God's Way - First Things First: Part 2

God’s Way - First Things First: Part 2 - How God Gives First

Genesis 15, Genesis 22, John 3:14–21

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, good morning, everybody. Excited that you are here with us today, and we're going to be continuing in our God's Way First Things First series. We will be in Genesis here in a moment, but I wanted to give a quick recap of where we were and how we wrapped things up last week. If you were with us, we began to walk through this idea that there is a lie that has been told to us since the beginning of time, which began in the garden with Adam and Eve. That lie came from the serpent, or who we know as Satan. He came to Adam and Eve and said, "Did God really say that you can't eat of that one tree in the garden? Did he really say that? Like, why would God allow that to happen? To create something in the garden, a poisonous fruit, which is probably what we know is reserved for Disney movies, right? Like, why would God create a poisonous fruit in the garden?" He says, "Actually, what you don't know is that God doesn't want you to have the knowledge. He doesn't want you to have the knowledge that he has. He, God, is holding out on you. He's withholding his everything from you. And so in return, we have to figure it out on our own. We have to take control. We have to be the ones that call the shots because God isn't gonna give us enough." And this lie has perpetuated and passed itself down year after year after year until even today: that you can't have God's blessing because he's not going to give it to you. He is going to hold out on you.

And we began to walk through what it means that God desires the absolute best for our lives. He wants the absolute best for us. But there are areas in our life and in our heart where there still is darkness. Until God's light shines in those dark places, we will continue to have bondage in those things. So the only way for us to begin to stop believing that lie is to trust in God, because he is the perfect designer. He's designed everything in our world. You want to know how he's designed marriage? Read the Bible. You want to know how he's designed relationships and families? Read the Bible. You want to know how he has designed sex? Read the Bible. If you want to know how he has designed community, church, life, and relationships, read the Bible. If you want to know how he has designed finances, open up God's word. Because he is the perfect designer, and he has a design for us.

And like I joked kind of last week, I talked about how our cars are designed to run in a certain way. The price of gas lately is out of control, and it would be easier for me to find an alternative liquid to put into my car. For me, I would say that would be water, right? My spigot's right next to where I parked my car. I could just fill it up, top it off, and I'm on my way. But that would cause catastrophic damage to my car. It wouldn't run anymore. It wouldn't work. And God has a plan. He has a design. And yet we go, "Oh, God, okay, I know you have your plan, but you know what? I know best. I know how this works. You can keep your instructions. That's fine." And yet we struggle in our lives, our marriages, our world, and our finances. And we go, "God, why are you letting this happen?" And God's like, "I had a design for you guys." But we take control because we don't think that we're going to have enough.

So we talked about these maps, these zones of where we are with our trust on the spectrum with our finances with God. The first zone is kind of the beginning line of where we've never given to the church. The finances are ours. I direct them. I choose where they go. You've never given to the church. Maybe you've given once. Maybe it was through something like last Christmas. We had Operation Christmas Child where we gathered things. Maybe you donated some toys or some socks or maybe something to that. And that's amazing. But the next step that God wants us to take is consistency in giving. Maybe for you, that looks like starting with about twenty bucks a month, fifty bucks a month, whatever you're at. But you're beginning to have a faithful, regular giving system where we see God is in the systems, that you would have that flowing in a system. And then maybe from there, you would step up to a proportional commitment. You give a percentage. You begin to look at everything that God has blessed you with: your income, your retirement, your investments, everything that comes in as income. And you begin to say, "Hey, I'm going to give a portion of this, maybe one percent, two percent, three percent." And that's where I'm going to start, having a proportional giving of what God has blessed me with.

And then I said from there, the Bible talks about biblical stewardship, discipleship, is a tithe. And what does a tithe mean? Well, tithe is the word tenth. And you could be like, "Holy buckets, Chris. You're talking about ten percent of everything that comes in?" Yeah, that's what the Bible says. But that's it, right, Chris? There's nothing more that God's asking. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. We kind of want to land there and be like, "Okay, good. I'm good, God. I did. I'm fine. I'm set." But God goes, "No, no, no, no. I have a level five that is extravagant generosity. That is a biblical ten percent tithe and beyond. Giving to things like local para-church organizations, maybe like a Christian pregnancy center or gathering in a local nonprofit that works with the homeless. Or maybe it's a situation where you are a recipient of this, and the fact that you're sitting in a facility that was only possible with people who had extravagant generosity. Before this building, there was not a home per se for Spring Valley Church. There were leased buildings. It began set up and tear down in elementary school back in 1999. And then God opened up different doors and then eventually this one here where we can call this place our home, ours, twenty-four seven. And because of that, we have things like youth group that happens on Monday nights. We have things like people being able to come and worship God during the week. Men's and women's Bible studies, children's ministries, Camp Awesome, that we would have a space to call our own to even be able to do something like that for days. Like this is amazing. And you are sitting in a place; you are a recipient of that extravagant generosity."

But this lie that Satan began and gave in Genesis 3 really begins to influence everything that we are. It influences our finances. It influences our time, our resources, our life planning. And Jesus spent, I talked about this last week, one-third of his time talking about money, possessions, and finances. That's a pretty big deal. And I began to really wrestle with that. I'm like, "Jesus, why did you spend that? I mean, I thought you were all about love and grace and forgiveness." He is. But he also knew that at the forefront of that was where our hearts were. And there was a rich man who came to him that said, "Hey, Jesus, how do I inherit heaven?" And Jesus says, "You have to obey the law, honor your mother and father, love others better than yourself, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your strength, everything that you are." And he goes, "I've done all that." And Jesus goes, "Sweet, you're getting into heaven." No. He says, "Sell everything you have and give it away." Why? Because Jesus knew that that rich man had made finances and money his idol. He had replaced God. Yes, he had checked the boxes, but he had replaced God in his heart with his money.

Jesus says in Matthew chapter six, "Don't worry about food or clothing. Take a look at the birds of the field. Take a look at the flowers, the lilies. Do I not care for them? Do I not feed them? Do I not clothe them in glorious splendor? Will not your heavenly Father do the same for you?" Don't believe the lie. And this ties us into our spiritual readiness regarding money and finances. Our financial decisions reveal our ultimate allegiance. Is it trust in God or trust in ourselves? And it's not about the amount. I don't want us to get caught up in that. Well, okay, Chris, what do I need to write my check every week? How much cash do I need to bring to every church on Sunday and put in the drop box? It's not about that. It's about a posture of our heart. And Jesus spoke on these things because he knew for us it was going to be something that we were going to have to wrestle with. That it was going to be a tough thing to trust God over trusting ourselves. It's a spiritual issue.

And we closed last week and I gave you a challenge. I said, "Go have the conversation." First, go have the conversation with God. Where are you at financially? Go talk to God about it. And then if you have a spouse or you have a family, go talk to them about it as well. This is a family unit thing that you all are on the same page biblically when it comes to financial discipleship. If you forgot, fear not. You got a whole nother week. But if you did have a conversation, I'm proud of you. That's awesome. But don't skip it. Don't just say, "Oh, don't worry about it." No one just stumbles into financial discipleship, just as you don't stumble into a six-pack. I'm not talking beer here, okay? I'm talking our fitness. No one stumbles into being physically fit, right? It takes intention. It takes planning. It takes discipline. But we don't like those things. They're uncomfortable, right? Last time I checked, I don't think God called us to a comfortable life. I think he called us to an obedient life.

And so today's objective, I want us to shift from identifying the lie to understanding God's actual pattern of giving. Generosity is who God is. It's his core character. And when we have that, there's an abundance that follows steps of faith. So what does it mean for us to act the way that God acts? Well, this is where we're going to be. Genesis chapter 15, starting in verse 1. We're going to have it on the screens if you want to flip there with a Bible or open it up on your phone. It says this in verse 1 in chapter 15: "Sometime later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you." Now, maybe you might be thinking, "Hey, Chris, I thought the dude's name was Abraham." That's going to come later. We're going to talk about that in a moment. But right here, God is saying to Abraham, who is going to protect him? Is it gonna be by his own strength? Is it gonna be by his own might? Is it gonna be by his own children that Abraham is gonna be protected? No, God says, "I will protect you. Do not be afraid, Abram." This is God's character. He is protector. He is provider. He is promise keeper. And Abram's expected response was to depend on God, not his own strength, not his own control, not his own choices, not even his own children. Because the reality is he has no children.

So where's the lie? Continue on in that. He said, "But Abraham replied, O sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don't even have a son? Since you've given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant of my household, will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir." Where is the lie? God, you're holding out on me. You have not given me a son, an heir to everything that you have blessed me with. And he admits he has been blessed. But there is no son to pass it along. Abraham has wealth. He admits it. He has wealth. But he cares also where it goes. And it's going to go to someone who isn't his flesh and blood. Some person who is just a part of his crew that is just going to receive it, and there is going to be no legacy.

I think there's a modern parallel to Abram's fear, maybe in our lives, that fear has this incredible grip on us. We have this financial anxiety. If you're, I have a fear, will I ever be able to retire? I joke about, and my wife, we make this joke, that we are too young to have lived through the housing boom and we are too old to have been an online social media influencer. We are in this gap of living through many crises in life: 9-11, financial crisis, pandemics, inflation, wars, bloodshed around the globe. And there's an anxiety that we don't know if there's going to be enough. There is uncertainty. There's debt. There's less than ideal income. And this even goes into our parenting that sometimes we think, "God, you gave me what?" I remember that first time holding Adelyn, my daughter who's almost 12, going, "Lord, I don't know what I'm doing. And I not only have to be responsible for my own life, but my wife, which I committed to years ago, and now this tiny little human that can't do anything on their own to survive. Lord Jesus, help me." I remember praying that prayer, holding her, going, "I don't know what I'm gonna do, God."

