t do anything to him. And step one is complete.  

With Gideon it took a lot more steps. The Lord said, “Ok. Now come do this one.” And then, “Go do this one.” “Now do this little thing.” And he did all of those things so sheepishly, fearfully but it was enough for God to work it out.  

And then, this is the image on your sermon notes. Right before the big battle is about to happen, Gideon is still so freaked out, even though God has met him so many times along the process, he’s still so nervous, so unsure of who he is, so doubtful of what God can do and what he can do. God says, “Gideon, I know you’re still freaked out. This is what I want you to do. I want you to get up and walk at night into the Midian camp, where they’re all camped out. And I want you to go to this one tent.”

It’s scary, but he says, “Okay, God, I’m going to walk with you.” He does one more step that God asks him to do. He gets up and he crouches next to this tent. And inside this tent, there are two men. One of them wakes up and he says, “I had this crazy dream.” And the other guy says, “What happened?” 

He said, “I saw this biscuit of barley and it started rolling down and destroying all the tents. And it destroyed all of Midian.” 

And the person next to him goes, “That’s got to be Gideon.”

That’s it. And then Gideon walks back. “Well, that was interesting.”  

And there are a couple of things. One: God was still so willing to work with all of his fears, and all of his shame, and all of his doubts, and continue to take him step and stride across. But he had to keep taking the little steps God was giving him. But here’s what’s so interesting: Even his enemy knew his identity before he did. 

GOD KNOWS YOUR IDENTITY

The truth is, God knows your identity and he wants to get you there. And the truth is that the enemy of your soul knows your identity and he wants to block you. But what you can do to get to that place where you become a mighty man of valor—or whatever women like to be—I don’t know, maybe women like to be mighty women of valor?—Polemeo? Really, whoever God has made you to be. You—exactly as God intended.  

You just take his hand and you keep taking the steps he asks you to do. It’s not a matter of coming up with a better strategy, a better striving. It’s just, “Okay, God, what do you want me to do next?”

The picture I have in my mind is when my dad would take us across these big rivers and I was just this little dude. I was looking at some pictures on November 2, what would have been my dad’s 69th birthday. I remember this picture where he’s holding my hand and we’re in this big river. And there are these rocks that we have to jump to. He’s just got my hand and I’m not worried about anything. Even though this river could just destroy me, he’s got my hand. And he’s like, “Okay, jump to this rock. Jump to this rock.” And I’m not worried about it at all because I know he’s going to get me to the other side. 

That’s what walking in the Spirit is. If you will invite Christ into your life, his Spirit will come and live in you and then his Spirit will say, “Hey, I want you to go talk to this person.” “I want you to go throw that thing away.” “I want you to …” and he’ll give you the steps. And he’ll give you the provision for those steps. And as you take those steps, you will be very afraid, but once you take those steps, the goodness of God will show up. And after you do that for a while, you begin to trust those things more and more. But the thing is, they keep getting bigger and bigger because God is making you bigger and bigger. 

That’s all it is. It’s learning to not live out of this self anymore, but learning to live out of the Spirit and follow the things that he gives us to do. And that will get us back to where we are living and experiencing the innocence that God has intended for us from the very beginning. 

Let’s pray: 

Lord Jesus, we thank you very much that you have good intentions. You always have and you always will. I thank you that the fall of man and our own sin and depravity can’t keep us from your good intentions. Because what Jesus has done is far more powerful than any wrong we could have ever done.  Please help us believe it, Lord. Please help us keep taking steps with you. Please help each of us to know what is the next step. We’re hungry for the next step, Lord. We’ve been fearful, but right now, today we are hungry for the next step because we want the freedom, the fullness that you’ve intended for us. So please bring it, Lord. 

Origins of Innocence

David Stockton
Series: Origins of Innocence

There's a haunting Switchfoot song, and there’s this little tag at the end of the full song:

I want the world to sing in her native tongue, 
to sing it like when we were young 
back before the pendulum had swung to the shadows. 
I want the world to sing in her native tongue, 
maybe we could learn to sing along, 
to find a way to use our lungs for love and not the shadows.
(©️Jon Foreman, Tim Foreman, Brent Kutzle)  

That song came out this week, it’s from one of my favorite bands, Switchfoot, and they don’t know, unless they follow my Twitter feed, what we’re doing. But, man, that’s exactly the hope. That’s the whole point of what we’re trying to do. We believe what the Bible teaches about humanity. That God created us in innocence, in goodness, in beauty, and in strength. 