And some for us, this rolls into how our children become our idols in our life. We become taxi drivers for our children to make sure they're at this sport, at this camp, doing this thing, over here at this thing. Why? Because we just want the very best for them. And I think it comes from a really good place. But when we look at what might be our idols, take a look at where we spend our money and how much we spend our time. It's only in America does it feel like there's this rat race for our children. Well, you know what? I didn't make it in the NBA, but my kid is going to. And I'm going to make sure that they get there if that kills me. Newsflash, it's going to kill you. We have deified our children in our life. Are they a blessing from God? Absolutely. But they shouldn't control everything that we are.

See, the problem is when we live and believe this lie, fear crowds out our faith. Fear replaces our faith. And when we go to count and we don't see, instead of trusting what God can do. Abram, God, you're not doing a good job. I don't have a son. I don't have an heir. And God in his grace just goes, "Oh, small little man, you know nothing. You don't understand what I am doing." He moves on in verse 4. Then the Lord said to him, "No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir." Then the Lord took Abram outside and said, "Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can, buddy. That's how many descendants you will have." God here directly refutes the lie. Your servant will not be your heir. You will have a son.

And I think there's some imagery here that God is speaking to him inside and then takes him outside. Sometimes we need to get outside of our little world. We're stuck in this inside little bubble thinking God can't do that. He's not enough. It's not gonna make it. We're not gonna last. We're not gonna survive. God is calling us to step outside of that. And he takes Abram outside and says, "Look at the stars, dude." One of my favorite things when we go up to South Lake Tahoe at night is to go out and look at the stars. Like if you guys have never done that, gotten away from the city and been outside in like really darkness, but to be able to just look up into the sky, like holy buckets. There are so many stars. And I'm reminded when I look up that, I was like, I can only imagine at that place in that time in the world with like no light pollution, what would have the night looked like for Abram? And God goes, "Count him. I double dog dare you. Don't lose track. You can't count him." Because fear says you will not have enough. But God says to Abram, "My promise is you will have everything." We have to replace our limited human perspective with the unlimited divine promise from God. And we have to shift our perspective to God, knowing the full truth of everything that he is. To the point that you will not believe your own eyes. And it will remove your fear because it will come to a point where you can't even count the blessings that God is bestowing upon you.

It won't always look like money, guys. That's what I'm not saying. I'm not saying you start tithing and then your money will be perfect. You'll start reordering your heart in the way that God wants you to, but God will provide in many different ways to bless you in things that you can never dream, ask, or imagine. For Abram right now, counting zero was easy, right? That was his tunnel vision: zero. How many kids? Zero. But God is saying, "Look at the stars. That's how many descendants you're going to have." And this is one of the greatest verses in the Bible. I absolutely love it. In verse six it said, "Abram believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness because of his faith." The lie is God is holding back that you have to do it your way. You have to control it. You have to make sure that you have your plan and your system. But the truth is that God says, "Do it my way and all of my abundance is yours. Everything that I have, I want to bless you with." See, the key principle here is abundance follows faith. Our way triggers scarcity and anxiety, but God's way unlocks overflow.

Abraham had a change of heart in his mind and his action in that moment. And it wasn't just lip service. It wasn't like, "Okay, yeah, God, sure, I hear you. Stars equal descendants and there's a lot of them. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Cool. Thanks, dude." But there was a promise that God was going to come through. So do we believe the lie that Satan has been telling us forever, or do we believe that God, when it comes to money, says "you will have what you need, put me first, everything else will be taken care of"? Because this is ultimately the financial question before us, right? Are you trusting yourself? Like the lie, like Adam and Eve, like Abram before God came into his life? Are you trusting God? And what's awesome here is after this moment, God has a ceremonial covenant moment with Abram, and he actually changes his name. The name of God, if you don't know in Scripture, is Yahweh. And I know there's a whole lot more to it if you know Hebrew. I don't know Hebrew, so you can ask Pastor Andre. He's very skilled and knowledgeable in that. But the word Yahweh literally has within its core this idea of God's breath. And I heard it said this way once, and it changed my perspective. It's literally like Yahweh. It's literally the breath of God inside of us that sustains us. That is who God is. And God goes through this ceremonial covenant with Abram and says, "From now on, your name is going to be Abraham." Abraham. God literally puts his name in the middle of Abram's name. How cool is that? So that every time that somebody would call Abraham's name, they were saying the name of God. And Abram was reminded of that covenant that he has with God.

And so we come to chapter 22 and it says this. It says, "Sometime later, God tested Abraham's faith. Abraham, God called. Yes, he replied, here I am. Take your son, your one and only son, Isaac." So God fulfills his promise, right? We read that shortly after that covenant God says, "Hey, I'm gonna come back around a little bit and you are going to have a son." And Abraham and Sarah go, "What?" Because by this time they were old. I'm not gonna say a number because then that might offend some of you in the room, okay? But there comes a point in life where men and women just do not naturally conceive anymore. Okay. And Abraham and Isaac had, or Abraham and Sarah had tried time and time and time and time and time and time again to have a son, to have a child, and it didn't happen. And they just gave up on that hope. And then God comes along and tells them, and he's like, "What?" And it's interesting because Sarah laughs so loud that God, having a conversation with Abraham, goes, "Did your wife just laugh at me?" And Sarah goes, "No, no, no, I didn't." Okay, now, first off, if you didn't know, you can't lie to God, okay? He knows everything, all right? But Sarah doubles down on this going, "I know my life, I know my body, I know biology, the basics of it. That doesn't happen when I'm my age." But you're talking to God, the God who promised an heir. But Sarah just digs down and fights and says, "No, I know better. I know best." Isn't it awesome when you get to have a conversation with someone who thinks they know better and they know best? Isn't that just the most fun? No, it's miserable. They sit there, they dig down. "This is my side of the story. This is the truth. This is what is right. This is what is true." And they fight from their perspective.

We're going to touch on that a little bit. But God says there's going to be a son. And God says it's not going to come through your concubine. It's not going to come through your messed up plans that you've screwed up to try to create. Now you've got Ishmael around. But it's going to come through my promise, my design, my way, not yours. And so Abraham and Sarah have a son. And they call him Isaac. And so here in verse 22, he says, "Take your son, your only son. Yes, Isaac, the one that you love so much and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you." Do you ever read a Bible verse and go, "I just don't like that?" Like this is one of those Bible verses where I'm like, "I don't like this. I don't like this concept. I don't like this test. I don't like anything about it." And I go, "God is, man, like, we have the understanding of the other side of this, but Abraham didn't." And I'm thinking, "God, sometimes in life, I'm like, God, is there any way you could teach me a lesson and just make it easier? Like, why does it have to be so hard sometimes?" But God here is saying, "Hey, I need to know if you trust me." You've said you trust me. You've had probably some small actions that show that you trust God. But God goes, "I need to know because I think deep down in here we get caught in this as well that we begin to idolize the blessing that we receive from God rather than the one who provided the blessing." And God here is saying, "Abraham, I've given you the blessing of the one son that you deeply desired, the son who you love with everything that you are. Do you trust me with this? And do you love me more than Isaac?"

And there's this nature of just spiritual testing, and it's almost comical. That at the moment that we have a commitment to God, it is always followed by testing. So the question, and you may have experienced this last week, I asked you to have the conversation. Did you avoid it or did you have the conversation? If you did have the conversation, either something happened to you last week or something's going to happen this week. Because here's what happens. It is so incredibly regular that God tests us to verify our obedience. Not to trip us up or to mess with us or to say, "Ha, ha, ha, you little idiot, like you messed up again." Like, no, no, no. But God tests us to want to know, do we truly believe what we say we're going to do? I had this happen a few weeks ago, preparing this sermon series. And I was doing some errands around here. I was driving around and all of a sudden, my engine kind of running a little rough. And I'm like, "That's weird. I'm like, it won't happen again. Keep driving." It happens again. I'm like, "Okay, that's, wow, what? Something's not right here." And all of a sudden it goes and goes. And I get to the point, the check engine light is not only on, it is flashing at me. So I'm like, "Oh no." I'm trying to come up Sunset over here past Rocklin Event Center. You know that's a big hill. My car is revving, shaking, making the most Lord awful sound I've ever heard in my life. And I'm like twenty miles an hour. People are honking at me. They're flying around me like, "What's this idiot doing?" And I'm like, "Lord Jesus, just get me to the church, please, Lord." And I limp it up the hill and I coast down a little bit and I sit in the light. I'm like, "Lord, the church is right there. Just please." And I'm like, "This is it. This is my car's toast. It's done. It's over. The engine's shot. The transmission is destroyed." I'm like, "God, we don't have the money for a new car. We don't have money for a car payment. This car is paid off. Lord, do you know how amazing that is?" God, no. Limp it into the parking lot, back it in, sit in front of the church, and I pop the hood, and I'm just like, "God, I don't know." And I'm like, "God, I trust you. You have a plan. You have a purpose. We're doing everything we can to live within your design financially. And we're not coming up a short, but I'm staring down something that looks like I'm going to be coming up short."

So I call my dad. "Hey, dad, stuck at church. What are you doing?" I'm like, "Hey, can you get me this tool and this tool and this tool?" This is what happened. He's like, "Okay, I'm on my way." So he comes up. I'm looking at the... I can't do anything. I don't have the connection to do the check engine. Like he brings that up. We check the engine and the most glorious peace, love, grace of God comes over me and it says an engine misfire. And for those of you who were just like that went straight over your head, that is a blessing because it could have said engine default, exploded, it's over, good luck, see you later, goodbye, transmission no worky. And so we're like, "Okay, misfire means something's wrong with the spark." We're like, spark plugs. And I start looking around. Every auto parts store in this place is shut down except for the one that is right over here. I cruise in. I grab the spark plugs. We come back. Dad helps me. We swap everything out. It was amazing. Just a little cover that comes off. Like that doesn't happen when you work on a car. Like just one cover. Replace the spark plugs. Get back in the car. Jesus, start it up, and it starts. It's not shaking. Like, okay, that anxiety-riddled lap around the block. You guys have been there if you've worked on a car. You're like, "All right. So you go around the block. You keep it simple. Keep it chill. Everything's good. You're like, all right, let's get that speed up. Let's get those RPMs." And I take it up the hill, cruising, flip a U-turn, come back, cruising, pull in the parking lot, and I go, "Thank you, Jesus." What I thought was going to have to be a brand new car, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars, $59.95, four spark plugs. Yes. And I remember driving home, I was still anxious, but I was just like, "Lord, you are so good. You are so good."

But when we step into this truth of God, he's going to test us because he wants to know whether our obedience is faith that's just a verbal one or is a visceral one that is down to our gut. So Abraham puts the wood on the back of his son, grabs his fire starter thing, whatever, flint, whatever they used, and they start on a trek. And Isaac turns to Abraham, his dad, and says, "Hey, Dad, where's the sacrifice?" Because this wasn't the first time Isaac had done this. He had gone with his dad before to offer this worship to God. And he knew that there needed to be something that was going to have to be killed and sacrificed to cover the sin. And I cannot imagine, as a dad, to have to turn to my son and to say, "God's going to provide, bud. God's going to provide. I don't know." And so he gets to the place. They build the altar. He puts the wood on. And he bounds his own one and only son and puts him on the wood and he raises his hand and God stops him and says, "Now I know." That even says in Hebrews chapter 11, the faith chapter, it talks about that Abraham had such faith that even if he would have gone through with killing his son, he had such faith that he believed God would raise him back to life. Because he embodied the covenant and the promise. And God provides an animal, a ram that's stuck in a bush right there. It's the only way God can, right? And they have a sacrifice. And there might've been silent treatment from Isaac to dad for a few weeks. But the faith that Isaac now had watching his dad trust God in a way that I pray that we never have to be tested in was amazing.

This parallels a story from the New Testament. If you guys have read your Bible and seen the whole story, but it says this in John 3. "As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. For this is how God loved the world. He gave his one only Son so that everyone who believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son to the world not to judge the world but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him, but anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only son. And the judgment is based on this fact. God's light came into the world, but people love the darkness more than the light for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed." He's talking about this, shining light, all areas of our life. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see what they're doing, what God wants. You might have heard this scripture before, maybe a different translation, maybe you memorized it. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him believes what?" Well, believes the same thing that Adam, Abraham did with Isaac. God the Father did with his one and only son, except God finished the job. Christ died on the cross for you and for me so that we could be reconciled. That's a big fancy term that means we are fixed in our sins, that they would not be counted against us, but they would be counted against his one and only son because God's son was given for you so that you could come into the light and be in right relationship with God. And God wanted to know that Abraham was in right relationship with him.

See, God gave you his first and best, not his leftovers, not his second choices, not what was just kind of there at the end of the month, but God gave completely, fully, freely, holding absolutely nothing back with no conditions to his love. And not only that, he actually adopted us into his family and calls us his own. Do you guys believe that? I've preached this stuff for a long time and I still don't get it or understand everything that God is doing. But it's a call to discipleship. We are invited in to act like God, love like God, live like God, and give like God. Fear shows that we're holding back. Faith shows that we are trusting. God's generosity is the blueprint for our obedience. The conversation I want you to have this week now is are we willing to move forward in actually putting our faith in God with our finances? I didn't ask of anything last week. I'm not asking of anything. We're not signing on a line. You're not committing to anything right now. I'm just asking, are you willing to move forward in your biblical financial discipleship with Jesus? And it just starts with a conversation. Another conversation of God. What do you want us to do? What would it look like for us to give in the way that you have given to us, God? God holds nothing back. God has never held anything back. But I know at times, I'll be the first to admit, I have. I've held back. I've had fear overcome my decisions. Because trusting God with our everything, including our finances, is actually our full and ultimate act of worship. Giving is our worship.

We're going to talk about this more in the next few weeks, but how do we worship God? Do we worship God with our hands, with our heart, with our actions? Is it our entire life, including our finances? And are we putting our life in a way that would be correct and proper to the way that God has, as the ultimate designer, designed our lives to be? We're addressing some things here at church of how can we remove barriers? How can we invite people into practicing regular biblical financial stewardship? Maybe that's stuff that we need to do as a church. We stopped passing the plate during COVID because we didn't want to share COVID, right? Maybe we need to bring that back so we can worship together as a body. I don't know. We're still wrestling with some of these things. Maybe we need to change the way that we have our drop box in the back and the way that we have our online setup or the way that we send out our statements of those who financially give on the regular. This is a theology of giving that we need to have for our lives. And obedience flows from trust. I want you to get this right. There is no guilt. There is no shame. There is no manipulation. It is just an invitation into what God has called us to do. And I will admit, I need to ask for forgiveness from you guys. I haven't talked about this as well as I should have. And so I'm sorry. I haven't led you well in this area. Out of fear. I was afraid everybody was going to leave. I start talking about money. You guys all showed back up this week. I won't tell you we have two more weeks of this, so I'm just kidding.

But we're at a crossroads here. Is God going to be the first in our spiritual life? Is he going to be the first in our financial life? Are we going to trust him the way that he has designed things? Are we going to stop believing the lie? Because reality is free will still remains, guys. You don't have to do this. You don't. But I think, and the way that I have found, is that living in this, on the other side of it, there's no other way to experience this without just fully going in on it. That on the other side of it, there is just this place of, oh. The Bible talks about a peace that passes all understanding. I'm telling you, we've tithed for a long time, and the numbers never matched. I would do the math over and over. I'm a math guy. It didn't make sense. But God asked for faithfulness. I said, "Okay." And we've never gone without. Things have been tight. We've had to say no to things. We've had to make sure that we budget in a certain way so that we have that ability to put God and him first in everything that we are. And I know some of you I've had those stories with you of how you fought it and fought it and fought it and fought it and you just said fine and you did it and you're like, "Oh my goodness, what? Why didn't I do this sooner?" Because there's just something on the other side of obedience that just opens up our world and no other way can you attain that without that trust. I encourage you step in faith, step in trust, trust the one who is the blesser. God, don't get so wrapped up in the blessing but trust God. Have a posture of faith and of prayer and of life realignment because we might need to reorder our life around God to make this happen. And it's not going to be easy, but I'll tell you it is so worth it on the other side. And I think Abraham, if he was here today, would agree.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you, Lord. We thank you for your gift and for your sacrifice. God, we thank you for your first generosity. God, we thank you for how you first gave your one and only son, that we would even have the opportunity to be here in this place, to have new life. Jesus, I pray for courage as we have these conversations with our family and with you, God, that we would ask that you would open our hearts to what you desire for us, God. More spiritual depth, more maturity. God, shining that light in all those dark places that we wanna control and hide from you, but God, you already know those places. So God, I pray, I ask for forgiveness for maybe our fear-driven decisions that we've made in the past and are focusing on our self-reliance. God, give us strength for small faith. This isn't something that we just wake up tomorrow and go, "I'm tithing and I'm being extremely generous." But it's a journey. It's a process. God, I even pray for you inviting testing. God, you desire the best for our lives and that might take us being tested a little bit. God, we thank you for what you're doing in our lives, in our giving and our tithing as worship. And God, I pray that our life would be a life of praise and declaring to you and to the world and everybody around us that you are the number one thing in our life, Jesus. God, may it be so. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen.

God's Way - First Things First: Part 1

God’s Way - First Things First: Part 1 - Shining Light On The Hidden

Matthew 6:19–24; Genesis 3:1–6; Matthew 19:16–22

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

So I'm excited to be back and jumping into a new series with us today called God's Way. This series kind of came out of a little bit of research I had been doing, some studying of the Word, and after kind of working through our tough questions. And if you guys remember, I kicked off our tough questions series, and I said, "If you want your church to be happy, to like you as a pastor, and to come back every single week, don't talk about certain topics. Do you remember? Hell, money, or politics." Good news for you, I have already covered hell. So you can go back and watch that sermon. And we're going to hold off on politics. We might jump into it later. So just forewarning, that might be coming. But here's the bad news: we're going to be talking about money.

And I felt like in this series that this was something that was very important to cover. And I know everybody, you already have the thoughts, right? They're already flowing through your mind. You're like, "I haven't been to church in months, and this is the Sunday I show up, God. Are you kidding me?" So just keep an open mind, okay? Keep an open mind to what God has to teach all of us, including myself today. And in this, we have a core theological principle about our belief and our walk with Jesus. And we know this to be true: until God's light shines into the dark corners of all of our lives, those dark corners continue to stay in bondage. And it is only when we allow God to shine into all of our lives that we find perfect, true, whole freedom.

This is only possible when we begin to identify areas in our lives where we are misaligned with God's will. I will be honest: these topics are 100% uncomfortable, and I might step on some toes. You may not like what you hear in this series, and that's fine. What I want to do is articulate to you Scripture and God's Word for our life. I always thought it was uber cheesy when people do this with acronyms and stuff, but I've heard it said that the Bible is our Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. And it is so true that the Bible gives truth to our right-now lives. Not old Bible-timey lives. Not before-Jesus Bible, old-school, Israelite, lost-in-the-desert lives. But our personal, right-now, end-of-May-2026 lives and beyond.