And, yes, there was a fall. Yes, mankind’s greatest representatives, Adam and Eve, they had a fall. They made a mistake. They were deceived. They rebelled. And all of us born of their seed are now experiencing shame instead of innocence. We were born into that. We walk in it. We wallow in it. 

And yet the Bible teaches that there was a second Adam that came—Jesus Christ. And he had a fall when he took on humanity’s sin and shame and died on a cross and rose from the dead. Yet, for some reason we still think that Adam’s fall is more powerful than Christ’s cross.

We’ve got to figure out how to live out of a different identity, a different philosophy. We’ve got to figure out our origins of innocence are also our eternal future as well. God’s intensions never changed. They always stayed the same. And they’re still the same for you and me. 

So we’re going to go through eight weeks of surgery, therapy, internal turmoil and discussion because we’ve got to get to the roots of what are the things that are causing us to still believe that Adam’s fall is more powerful than Christ’s cross. 

And I want to let you know that we have a special guest, Alan Meyer, who’s with us today by chance. He’s devoted his life, he’s been a pastor for many years, he’s served the Lord for many years, he’s wrestled with God himself for many years. He’s developed curriculum and some different techniques, helps for people who are trying to discover who God has made them to be. Trying to live out of this new self, to find overcoming for sin. And the one thing he has that many of us don’t is, he’s from Australia. 

Interview with Alan Meyer

David: My first question to you, Alan, in light of all these things: Does anyone in Australia struggle at all, or is it all “No Worries”?

Alan: No one struggles in Australia. No worries. All over the world you find people who are exactly as you just described. In fact, after you said that opening, I was ready to get saved. If you had an alter call I would have been on it. People are made in the image of God, even if they don’t know that. The reality is, you can’t extract your origins. They’ve been damaged, but you can’t extract them. We are made int he image of the everlasting, intimate, holy God—a God who is moral to his call but love to the core, as well. 

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Christian, or a Buddhist, or a Muslim, or an atheist, or a “Calithumpian," it has been woven into you. And it cries out. The Bible says eternity has been woven into the heart of man. And people live with a distress because of that. Most of the time they don’t like themselves very much. Because something on the inside cries out for heaven. People are made for heaven, they’re made for God. They cry out for heaven. They cry out for God. But they don’t know what they’re crying out for. And as a result, every addiction you can think of is simply finding a way to stop the pain. Can I just find a way to stop the pain?  

The miracle is that we have the privilege to disciple. When Jesus said, “Go into all the world and make disciples,” he got it the right way around. Jesus does that. He gets it the right way around. He said, “Go make disciples. The first thing you’ve got to do is baptize them into Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” And that’s more than just baptizing in water. Of course it means baptizing in water. But that was an action intended to give us a picture of the greatest need we have. And that is to be immersed back into the love, grace and kindness, and the everlasting determination of God that heaven will win and hell will lose. It is God’s everlasting commitment.  

And we’ve got to be immersed in that. It doesn’t start with trying harder. It doesn’t start with a new bunch of things you need to do before 9 o’clock in the morning to get God to like you. We’ve got to be immersed in the grace of the cross, the kindness of God, his absolute determination that eternity will be filled with people made in his image. Baptize them into that. 

But then comes the second part. You’ve got to teach them how to observe “all things whatsoever I’ve commanded you.” You’ve go to teach them how to live that out. And that’s exactly what your sermon said. I was ready to get saved. 

David: Tell us a little bit about what you’ve been working on with the Valiant Man series, and some of the other things that you’ve been doing — the mission and heart behind it as we endeavor to get stronger and be discipled by the Lord.

Alan: Well, I guess for Helen and I - we led a church for 26 years and we didn’t penetrate our community for the first ten. We didn’t really touch our community. We touched believers, but not our community. And then, it was that very thing you’re talking about, the fact that the fall has damaged people. It has destroyed their hearts and their hopes. It’s damaged their lives. It’s created chaos for people. They don’t know how to parent. They don’t know how to manage their money. They don’t know how to control themselves. They don’t know how to look forward. They don’t know how to look backward. 