As a pastor, it is my calling and my duty to equip those whom God has called me to equip. I want us to be people who are grace-filled and Spirit-guided, with transformed hearts, lives, people, and families, and to have our church as a gospel-centered place. But we have to have a cultural reality check to be able to address some of these things. And I want to make sure that we don't elevate Scripture over things, or things over Scripture. Because when we put things above Scripture, we lessen and we degrade God's Word in our lives.

Society has these rules of engagement, right? They tell you, like I said before, we don't talk, especially around the dinner table or maybe a family meal with outside family. You don't talk about politics. You don't talk about religion. You don't talk about money. You don't talk about even sex. But I want to tell you that God has a design for everything that He has created. He does. And Scripture is very clear about how we are to live our lives in every single aspect of it. Take government and politics, for example. Did you know that there is an entire book in the Bible that is dedicated to how God wants to see, use, and roll out government and politics? Does anybody know what that book of the Bible is? It starts with a D and ends with a Y. What book? Oh, you guys, you're so good. I like that. No, I'm sorry. But we are called to understand God's design.

Sexuality and relationships. God created sex. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing when held within the context of biblical marriage. He has given it to us as a gift. It's a blessing, guys. But there are clear instructions on how that is to be lived out throughout Scripture. And when we understand His design and live it out, it leads to a place of health, joy, and just greatness. But without it, it becomes manipulated and twisted. It leads to a place of shame, control, and abuse. God has a lot to say about money and finances. I found this out. I didn't know this: a third of what Jesus talks about and is recorded in Scripture was all about addressing money, possessions, and stewardship. It is the single most discussed topic that Jesus spoke about in our Bible. So that tells me it's probably pretty important.

And yet, in the church, we do a horrible disservice by tiptoeing around it, not really addressing it, not taking it head-on, and not giving clear, biblical, direct instructions on it. And I have failed you as a pastor. Throughout my entire pastorate, I don't think I've ever dug this deep into biblical stewardship. I was talking to another pastor this week, and he's been focusing on this in his church as well. I was like, "Oh, this is awesome. I love this." But he called it financial discipleship. I was like, "Ooh, I'm going to steal that. I like that." But we like to categorize it in a way that it's just kind of over here. I'm over here. And maybe I'll get close to it, but I don't like it. But Jesus focused and taught a lot about finances. Well, I thought he talked a lot about love and forgiveness. Yeah, he does. He talks a lot about that. But when we back up a little bit more, we realize that Jesus' focus here is actually addressing finances, which are a primary barrier to practicing love, to practicing forgiveness, and to spiritual maturity.

What we do with our resources shows our true allegiance. See, in the church, we are not influenced by the world. Is that true? No! We fall into these same traps of self-absorption and consumerism that the world has too, and yet we're supposed to look different, right? And this is an opportunity for us as a church to show the world how to live. It's an opportunity for us to speak truth in grace and with patience, and with love and forgiveness, which flips the argument in a way that the world doesn't understand. And I want to, during these weeks, offer a different alternative for us to live. When lived out, as the Bible says, it brings blessing upon blessing upon blessing.

And you might know a lot about this topic. Maybe some of you are like, "I know this front and back. I know exactly what I'm supposed to do." Awesome. I would suspect you probably got a little area you can grow in. And maybe you've never heard the church talk about money before. All you've heard is some televangelist say, "Send me your money and you'll be healed." Not talking about that either. Or maybe you're like, "Yeah, I'm supposed to, but it's just hard. Have you seen the price of bananas lately?" And my desire is to just have open hands and hearts, and to let the truth of God's Word just pour over you, and continue in your discipleship walk with Him, and to let Him continue to form us into the image that He so lovingly desires for us.

I wanna pray real quick. Jesus, we thank you for today. We thank you that you have not hidden yourself from us, God. This isn't some mathematical equation that nobody knows about except for you, and we don't have to try to figure out how to just unlock this blessing. But God, that you have shown yourself, you have shown your will, your way, who you are, and through Scripture, I pray that today our hearts and minds would be open to what you have for us. That we would be receptive to what you wanna say to us individually, how you wanna challenge us, how you wanna call us up, God, into a new way of living. And maybe there might be some repentance, God, along the way too. God, I pray in this process that your Holy Spirit would move freely and that we would not resist it. That God, both as individuals and as a body of believers, that you would lead us deeper into healthy, biblical discipleship and to live into right relationship with you. Jesus, Lord, we need you, God. We need you now more than ever. We love you, Jesus. We pray all of this in your name. Amen.

Can I share a little secret with you? I love it right there, right here. I am a little bit of a closet apocalyptic movie fan. I don't know anybody else who is big into end-of-the-world movies or TV shows. Yeah. Okay. Right. You're right here with me. I'm not huge on zombies; the most I would go is *World War Z*. Okay. So, I'm not all in on *The Walking Dead*. That's just not me. But things like *Greenland* with Gerard Butler? You guys seen that one? Okay. They just came out with a second one recently, continuing the story. Great stuff. Or maybe *The Day After Tomorrow*, maybe a little bit of *Planet of the Apes*. Anybody? No? No? There's a recent movie, not a movie... yeah, a movie and a show that came out called *Homestead*. It's really good. Movies like *Revolution*. Anybody remember *Revolution* back in the day? Were they like the nanobots that got into stuff and knocked all the power out? The show went on way too long. I'm like, guys, we should have ended this seasons ago. But then there's another new, recent one called *Paradise*. If you guys are streaming that one, it's pretty intense.

So, I love these movies, and the premise of an apocalyptic movie is that you don't know what's coming. You come onto the scene, and life is great. The world's moving, everything's fine. And then all of a sudden, something happens. Maybe it's some massive weather event that changes the polar ice caps, or it's a volcano that goes off, or maybe something from space collides into Earth, or just like aliens show up, or a biochemical outbreak. And it's just like, ah. What I've noticed with these movies is they all have one thing in common: when it all happens and chaos ensues, people abandon all of their stuff and prioritize what is important. Yet, we tend to build and live our lives surrounded, centered, and focused on all of this stuff. No one in these movies is like, "Hold on, before we leave the house, I gotta make sure I have all of my shoes in the car. But what about my purse collection? I can't leave that behind." No. Nobody's like, "Let me go get my sports trophy from my seventh-grade soccer game that I got a participation award for."

Nobody's loading up their books or their coin collection or their golf clubs. No. What are they loading up? What are they loading up? This is the interactive part here, okay? What are we loading up? Kids, you're family. You're loading up family. You're loading up medicine. You're loading up water. You're loading up food, the necessities. Weapons? I took a dark turn. Okay, there we go. Gold star for my mom. But the important stuff, right? Nobody's like, "Hold on, hold on, we forgot grandma's gravy boat. Like it's in the huge, top corner on the right. For when we have gravy?" As we're running through the forest for our lives from zombies? Nobody's trying to unbolt their flat-screen TV from the wall and be like, "Put this on the truck." No. You go after what is important. And yet, what do we do? We spend our lives, even decades, collecting stuff and focusing our lives around what would be left behind in the middle of a crisis.

Jesus has an upside-down kingdom that He's called us to live. And He says that some stuff is really just the opposite of how we're supposed to live our lives. And we in the church at times get caught up in this stuff, and we can laugh at ourselves, but we get caught up in this and we build our lives around stuff that just isn't worth focusing on. Jesus talks about this in Matthew chapter 6, where we're going to be today. If you want to turn there, it'll be on the screens. But this is in the middle of what is called the Sermon on the Mount. This is where Jesus takes a moment in His ministry and preaches the greatest sermon ever written and ever recorded. And He, in here, a third of the time, talks about money and finances and financial discipleship. But He focuses in on this set of verses I want to talk about this morning, starting in verse 19.

He says, "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Rather, store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will also be. Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. And when your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. If the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is. No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one, love the other, or you will be devoted to one, and you will despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money."

Jesus said this 2,000-plus years ago. And He talks about three core things in here. I want to walk us through them this morning. The first of which He says is to store treasures, not on earth, but to store treasures in heaven. Treasures on earth versus heaven. He says, earthly wealth decays. Don't know if you know this, but no matter how hard you try, you're not taking anything to heaven. When you die, it all stays here. It doesn't go anywhere. I've heard the stories of people buried with all their possessions, loaded in a car, thinking that that's how they're gonna go to heaven. It doesn't go anywhere, guys. Jesus says here, what happens to it? It's destroyed. It falls apart. Moths eat it. It rusts away. Thieves steal it. But heavenly treasures are secure and eternal. What you sow and reap, some big church words here, farmer terms, I think we don't really know very well. We're not farmers. We may be backyard gardeners. But He says, what is in heaven, what is eternal, will last forever. And this is really our heart allegiance. Whatever your treasure is there, your heart will also be, it says in verse 21. Finances reveal our true spiritual posture.

Jesus continues on to talk about the eye as a lamp. A biblically healthy financial perspective will illuminate and trickle and flow into our whole life. And the same is true for an unhealthy one: it will breed spiritual darkness in our lives. And then He finishes with the dual-mastery improbability that no one can serve two masters. It's completely impossible because you're either over here loving this one, which means you're hating that one. And then you go over here and you love this one, which means you're hating that one. There's no way around it. You cannot serve God, He says, and be enslaved to money. Devotion to one brings contempt for the other. And so why does Jesus, if I said He talked about this a third of the time, why does He continue to come back to this time and time and time and time again? With some other topics, He talks about them once and then He's done with them and moves on.

Well, I think it's this: that His disciples, and I believe many of us modern-day disciples, are constantly defaulted towards control, assumption, and fear over trust. We constantly find ourselves at battle with our inner self, and discipleship requires confronting the gap between cultural habits and kingdom economics. And this was a reality check for His disciples, and it's a reality check for us today that Jesus taught about this repeatedly over and over and over again. Why? Because the disciples still hadn't gotten it. And I think for most of us, I will be the first to raise my hand, I'm still not getting it. And I need to be reminded in Scripture and to still trust who God is, to focus on not self-reliance, but surrender. And at the core of this, which is what I found in my study, is that we are all still believing a lie that originated at the beginning of the world and humanity. We're still being stuck and caught in this deception that happened all the way back in the garden with Adam and Eve.

If you flip to the front of your Bible, the first book is Genesis. And in Genesis chapter three—so like one, two, three, boom, right at the front—we come to this moment where Satan comes before Adam and Eve and tells them a lie. And it's the same lie that I and all of us continue to believe to this day. And this is the lie: that God really didn't say you would die if you ate that fruit on that tree, right? He's talking to Adam. He's like, "That's so silly. Like, why would God make poisonous fruit? That's only for like Disney movies. Like, really?" No. You know what the truth is? The truth is that God doesn't want you to be like Him. And if you eat that fruit, you'll have knowledge of good and evil. You will be like God. And this lie ultimately boiled down to this: that God is holding out on you. And because God is holding something back from you, you must take control and you have to provide for yourself because God's not gonna do it. It's the same lie that He gave Eve that said, "Hey, eat this, go take it out of him. Go give it to him if he needs it too." That to do it in a way that isn't God's way so that we can take care of ourselves, we gotta be in control.

And we live this out every day. I do. "Well, I got it, Pastor. I gotta work 60 hours a week, or I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to provide for my family." Or maybe, "If I do it God's way, I've run the numbers, Pastor. I calculated it out. We're just gonna run out. There's just not enough to go around if I do it the way that the Bible says." Oh, you ran the numbers? You don't think God might be big enough to provide? You must be right. God must be wrong. Just on this topic though, just on this one, right? Just this one. And it leads us to a place of financial hoarding, a scarcity mindset, and an anxiety-driven decision-making process. And I want to tell you today, we have to break the lie. You will never be able to find the peace, the hope, the joy, or the blessing that God has for you until you break the lie.

Jesus talked about this in Matthew 19, just a few chapters later than six, when a rich young man comes to Him and says, "Jesus, how do I get into heaven?" And Jesus says, "Well, you obey the law. You honor your mother and father. You love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength. You love others, your neighbor, rather than yourself." And he goes, "I've done all that." And Jesus said, "Sweet, you're getting into heaven, right?" No. He says, "Take all of your wealth, all of your possessions, sell them and give it away." Because Jesus knew that this man had made wealth his God. He had made his riches an idol, and he left dejected after meeting Jesus. Because to do what Jesus was asking him to do was giving up way too much control that he didn't want to do. Because we are constantly at war with that. We're constantly at war with God's system versus our human intelligence. Fighting back and forth, back and forth.

However, when we read the Scripture and Bible, we see that God is fundamentally into systems. All throughout Scripture, we find different instructions, processes, direction, systems on how we are to live our lives. And it's funny, it's almost as if the Guy who designed everything understood how we are to live our lives. And when we live in that design, in God's plan, God's way, it works 100% of the time. Because He is the Designer with the perfect design. And our place isn't to come in and go, "Good job, God, I'm gonna do a little redesigning, do a quick renovation of this." No, our place is to be obedient and to trust. He even says specifically in this, in this topic of finances, to actually test Him in it. That's how much He believes in His system. It's a testament. And will I not throw open the storehouses and provide for you in ways that you never dreamed, thought, hoped, or imagined? We're gonna talk about that another time.

But I think of it this way. Has anybody seen the price of gas lately? It's ridiculous. It's like, there's just no limit. It's a free-for-all out there. And I was thinking, you know, it would be a lot cheaper, a lot easier, and a lot quicker just to put water in my car. Right? It's right by my house. I could fill up my tank. It would be easy. It wouldn't cost as much. It's liquid, right? It's just liquid. But if I did that, it would be foolish. And the ramifications of that would be catastrophic. I actually did a bunch of research on that when you get water in your gas tank. Like, it is a big deal. And yet, what do we do in our lives? We think, "Okay, God, I know you got your system, your way of doing it, but I got a better, quicker, cheaper, easier way. I'm just going to run with that." And yet, we find our marriages falling apart. Our families are struggling, our finances are stressing us and a burden on our shoulders, which sometimes feels like we can't even breathe. Our anxiety levels are through the roof as a society in a world today. And we wonder why. Because Jesus, who is the ultimate mechanic, came to earth, fixed what was broken. And yet we said, "Thanks God for fixing that. I got it from here." And we just run with it. And then all of a sudden our car's like, "Why God, would you allow this to happen?" Well, He's like, "Well, I gave you something that had something to say about that."

Scripture offers us a way that gives blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing if we are obedient and walk in that. Here's the funny thing about discipleship: we can be really awesome in one area and be completely just falling apart in another. And we like to highlight the ways that we're doing well. "I know a lot of Scripture." Well, good for you. That's awesome. "I volunteer in the children's ministries." Beautiful. "I love it, Pastor. I'm here every single Sunday. I haven't missed a Sunday since 1972." Amazing. I'm glad that you're here. And you know who's the worst at this? Doctors. You go to the doctor, and they just have like this one thing they want to nag you about. You're like, "Yeah, yeah, I've been eating good, I'm working out, I'm getting my steps in every day, I don't go to Taco Bell anymore. Like, I'm doing great." He's like, "Yeah, but have you seen your cholesterol numbers?" You're like, "Shh, stop. Look at everything I'm doing that's great. That's awesome. Yes, yes, you're doing that right, that's great. However, if we don't address this one thing right here, you're going to have lifelong ramifications." And this is Jesus coming along our side and saying, "Yes, you're doing great. I love you. I applaud you. Keep going. Don't stop doing that stuff. Keep doing that stuff, but I got some tweaking I wanna do over here."

Because the reality is our spiritual health is bound to our whole self. Our spiritual health is bound to our whole self. We can't divide this up. And this is the funny thing about discipleship: there is usually massively unequal growth in our walk with Jesus. And that's okay. And I want to tell you, if you might be there at that place, God loves you so much. You're His son; you are His daughter. He sees your growth. He sees who you are. He says, "I want to address something else to bring full health." And so, as we close, I got a scale I want us to look at. And this is just honesty, okay? If you can just be honest with me in this, I want to walk us through a couple things here. I call it the Five Zones of Financial Discipleship. And the first zone would be, I would say, Zone Zero. You're like, "Wait a minute, you said five." I know. Okay, okay, good. This is the starting place. Maybe for those of you who are in this zone, you've never given anything to the church, whether that was your time, your resources, or your money.

You're on complete reliance upon yourself. There's no trust established between you and God. You're like, "This is mine. God, do your thing. I'm doing my thing." And if you are here in this camp, again, I want to tell you, God loves you. God absolutely loves you. This does not change your salvation. This doesn't change your place in heaven. This doesn't change whether you have to wait after you die to get in heaven. No, no, no, none of that, okay? He loves you, and He wants the very best for your life. He wants to have an honest conversation with you, and He wants you to be honest with Him. He wants you to bring your worry, your anxiety, your fears, maybe your even anger. "God, how come you're not providing? How come I have to live paycheck to paycheck to paycheck? You've got to change this, God. I am mad." He wants that. Bring it to Him.

The first step after that would be Zone One. This would be what I would consider a one-time engagement. You, at some point throughout history, at one point gave something to the church. Maybe it was last Christmas, holiday time, we did Operation Christmas Child, where we sent shoeboxes to poverty-ridden countries that brought the gospel message to them through a practical gift in their life. If you did that, thank you so much. You changed a little boy's, a little girl's life in ways that you'll never know or imagine. And you might walk into heaven one day and meet them and get to hear their story. This is big. I want you guys to get that. This isn't, "Well, I'm only in Zone One and he's up in Zone Four. I'm less." No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying, okay? Maybe you bought something for the church. Maybe you donated something to the church. And this was a first step of trust. I'm so proud of you. This is awesome. But it was still self-directed. Okay?

The next zone, Zone Two, would be emerging or stepping into stewardship and biblical discipleship in a standard method or a system. And this would look like an occasional gift on the regular. Maybe it's you throw 20 bucks a month in the backdrop box, and you're like, "God, this is what, boom, I'm giving." But you're consistent in it. And like I said, and we'll explore this more, God is into systems. And so we believe the same here at Spring Valley Church, and we have systems for you to be able to give to God, whether that's through an envelope in your chair, whether that's a drop box in the back, maybe it's online, secure. Maybe it's a way that you set up online giving on a recurrence that just automatically gets given to the church in a system that is just easy and regular. But you begin to see how God has systems set up. This is phenomenal.

The next zone, Zone Three, would be when you shift maybe from 20 bucks here or there, or a little bit here, you begin to go to a proportional commitment. What do I mean proportional? That would mean that you begin with, say, 1% of your income, you say, "God, I am giving back to you." So it is proportional to the blessing that you have received. Now, if you want to know, I will tell you that biblically, there is a word called tithe, and that is translated tenth or 10%. The desire that God has for us in this is to not stop at 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, whatever percent, but to rise up to a level of 10% of our income that He has blessed us with is given back to God through the church. This is huge because you begin to understand intentional alignment with biblical Scripture.