And then, into that, God put Jesus and the cross, which was intended to change everything. And we simply discovered that we were good at discipling people on faith issues. We could teach about communion, baptism and worship, but people need discipleship beyond that, into life issues. How do you manage your sex life since God loves you? How do you manage your marriage since God loves you? How to you raise your kids since God loves you? How do you deal with the big struggles of life? You mentioned shame. I think that’s one of the biggest struggles that people have. How do you manage that? What do you do with that since the cross and God loves you?

I went to a good Bible-believing Lutheran church  for the first 27 years of my life. And yet, in 27 years, I never heard a single message on sex. I started thinking Lutheran’s didn’t have sex. I was going to investigate the Catholics, I’ll tell you that right now.

And yet, I just watched my own life and I watched the lives of other people. One of the biggest issues people face in life is sex. And yet we had nothing to say, no discipleship on that. And as a result, the community, the culture disciples you. You just get discipled by TV and movies. And you begin to learn your principles and your values and your truth about sex from all of that. And that’s not going to take you out of the shadows. You’ve got to help people.  

I took over a church that was broken hearted because of the adultery of the previous minister. I watched so many good men fall. I lost four good friends in a single year. And there was a suicide of a man who was attending one of our support groups who had misbehaved in his earlier years and the police were investigating him and he knew he was going to prison. In fear he took his life.  

That was a point where I said, “Someone’s got to help the community learn the song of love again in our sex lives.” And that’s what caused me to create Valiant Man. It’s a lot more than pornography. It’s about sexual discipleship. We need to be discipled in all the big issues of life. And as a result I made that a year long study. And the beautiful thing is it’s now being used all over the world. It’s been translated into Swahili. It’s been translated into French and German and Indonesian. Hillsong uses it in all their campuses. It’s one of the things that will be happening around here at Living Streams in the coming year. 

One of my passions is to encourage people that, if you could just be baptized into a new identity, if you could be baptized into that and understand how profoundly you are loved by God, out of that we could coach you as to how to resolve conflict in your marriage without having to punch each other or throw things through the window, without hurting people. We could show you how in heavenly places they do this stuff. Because Christ is in you, you could learn. And wouldn’t be a matter of white-knuckling it until the Kingdom comes. You could really learn a new way of life. And discipleship is something.  

God is crying out for his people: Help them to be baptized into the goodness of the cross and coach them in the big life issues and people can learn the song. 

David:  Since I only talked for about one minute and you were ready to take the next step and get saved, and there might be some people here who, after we’ve done such a good job already and they’re ready to go—what’s a good first step? What would you say, if someone is really ready to say yes to Jesus and they’re ready for that transformation to begin, what’s one of the most important first steps they can take?

Alan: You’ve got to listen to the echo of the cry of pain in your own heart. No one ever changes until pain gets involved. Pain gets your attention. C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our conscience. He speaks to us in our pleasures. But he shouts to us in our pain: I’ve got something better than this.”  

You’ve got to listen to that cry. In your heart, the conscience that is in you, because you’re made in the image of God, you’re crying for heaven. You’ve got to lean in to Jesus. It’s not leaning into trying harder first, it’s leaning into the baptism in forgiveness, grace, kindness, and then, in that baptism, saying, “Lord, teach me how to do stuff differently.” 

It all begins with a cry. And I’ve never seen anybody take significant steps who didn’t realize, “I need help.” That’s why in the sermon on the mount Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The kingdom of heaven is there. The first thing that has to happen is, “I need help.”  And if that is in your heart, if you’re here in this place today and there’s something in your heart that’s crying out for more. And something on the inside is saying, “I just need help.” Well, you’re ready to go.  

And I think, Dave, you’re going to do a great job. 

David: Awesome. Will you pray for us as we jump in?

Alan: I’d love to. Father, I pray for Pastor Dave as he launches into this new series. I pray for the power of worship that was unleashed here this morning. I pray that you will fill this space with amazing grace. People need more than ordinary grace. They need more than a chance to try harder … they need you. They need the kingdom of heaven. And this is my prayer: that as Dave unpacks the series, that people in the depths of their hearts will say, “God, I want to come home and I want to learn the song of heaven all over again.”  

And this is my prayer: that this 8 weeks will be transforming for people. There’ll be people who are not here this morning but they’ll be here next week and the week after that, and that this encounter will grow in grace until they’re standing out behind those glass doors, just looking in and saying, “Lord, could I get a seat here next week?” 