Zone Four would be you are arrived. You're at the 10%. You're like, "Oh my Lord, Pastor, 10%." I just lost count. I didn't get to 10%. I am extremely fortunate that when Lauren and I got married, we had somewhat of a commitment to tithing, but we decided that we were gonna commit to this 10% when we got married. And when we got married, we were both still in college, full-time. We were both working part-time jobs. She was at a Christian bookstore. I was at a Starbucks. And our rent, which killed us every single month, was $325. Oh, Lord Jesus, bring it back, Lord. And it hurt to tithe. But in that obedience, there was a peace. There was a blessing. There was a hope that without that actual commitment every single month, we could not have experienced without being on the other side of it. And it's going to take you being like, "You said 1%, now you're at 10%. But how the?" It starts being intentional. I know people who start with 1% and said, "By this time next year, I'm going to be at 2." And they continue to work at it. And 2 turns into 3 and 3 into 4. It just grows and grows and grows. It's going to take a reordering of the priority of our lives. We might have to go without some things. Like that?

"And then that's it, Chris, right? Zone Four, we're good, that's it?" No. Jesus has a standard even beyond that, and that's what He calls extravagant generosity. This is beyond the baseline of 10% obedience, but is a heart actively seeking opportunities to bless others and advance God's work around the globe. You would not be sitting where you are sitting right now without extravagant generosity. Because there were people who came before us who sacrificed and gave and went above and beyond to get us into this facility. Some of you know who I'm talking about. And that we would not have a place to call home. We would not have a children's ministry down the hall. We would not have Monday night youth group. We would not have men's and women's Bible studies. We would not have different moments of men's and women's events to be able to gather in a place that we call home to hold a foothold for the kingdom of God in Rocklin and Roseville and Plaster County without extravagant generosity. This might look like also donating to parachurch organizations, a local one called Mercy, maybe Sierra Pregnancy Center. Another one known as Gathering Inn who works with the unhoused in the area. This is the ultimate peak of what God desires for us in our biblical financial discipleship.

Now, let me be clear. This growing in these zones is about progression and is posture-driven, not performance-focused. I want to get this absolutely clear right now. That it is about a process over perfection. And I don't want you coming up to me and going, "Well, Pastor, you know I'm a Zone Five Christian." Blessings on you, I don't want to know. God cares about it, and we're not going to come in and have different seating arrangements based upon what zone you are in. Nobody's talking about that. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand or say, "I'm in Zone Three" or "I'm in Zone..." No, no, none of that. What I'm talking about is moving to a place of financial discipleship. And the reality is, the last six years have been absolutely chaos. The world stopped in a way that we never thought the world would stop. Things happen that we never thought would happen. There's fear, there's trauma, and this does cause pullbacks. But I want us to have an invitation from God right now, here in this moment, to have an honest reset. To take a moment to pause and to think about where we are at. I'm not asking you to come forward today and start committing, "I'm tithing 10%," or "God's housing me, I got to give $500,000 to the church." No, that's not what I'm saying. If you do have that, and God is asking about that, let's get lunch this week, okay? But what I'm talking about is asking for you to move forward with an honest conversation with God. And to ask just simply, "God, where should I begin?" Because it is a shift from control to dependence in these finances that will then trickle down into our entire lives. It's a process of surrender. Surrender control, embrace peace, walk in obedience.

So here's what we're gonna do. I wanna ask us, and you got on your program, you got a little card at the bottom. And I want you, if you're willing, to pray over this card and to just check the box there that says, "I'm going to have the conversation." That conversation is going to be with you and God. That conversation might be with the spouse if you have one. Conversation might be with a family if you have that one. We've been talking about this in our house. How do we begin to teach these biblical financial discipleship values to our children? Because it takes the whole family. And it takes all of us as a family. To shift from control to dependence. To break the lie. To focus on progress over perfection. And if I can so boldly say, embrace the awkward. Embrace the awkward. Trust the Designer. Align your home. And walk in Christ's ultimate freedom.

Today, let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, I pray that we would have open hearts and minds to be receptive of Your word. God, I pray that the Holy Spirit would break in here and put away this lie of self-reliance. God, that you would fill our hearts with your grace in ways that are sometimes really difficult, but absolutely necessary to have these conversations. God, help us to walk in confidence in Your system over our own cultural or personal engineering. God, that you would put peace in our hearts to replace our financial anxiety and to grow in us kingdom-minded trust. God, give us the strength. Lord, we're gonna need it, Jesus, to rely on You first above everything else. So Lord, I pray, break this lie of Satan. You would hold on to us. Put Your truth in us. Bring us Your provision. Bring us Your love. God, help us to see Your redemption and Your care and Your grace, that it may shine so bright in our lives to those far corners and far, far places in our hearts that we want to keep, and Satan wants to keep in darkness. God, that You would bring that light. You would break that lie. You would bring salvation to those spots.

When God Calls

When God Calls

1 SAMUEL 3

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Good morning. We finished our Tough Questions series. And so if you've missed any of that, I really encourage you to go back, listen to the podcast, or watch it on YouTube. Next week, Pastor Chris is going to start a new four-week series that he is going to teach. So right now, we just kind of have an in-between, and I get to do whatever I want. No, just kidding. We are... Can't believe that's on the record now. No, we're just going to be dropping into an Old Testament moment, a scene, and I'm excited for that. This sermon actually came from a conversation with a youth volunteer who said, "Andre, you should preach." He picked this out, and he said, "You should preach on this." So I'm doing that today.

Let me tell you guys a story. When I was, I want to say seven, seven... couldn't have been older than like eight or nine. Going home in our routine after coming home from school, my mom was driving. We'd stop by the mailbox. I'd get out with the key, get the mail, and come back into the car. And one time, I just heard something. I heard... I don't know if it was the rumbling of my stomach or just like a loud thing, but I could tell by the way that no one else had heard it. My mom didn't have a reaction. And I just... I got back in the car and I said, "Mom, I think God just told me to be kind to my sister." And it was the only time that I've had this like, "I'm pretty sure God said something," but I was a seven-year-old kid. And my mom wisely just said, "Well, I think you should obey God. I think you should be kind to your sister."

The truth is, God's audible voice is not something that is common in my life. It may not be common for you. Even though we hear God in different ways, maybe through Scripture and through friends, we'll get into some of that, but hearing God's audible voice is not common. And even in Scripture, there are moments where God speaks, but those are standout, unforgettable, unbelievable at times moments in history. So you can think of moments like Moses in the burning bush, where there's something and he hears God's voice. And it's in a scene that he's like, "What is happening right now?" This is not common. This does not happen every day. Or later on in the Old Testament, when Israel is in the desert and God is giving them instruction, it says in Scripture that God's voice was like thunder. And it was too much for Israel. They were like, "God, can you please stop talking? I can't handle this. It's scary. It's loud. It's booming." Or even something in the New Testament like Jesus, when Paul on the road to Damascus, when he was Saul, hears God's voice, or Jesus speak to him. And it's a scene. And that is not... it happens, but it's not common, right? But it's a theme in Scripture that we see, that God speaks to his people. And though we may not experience those super memorable, out-of-the-world moments, we still need to recognize God's voice. We should be ready. And our desire should be to be able to recognize God's voice when he does speak to us.

John 10:4 says, "When he was brought out all on his own, he goes on ahead of them. And his sheep, this is Jesus, his sheep follow him because they know his voice." So if we are followers of Jesus, then we should recognize his voice when he speaks to us. And we should know how we'll respond if and when God speaks. And I think we can learn how to do that together this morning as we look at the story in the Old Testament of Samuel. So if you have your Bibles, if you want to turn in them to 1 Samuel 3, it'll be on the screen as well. But 1 Samuel 3 is the story of a boy named Samuel.

Now, in our passage today, we're in a time of Israel's history where Israel has been struggling as a nation to follow God. Theologians comment that Israel is in a state of profound spiritual and institutional collapse. There's a pattern that has developed in Israel's history, and this pattern is a generation arises that neither knows the Lord nor understands him, and they fall away worshiping other gods and abandoning Yahweh, the God who delivered them out of Egypt. And so this pattern that we see is Israel sins. God punishes them through oppression, says, "We're going to give you over to your sin. I'm going to punish you." The people repent and cry and say, "God, save us." God sends someone, a redeemer of some sort. And then the cycle starts all over again. They're with God for a time, but then they sin, and over and over and over again. And I got to say, as difficult as it can be to read Israel's story and sometimes hear of their incompetency to follow God, it can also hit me just how similar we are at times, right? We have a sin in our lives that just seems to be reoccurring over and over again. We face the natural consequences of our sin. And we call out to God to rescue us, saying, "God, please help me." He does. He gives us deliverance for a moment, maybe rescue. And then at some point in the future, we fall into that sin again. And the cycle in our lives is very similar to that of Israel's.

Now, in this moment for Israel, it's not just the people that are falling into sin. It's also the leaders, unfortunately. There is a head priest named Eli. And he and his sons have not been the best, especially his sons, who were also priests. And they were worthless men who did not know God. And this phrase in the Bible says, "do not know God," really is to emphasize nothing about their lives would let you know that they knew him, followed him, had a relationship with him. And even Eli himself, their dad, the high priest, he was weak and blind and unable to hear God's voice. So in a way, he himself embodied Israel as a nation: weak, blind to God, and unable to hear God's voice. And if you're reading through the Old Testament in the book and you come to 1 Samuel, you would really sense this decline in Israel. Things are getting bad. The relationship with God is strained, distant. Things are not going as they are supposed to, which usually means the time is ripe for God to intervene and to enter into the story.

So if you guys want to read along with me, it says, I'm going to read, kind of split this up into two. So the first few verses say, the boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days, the word of the Lord was rare. There were not many visions. One night, Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not gone out yet, and Samuel was lying. So he went and lay down. Again, the Lord called Samuel. Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. A third time, the Lord called Samuel. And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, Here I am, you called me. Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, Go and lie down. And if he calls you, say, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. We're just going to read through all of it, by the way. The Lord came and stood there calling at the other time, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel said, Speak, for your servant is listening. And the Lord said to Samuel, See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family, from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about. His sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them. Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, the guilt of Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering. Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the Lord. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, but Eli called him and said, Samuel, my son. Samuel answered, Here I am. What was it he said to you? Eli asked, Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you. So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, He is the Lord. Let him do what is good in his eyes. The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel's words fall to the ground. And all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. All right.

So this first part of this passage, I think the emphasis here is recognizing God's voice. I just want to go verse by verse and kind of break this down for us. We get this context in the first three verses. Minister, Samuel was just a boy under Eli. And this part in verse 1, the word of the Lord was rare. Not many visions. The people of God, in their decline, were not hearing from God. It's important to remember. And again, we come to Eli, who is so weak, barely see, was lying down in his usual place. And again, this is just more context for us to understand that the setting that Samuel's in is not a good one. And then Samuel, when we get to Samuel, there's a little bit of hope. And it highlights the proximity of Samuel to God. It says he was lying down in the house of the Lord where the ark of God was. So at this time, they're in the tabernacle. And the author is trying to tell us that Samuel is literally, by physical location, the closest one to God. Just where he's sleeping, he's closest to God. And this is important because this is the one that God has chosen to be the voice of the truth. So this is our context.

And then verses 4 through 9 is God calling to Samuel over and over again. We get this first call. And Samuel says, "Here I am," but goes to Eli. He doesn't understand. He doesn't know God. He doesn't understand that God is speaking to him. But this response that he gives, "Here I am," echoes some responses from previous people in the Bible that we would recognize as good people, like Abraham and Jacob and Moses, have all been called by God, and they all responded with, "Here I am." And so the author, again, is cluing us into, Samuel is someone who is going to be important and good. We get the second call in verses 6 through 7. Again, the Lord called Samuel, and Samuel got up, went to Eli. Eli tells him to go back. And then a third time in verse 8, Samuel goes, responds, says, "Here I am" to Eli. And Eli realizes now that it's God speaking to Samuel. Now, Eli's probably a little bit perturbed. He's like, "This is the third time you're waking me up. I'm not calling you. What is going on?" But I think he finally clicks that. He's like, "Oh, this is God." And we have to remember that Eli is not in good favor with God. And so I think this shows that it took three times. This just shows how dull he is. His senses are dulled to what God is doing. It took him a while for him to point Samuel to the Lord.

Now, have you ever been in maybe Eli's position? Not that your senses are dull, but have you ever been on the receiving end of someone saying, "Hey, something's going on in life, this keeps happening," and you can maybe clearly see like, "I think God's trying to get a hold of you, I think God is doing something," but they haven't put the pieces together yet? Or maybe they don't know God yet? Or maybe it's happened to you that God's been trying to get a hold of you and in that moment you didn't recognize God's voice. And something's happening, and then it happens again, or God's getting your attention. You're like, "Huh, something's up right now. I think, why is this happening?" And it just takes a little while for us to understand and connect that God is trying to get a hold of us, trying to get our attention. In this moment, this is where Samuel is learning God's voice. And I think this is a beautiful moment of someone yielding themselves to serve God, but coming into a beautiful relationship with him. Not just serving him, but a relationship. And I think that is the truth that we need to hear today too. That yes, we are called to obey and to serve God, but we also get a beautiful relationship with him. What an amazing thing to be called by God by name. It shows that God knows Samuel. Even though Samuel doesn't know him, it shows that God has a purpose for Samuel far beyond what Samuel could have imagined. And it shows us today that God's calling is not by accident. It's meant for each of us individually. And it shows that God wants us and desires us to be a part of his kingdom and his work. So that is the section where we hear and read about God's recognizing God's voice.

Now, in the second half of our passage, Samuel shows us how to respond to God's voice. In verses 10 through 14, we get Samuel's response to God. In verse 10, the Lord came and stood there. This is different now. God came and stood there. His presence was there in the tabernacle in a different way. Now, I don't know if that means that he's physically standing there. The Old Testament uses that language just to show and emphasize that God's presence was as closely as possible was there. And he calls out to Samuel, and Samuel responds, "Speak, for your servant is listening." And I love this verse in verse 11. "I'm about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle." Now, if you read that and you thought, "Oh, that's exciting," that's what I also thought at first, because we say tingle today, like ears tingling. No, this is dread. This is doom. This is like really bad. God is saying, "I'm about to do something that is going to wake people up." So the Old Testament uses tingle in a way that we probably don't use tingle today. But just so you know. Okay. God is saying he's about to shake up things, get everyone's attention. And God gives Samuel his first word, this first prophecy, this first assignment. And it's a heavy one. It's punishment from God to Eli. And it's this message that also shows the shift that God is going to make from the priestly authority of the house of Eli to a different sort of authority to be embodied by the prophet Samuel. There's a lot happening here and Samuel's just a boy, but God is laying out his plan saying, "Look, this is what's going to happen to Eli," and while he's doing that he's taking care of Samuel saying, "I have plans for you."

In verses 15 through 18, Samuel holds this troubling news of judgment until morning. He's heard this punishment that's going to be given to the house of Eli. And I don't know if you've ever had that where you've had to be the bearer of bad news to someone. It's not a fun place to be. There's such a mix of emotions going on inside of us. We can want to be relieved of having to hold that bad news. So sometimes we're like, "Hey, if I just get this over with quickly, I'm just going to tell that person as quick as possible," mostly because we don't want to be holding this information. So I'm going to tell them. Other times it can be, it's someone who's important to us where we care about. And so we don't want to make them feel uncomfortable or we don't want to see them in pain. And so we contemplate, "Should I share this with them? I don't know. I think they're going to be upset." And so I think we can imagine what Samuel is feeling as he is holding this and he just heard from God. He hasn't talked to Eli yet and he's just laying in bed. "What am I going to do? What am I going to do with this terrible news for Eli's family?" We can sense the relational dynamics here. How close Samuel already is to God, and he's just a boy, and how distant Eli is, and he's the high priest of Israel. And it's this boy who's telling the high priest what it is that God said. That's very backwards. That's not how it should be, but that's the reality that Israel is in. That's where Eli is in, and that's how God is going to use Samuel. Samuel doesn't want to say it, but Eli knows he needs to hear it. And Eli puts the pressure on holding Samuel to his oath. And again, this is Samuel learning, right? When God has told you something, you can't withhold that. You need to share that. That is something, if I've given you a task, you have to obey God. And so Samuel learns just how serious this is and how important God's words are. And Samuel tells Eli everything. And the redeeming moment for Eli is how he takes it. With some honor and dignity, he says, "If that's what God has, then let it be so. Let him do what is good in his eyes."

And so from this moment, Samuel is established as a true prophet, just a boy, but he's established as a true prophet. And I love what it says that God did not allow any of Samuel's words to fall to the ground. I love that imagery, that picture that the author is trying to tell us that all of his words came to life or had meaning, they were purposeful, they were true. God did not allow any of Samuel's words to go awry, but fulfilled all of his prophet's predictions. And I didn't read it at first, but chapter 4, verse 1 says, "And Samuel's words came to all Israel." And so if we just juxtapose that, verse 1 of chapter 3 says, "The word of the Lord was so rare." And now, just one chapter later, the word of God is being heard all over Israel through Samuel. God is at work again. God's about to do work in Israel that hasn't been seen in quite some time. And God has found his guy. This Samuel that will speak for him, speak the truth to the people.

I'll talk about a tough first assignment for Samuel. He's got to tell his boss, this father-like figure in his life, that God is going to punish him severely. I already feel like that's hard. That's so difficult. And yet through it all, we see Samuel learning. We see Samuel learn God's voice, learn how to respond. And he learns that as a prophet of God, he needs to share the word that is given to him. Even if it means it's a tough pill to swallow for the listener. Through all of it, God will work and reach his people. Samuel responds in a way to make himself available to God. And we are to do the same. Like Samuel, like Paul in the New Testament, like Isaiah. Isaiah 6:8 says, "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? And I said, Here I am. Send me." This is the response. When God speaks, we answer and we say, "Here I am, Lord." And we take on a posture of willingness, of being ready, of yielding our will to his. We open our hands and we bow our heads and say, "What is it, Lord? I am ready." We accept the call. We give ourselves into his service with an eagerness that speaks to our love and faith for God. And how we respond matters to God. Samuel does a great job and is a model of how we should respond. But the Bible also gives us examples of how not to respond, things that we should not do. If you think of Adam and Eve after they have sinned, God calls out, says, "Where are you guys?" And they hide. They don't answer. They hide. That's what not to do. God doesn't like that. We should not hide when God calls. Maybe the most famous one is the story of Jonah. God calls, and what does he do? He literally runs the other way. He's running away from God and says, "Nope, I don't think so, God. Sorry, a little busy. I'm in a city across the Mediterranean." Don't do any of that. Don't hide from God. Don't run away from God. It sounds silly, but in our own way, we can do that at times. When maybe we know that God is trying to get a hold of us, and we just be like, "Huh, is that God? No, I don't think so. I'm going to ignore that one. I'm not going to pick up the phone right now. Don't want to hear from God." Maybe we know what he's going to call us to. We don't want to do it. Whatever the reason is, but don't be like Adam and Eve. Don't be like Jonah. We want to be like Samuel. We want to learn to recognize God's voice and learn to respond and say, "Here I am."