Father, let your kingdom come. Let your grace reign. And Lord, just breathe on Dave each week and let him hear your voice, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

God bless you.

David: Thanks, Alan. All right.

How Innocent Are You?

Well, if you will pull out your fancy sermon notes. We’ve got sermon notes this week. It’s not normal for us, but I’ve tried to do a good job of getting ready for this. Our whole team’s been working hard on this. It’s been a group effort, which has been fun.  

So you can fill out some of these sermon notes as we’re going along. Obviously I’m going to give you some kind of easy ones. Right at the top the O stands for Origins, the next one stands for Of and the last one … Innocence. And then your name. See? We’re giving you some easy first steps. 

Then go ahead and fill out that first one. How innocent are you? How innocent are you compared to murders on death row? How innocent are you compared to Mother Teresa? As you do this introspection, as you think about yourself, how good are you doing? How innocent are you compared to the person sitting next to you? You don’t really have to do that one. That one’s just a joke. Unless you’re feeling really angry and you really want to write in real bold so everyone can see it—especially the person you came with today.  

We don’t necessarily feel innocent. We don’t have an easy time writing 9’s and 10’s no matter what in that situation. I was riding on my way in here today with my nephew and I thought I’d try out some of my sermon on him. I asked him these questions. “On a scale of 1 to 10 how innocent are you compared to murderers on death row?” And he said, “Phhhf. 5 or 6.” 

And I said, “Ok. How innocent are you compared to Mother Theresa?” And he said, “Who’s that?” 

I thought, “This is not working at all.”

And I was trying to get across to him the reality that the Scriptures teach us that we have an innocence problem, that the heart is deceitful, desperately wicked, no one can even know it. That all have fallen short of the glory of God. There are no good ones, not even one, the Bible says. There’s this reality to our humanity that it is depraved. It is broken. We have been born the seed of Adam so shame kind of rules us. It’s constantly there. It’s our constant companion. It’s even closer to us than Christ himself when we first get born into this world. It’s what our nature is. It’s what we know.  

And I was trying to give him the full ramifications of this. And he’s like, “No, it’s no big deal. Did you hear that Washington State beat Stanford?” 

I was like, man, I was just drilling home my point here and he’s not getting it. He wasn’t worried about it at all. And that’s some of the innocence. That’s some of what, I think, God is wanting to do in our lives. And basically, his premise of why he could say, “Oh, it’s not that big a deal. It’s going to be okay.” It’s because he said, “I have a lot more years to live. I know I’m not what I will be. I know I’m not perfect, but that’s okay. I’m just me. And I’m going to get better. And I’m going to grow.”

And he’s giving himself time, and space, and patience. He knows that he has this problem, this rebellion, this thing that stirs up in him. But he knows it’s not all he is. He knows that there’s more to him. He knows that there’s this other image in him. Even at this young age, he gets it.  

And for some reason, we don’t anymore. We add up our mistakes. We add up our failures. We figure out what people have done in our lives. We fall short in comparison of what we want to be or who we think we should be. And all of a sudden we write the grade “Failure.” We’ve already failed. We’re already broken. It’s already over. Our time has come and gone.  

And my nephew didn’t feel that way. And the truth of the Scriptures is that God doesn’t feel that way about you at all. He said, “There’s plenty of time. Put your life in my hands and I will be your teacher. I will be the one who makes you into all that you were meant to be.”

Innocent in God's Eyes

In Christ Jesus we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. In Christ Jesus, we, before the foundation of the earth, were chosen by God to be holy and blameless in his sight. Each one of you, no matter what you’ve been through, no matter what your past is, no matter how dirty you are today—God is able to restore you, to bring you to that place where you are not just holy and innocent in the world’s eyes, and their standards (which change every  day), not just in your own eyes, but in God’s eyes. The truest eyes of all.  

And we’re going to continue to dig in to figure out what is causing us to not believe this, to not own this, to not walk in this, to not trust God that he is able to complete the good work that he started in us. And to hang on to him for long enough to where we actually see the change. 

Last week I was looking around the room, and I was watching all these people—and I know so many of your stories. And what that means is I know so many of your junk, because you’ve shared it with me. You’ve come to me and you’ve said, “I’m struggling with this.” Or “This is going on.” And I look around and I think, “Oh, yeah, that person, I know…” 

We were at the Fall Festival and I was just walking around, looking at people, and I was thinking, “This is bizarre, man. I could say stuff about all of these people that would make them be so embarrassed or make other people go like, ‘What’s going on?’”  

Because of my situation. And I didn’t do that, just so you know. I didn’t do that and I won’t ever do that. But it’s so funny because I know where you’ve come from, and I know where you are today. The change has been enormous. The fact that you’re showing up every Sunday and sitting by your wife, and listening to the Scriptures. That’s huge. Because it wasn’t long ago you were feeling like you weren’t even worthy of that—to even be in the midst of the church or come to church. And now you’re here. 

And, yes, you look at all the things you should be, and the call of God on your life, and it starts to make you feel depressed and discouraged. But I’ve seen it and I’m looking at you and it’s like, “Ha! You’re like a real Christian now.” And you might not be able to admit that. You might feel uncomfortable saying that. But I see it. And it’s been so encouraging. So we’re going to just stimulate that and pray for more of that in this situation. 

This next little deal here, Daniel chapter 2, It’s a story where there’s this king. King Nebuchadnezzar is the king of the world, literally. It’s the most dominant empire that the world has ever known. Nebuchadnezzar, total domination of everybody, and he has a dream. In this dream he has a vision of a statue and a little stone that kind of comes down from the mountain and destroys the statue. And the little stone becomes this mighty mountain. 

And one of the things that we’ve been praying for—a lot of prayer has gone into this service already—we’ve been praying for you, we’ve been praying for this whole season—and what we’re hoping to see happen is that Christ, no matter how big or small he is in our lives, or whether he’s non-existent at this point, if we invite him into our lives, what will happen is he will come in like in that picture in Daniel. Christ will be that stone that comes in. And when Christ comes in, no matter how small the seed of faith, no matter how small the invitation, when Christ comes into our lives he immediately starts going after the strongest strongholds, idols, curses, bondage, evil. Whatever it is that is set up in our lives that is strong and is not of God, Christ immediately goes for those things first. And the beautiful thing is, the righteousness of God is always, in every way, more powerful than the unrighteousness of man. 

Whatever generational curses have been kind of built up into our lives that we have inherited; from Adam or even closer to us, whatever sins that we’ve open the door to and they’ve come and got their hooks in us; and though we try in our strength to get away from them, we always keep coming back and bowing down to them (that’s the imagery in the book of Daniel). 

And we’ve got here this stone which is Christ, this muscle man image which is basically idols or the idols’ lies in our lives. And we’ve got a little list there and you can write in whatever you want, whether it be pornography, envy, anger, bitterness, whatever is, these unwanted things in our lives that are driven by this stronghold that is in us. We’re hoping to see Christ come in and topple them. You see that right there? That little stick figure is getting toppled there. 

But the beautiful image in this thing is that stone that was so small that comes and topples these might strongholds in our lives, it says it grew until it filled the whole earth. And this is the truth. This is the promise. As Alan was saying, God is going to win. The kingdom of heaven is going to conquer everything else. But the same is true in our lives. There is a battle going on inside our souls. For those who haven’t invited Christ in, all you have are these strongholds, these idols.  

For those of you who have invited Christ in, the battle is on. The stone is rolling toward those things. Once one of those idols is taken down, guess what? You realize there’s another one.  And another one. And another one. And another one. And God is beginning to do this work. He’s trampling these things in our lives. And every time an idol gets trampled it gets replaced by more of the kingdom of heaven, by more of Christ.  

Take a Step

And the beautiful thing is that Christ in you is a living, breathing, growing thing. And every time you surrender one of those things to the Lord, every time you allow Christ to do the work and a stronghold is removed, what happens is more of him grows in your life. That’s the process. It’s not Jesus saying, “Hey, I want you to go take on those strongholds, and once you do, then I’ll come in.”

That’s what all of us think all of the time, but that’s not the truth at all. Jesus says, “Invite me in and I’ll do the work. And you just have to hang on for the ride.” And it’s hard to hang on. Those of us who have been through the process know. It’s hard to hang on for the ride. When Jesus says, “I want you to go ahead and tell your wife about it.” “I want you to tell your husband about it.” “I want you to tell your kids about it.” “I want you to tell your boss what’s been going on.” 

And all he’s saying is, “You take the step and I’ll do the rest.” And that’s how it works. You hang on for the ride. But he’s the one who leads the way, leads the charge, and actually does the work. If you’ll go through the process, you’ll see the kingdom of heaven. Righteousness, peace and joy will begin to grow in your life and flow through your life. So that’s a little work you can do there.

The Conflict Within

Romans 7. We’re going to start in verse 15. Paul is writing here. He’s not a new believer, but he’s a seasoned believer. He’s writing to the Romans and he’s saying to them:

 Romans 7:5 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 

[So I’ve learned through this process of introspection that there’s this law at work in me…]

21 … Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 

So Paul is writing this as a seasoned apostle, a seasoned disciple, a seasoned Christian, who’s already had the work of God move in his life. And what he’s saying to the people in Rome that he’s writing to is “You’re going to be able to relate to me in this one situation.” 

He said,  “I have this thing within me that is constantly at war and often more powerful than the part of me that wants to do good. I want to do God’s law. I want to do the right things. I want to do what God is asking me to do, but I find that every time I start down that path, every time I try to go that direction, there’s something else inside me that raises up, raises it’s voice, pulls and wars against me.” 

And what Paul the Apostle is saying is, “And oftentimes I end up going its direction, even though I have Christ, even though I’m doing this work.” And he’s saying, “It’s a very frustrating situation, it’s a very aggravating conflict situation inside of me.” And I think all of us can attest to that same reality. My nephew could. 

God's Plan

But our conclusion, the next thing that we come to: Because of that, does that mean we are worthless? Does that mean we are unloved? Does that mean there is no hope? Well, this is what the next verse says: 

Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! 

Yeah. That’s a simple statement. And there is so much truth in it. And the ones who are “whoo-ing” and clapping and all of that, it’s because they’ve experienced that happening in their life. But I get it. If you’re not one of those people, you’re saying, “Oh great. So we just magically say these words and then ‘hocus pocus’-bam-, it happens No. Let’s keep reading: 

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

 [So Christ paid the price for all of our sin. But there’s more:] 

5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

Now check this out. Please understand this. God’s plan to deal with your sinful nature, and my sinful nature—first of all is to acknowledge the reality of it. Acknowledge the pain and frustration. Admit to it. Be honest with it, that there is a part of me that is sinful and wrong. And God’s plan is not to come and give you just enough strength to kind of “will power” your way through life. God’s plan to deal with your sinful nature is not just to feel bad and just kind of receive forgiveness over and over again until finally you die.

God’s plan to deal with your sinful nature is not “You get it all cleaned up and figured out and then we can be righteous and walk together.”

God’s plan for dealing with your sinful nature is to live inside you. And this is where Christianity gets bizarre. No doubt about it. It sounds crazy—unless it’s true. The earth is round. Sounds crazy—unless it’s true.

We have little dust mites that live on our skin and on our everything all the time. If you see them under a microscope, they’re like a disgusting, living thing. Sounds crazy—unless it’s true. 

God’s plan to deal with your sinful nature definitely was the cross; so that there is no penalty, there is no consequence for your sin anymore. Christ took that for you. But then, from now until you go to be with him and your sinful nature is removed forevermore, God’s plan is to come and live inside of you. It’s not to be ashamed of you. It’s not to stay back from you. It’s not to just kind of throw something your way every once in a while to keep you going. It’s to come and live inside of you. For you to basically be impregnated with Christ—his full, living presence to fight with you, and to fight alongside you, and to be your strength, and to be your guide. That is God’s plan.

Basically, it’s kind of summed up like this, as we close this down. This is that last thing on there. We were born in innocence. We were created in innocence. God created us with good intentions. We’re going to talk more about it next week. But that’s where humanity began. And then there was this fall—Adam’s fall. Adam’s sin. Adam’s rebellion. All of us have done the same thing in our life. And we fell into this situation of shame. Shame is the way that we are born. Shame is what we know best. Shame is the shadow that covers our lives. It’s our sinful nature. 

But I want you to know something. I want you to write this over and over again, because innocence never stopped being God’s plan for us. Innocence wasn’t something God created and then it was just gone and Adam’s sin was so powerful that it undid the work of God. God’s plan for us to live and experience goodness and innocence never stopped. It never ended. It’s still alive and well. 

Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. He lived in a bold, innocent friendship with God.

Moses stood at the bottom of this mountain that was on fire, Mt. Sinai. And he said to all the people, “Hey, God wants us to come up and be with him in his presence.” And you know what all the people said to Moses? “Why don’t you go? I don’t know. I kicked my kid the other day. I did something bad the other day. I don’t know if I want to go up there.” They were afraid. Shame was keeping them from the presence of God. Yet Moses, who we know was a bad man, he murdered someone, and somehow believed God enough to know he could stand innocent in the presence of God and he walked up that mountain. And in Exodus 34—I can’t talk about that yet, it’s coming. He got to experience God in a neat way. Face to face as a friend speaks to one another.

That’s God’s plan for you. That’s not God’s plan for the pastor. That’s not God’s plan for the Australians—I mean, it is, but not just them. That’s God’s plan for you no matter how un-innocent or shameful you know you really are. You've got to let that gospel in. You’ve got to let that good news in. Right now you’ve put up walls to keep things from going to those places. You’ll talk about a lot of things, but you won’t talk about your shame. You’ll add a lot of things to your life, but you won’t let anyone or anything at all really know the truth. And as long as you keep those walls up, you’re going to be missing what God wants to do in your life. You’ve got to let him in. He wants to go right to the dirtiest, nastiest, most shameful point in your life and begin to work there, and to bring his grace and his kindness and his love.

This is the Cross

To finish this up: This is the cross. This is the people like Abraham and Moses who believed God would do something, that believed God and it was counted as righteousness. This is us New Testament saints who believe God and the work that Jesus did. And there is coming a day, no doubt, that will talk about at the end of the series, where God is going to do away with shame and the sinful nature evermore. 

But for now, this is our situation. This is what Romans 7 and 8 are describing. This is what you and I are living every day. But innocence before God is part of what God has for you. And he wants to come in and meet with you in those painful, dark places.

And all I want to say to you today is:  

1. The step I’m asking you to take today is to acknowledge this reality: that God sees you in your dichotomy. He sees you in your sinful nature, your sinful state, and he doesn’t condemn you. But he asks, “Can I come and join you there? Can I come be with you there? Can I come show you the way out of there? Can I come be the strength and the healing that you need?”
   So I want to acknowledge that reality. And:

2. This one’s hard. Be honest with somebody. The most punishing thing is secret sin. This week your assignment is to be honest with somebody about the secret. It’s the first step. You can be honest with God. Yeah. It’s awesome to be honest with God. Do that. Go home and get by yourself with the Lord and say, “God, this is it. You know it is and I know it is. I’m saying it to you.” But the next step is  to say, “OK, Lord, who should I tell? Who should I tell?” Me? That’s fine. Sometimes maybe you need to tell a friend before you really tell that person who you know it’s going to devastate, so they can be praying and kind of go with you. I’m asking you to take this step. 

We’re going to go through this thing, but if you guys don’t participate, if we don’t actually do the things the Lord’s asking us to do, we’re going to get to the end and we’re all going to be like, “Hey, cool, we got another bandaid. Isn’t that nice? You want to see it? It’s got a super hero on it.” We’re trying to get rid of the bandaid. We’re going to really try and let the Lord do surgery.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, we thank you so much for your love and your grace. We thank you for your Scriptures, because it would be really hard to believe this stuff if we didn’t have a trustworthy accounting of it. And Lord, I thank you for people like Alan and the others who can testify to this. I thank you for the stories in our lives where it really is true that you come in and topple things with your grace and your presence.

And Lord, we invite you to have your way among us right now. I thank you that this church is not full of people who just want a quick cleansing, a quick wash, but they want to be healed. They want to be whole. And so we trust in you, our Shepherd, our Rabbi, our God, our Savior, our King, the Lover of our souls. We trust you. We pray that you would have your way among us.  

Lord, I pray that walls would come down around our hearts. I pray that the frozen hearts would be warmed by your goodness. That the ears that have been closed up would be opened right now by the power of your Spirit to hear your voice. And I pray er those who have been blinded to you and your reality. Right now I pray that they would have flickers of images, even in their closed eyes, they would have dreams like Nebuchadnezzar, they would begin to be flooded with the imagery that you want them to see, and that it would cause them to receive their sight. To see you and see themselves in truth. Thank you, Lord.