Now, you may be wondering, what if you've said, "I am here." I've said that to God. And now you're in the place of trying to discern what it is God is calling you to do. What is God's will for your life? You've said, "Pastor Andre, I have a posture. I'm eager. I'm ready. I said, 'Here I am.' And now I'm waiting for what God is telling me to do." Well, I want to ask some questions today. And if you're in a place of wondering what God is calling you to do, or if you're wondering why God is trying to get your attention, I have eight discerning questions to learn God's will. These are in no particular order, but I think these are just reflection questions that help us possibly understand what God is trying to tell us. So if you're a note taker, jot these down.

First one is to know God. Am I more concerned with knowing God's will for my life than I am knowing God? Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves and we just want to know what to do. And we skip over the person who's telling us what to do. We skip over that relational part with God and we just say, "God, I just need to know the next step." Maybe we're task-oriented and we just want to get moving. And God is saying, "Hold up now, don't move too fast. We have a relationship. I want to talk with you. I want to speak with you." But maybe we're too caught up with what to do instead of knowing who is calling us. Secondly, is to know his word. Have I searched Scripture to find God's revealed will? For me, this is the most common way that God speaks. Because when I open up Scripture, and through his Spirit, he brings me to a place in Scripture or in reading. He uses Scripture to give me wisdom, to give me guidance. And so have you turned to Scripture and said, "Let me read, let me read his word, and better try to figure out what he's trying to tell me." Third one is prayer. Maybe the most obvious. Do I frequently ask God for guidance and to open my eyes to his will? Instead of us trying to figure it out, why don't we just ask him right? "God, what is it you're trying to tell me? What is it you want me to do?" So far, I think those three make a lot of sense.

Now we start to get into ones that maybe you're familiar with but you haven't done it in a while, and so just want to remind you of some other ways in which to discern God's will. The fourth one is counsel. Who are the wise and godly men and women from who you should be seeking counsel? People that you trust, people that know you, people that you've seen walk with God, you've seen walk the way of righteousness, live in God's will, and go to them and say, "Here's what I'm going through. What would you do? How would you follow God's will? How would you walk this situation?" That's why I love being a part of a church family is that that's what we are here for. And it's not that anyone is better than anyone else. We just like to get some perspective and say, "Hey, I've seen you do this. I've seen you." We encourage a mentorship in this church. Someone who's maybe in the next phase of life that can give you some perspective. And say, "Go grab coffee with them and just lay it out and say, this is what I'm facing right now. And I don't know. I'm not sure. What have you done? What's your experience told you?" The fifth one is life experiences. Why has God given me this particular set of life experiences? What could they reveal about what I should do with my life? Maybe you're in a situation to learn something. Maybe you're in something that is challenging, that is difficult. But maybe God is saying he's trying to reveal something to you. Oh wait, I'm so sorry, that's hold on. Life experiences now, maybe not your current life experiences. Look back at your past life experiences and look back at what you've gone through to see if it gives you instruction for what you're going through in the moment.

I got ahead of myself because the next one is circumstances. What do my circumstances reveal about God's prompting? Are any obvious needs or opportunities pointing me in a particular direction? Sometimes we just need to take a little bit of time and to gain some perspective of what we're going through and see that God is actually clearly leading us in this direction. But if we just have our heads down and just keep going day by day, we wouldn't take time to see that perspective and see the overall direction that God is leading us and see how our circumstances, as trying as they may be, may be God's way of leading us in a new way, new direction. So circumstances can play into it. Seventh is timing. Is the timing right for me to respond to a felt calling? Is God calling me to wait where I am or take a decisive step forward? This one is one of the hardest things for me. I am a slow mover, which sometimes is good to not move on impulse. And then sometimes I feel like God's been like, "I've been trying to tell you this for months. I've been giving you signs. I have been telling you that you are still not moving." And so timing is hard for me to understand what God is doing. But maybe God is saying, maybe it is a wait. Not yet. Wait here. I've given you some wisdom about what you're going to do next, but it's not yet. Or maybe you're praying and it's like, "God, is now the time? I've been sensing this call. I think that you're leading here." And we can just ask, "God, is the timing now? Is now the time where you want me to go do whatever it is?"

And the last one, and I do think that this one is important to be last. At least it shouldn't be first because it's too easy for it to be a slippery slope of selfishness. The last one is desire. What do I want? If I delight in the Lord, what would be the desire of my heart? How do I most want to serve God? Psalm 37:4 says, "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." There is a time to tell God and to share with God, "God, I really want this. This in life brings me joy. Is there a way that I can experience more of this, that I could have whatever that is?" God gave us that emotion of joy. God gave us certain skills, interests, passions. That is God-given, some of those things that we have. And maybe there's a way that we want to serve. I think of those who are able to sing and they want to serve by singing and saying, "God, can you bring that opportunity around? I want to use this gift that I have for you." At Youth Group, tomorrow night, we're having a painting night. We're having a worship through paint. And there's people, by the way, we have a very skilled youth group. There's like an amazing painter. She's going to be the future Thomas Kincaid. She's amazing. And she just gets to use her skill that night and just paint and worship through painting. So there might be a desire that you have. "God, can I do this? I really want to do this for you." This ties in with how I'm going to use my skills for your kingdom, but there's a place where you can just lay that before God and ask him, "God, can you give that opportunity to me?" And so all in all, we have knowing God, knowing his word, prayer, counsel, life experiences, circumstances, timing, and desire. And through all of that, maybe we can better understand God's will for us, what he's calling us to do.

We've heard him call us. We've had the right response of saying, "Here I am, God." And then we can work through these questions to understand what he's calling us towards. So as we close today, I want you to bring out your programs. We've gotten to this new rhythm of exercising this muscle in our church together where we have an action step every Sunday that pertains to the sermon. Because we want what's happening here and what you're hearing on a Sunday morning to go home with you and to affect your lives. So we're trying to make that more applicable and easier to remember by suggesting something that might help your walk with God in your daily life. This week's action step is to do one or more of these eight things to discern God's will. And if you felt God calling, if you felt him nudging you in a direction, but you're just unsure, if you want to mark that, put your name on it, mark that, and drop that in the bucket in the back on your way out, we're going to join you in praying for you that God would make his will clear, make it known to you this week. And if he calls, our encouragement is to say, "Here I am, Lord, I'm ready. What is it you have for me, your servant?" We want to be like Samuel. We don't want to be like Jonah. We don't want to be like Adam and Eve. We don't want to hide and run away from God. We want to be there with hands open, hearts ready, to say, "Here I am, God." Would you guys pray with me?

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the story of Samuel that gives us this idea of learning your voice and learning how to respond. And I pray that for those in this room, maybe we've been walking with God for decades and we know your voice and we've responded to you. And maybe we're in the midst of discerning what your will is. I pray that you would help us this week in discerning your will. Maybe we're new to having faith with you, God, faith in you. And so I pray for those in the room that they would come to know your voice, learn your voice. And they would also have hearts that say, "God, here I am. I'm ready. What is it that you're calling me to do?" God, make us a people of quick and tender response to you, God. That understanding we may obey your every word and discerning may follow every suggestion of your instilling spirit. Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. Grant us, O God, to know which ought to be known, to love that which ought to be loved, to praise that which pleases you, to esteem that which is precious to you, and to blame that which is evil in your eyes. Give us wisdom and discernment to differentiate what is good and what only appears to be good. And above all, to be always seeking after your will and your good pleasure. Be with us today and this week, God. We praise you and we love you. We pray this in your son's name. Amen.

Tough Questions: Part 5

Tough Questions: Part 5 - Does God Love Me?

John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:8-10; Zephaniah 3:17

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I know many have said it, but I want to say too, happy Mother's Day to all of you mamas out there, the biological moms, the spiritual moms, the bonus moms, whatever category you fit in, we're so glad you're here. And we are genuinely just grateful that you decided to take part of your weekend to come and worship. And I know that the Lord is glorified in that and he is honored in that decision. There's so many things we can do, especially on a holiday with brunch and family and all the celebrations. But I love that you chose to make this part of your Mother's Day celebration today. So thank you for doing that. We are wrapping up our tough questions series today. So we have one more question that we are going to ask, although I know there are many more we could have covered. But we first asked, why did God let it happen? That was the first question. Kind of also along with that ask, Like why do good or bad things happen to quote unquote good people? And why does God allow these bad things? If he's a good God, why does he allow them to happen? Then the next week we asked, what about hell? What is it? Where is it? How does it work? Why does God send people there? And then we asked, why didn't God answer my prayer? A lot of us have struggled with feeling like God didn't answer our prayers. We asked, where are you, God? Why didn't you answer this prayer? And then last week we asked, what about when God feels far away? Because sometimes it feels like he's distant. We know maybe intellectually that he's close, but it feels like he's far away. So God, why does it feel like you're far away? And what can we do about that?

So today our question that we're going to ask is, does God love me? But first we're going to pray real quick again. Jesus, thank you for this time. Thank you for the women in this room who serve as mothers and spiritual mothers to those around them. We thank you for the blessing that they are. God, I just pray for your word today, that it will be spoken through me, that it would be your words, not mine. Holy Spirit, be in this place. May your presence be felt. In Jesus' name, amen. John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” The Bible says it right there. That God loved the world so much that he sent his son. So does God love us? It says he does. Happy Mother's Day. Enjoy the parfait. I'm just kidding. We'll get it. We'll go a little bit deeper. But yes, he does. It says that he does right here. But even though it is clearly in black and white, we still ask the question. We still struggle with the thought, does God love me? For some of us, this is a question we've wrestled with. I got question and wrestle mixed up. Okay, question we've wrestled with. Because we maybe understand intellectually that God loves us or that he loves the world. He loves humanity. He loves what he has created. But does He love me individually? Does he love me? Because a lot of us don't feel worthy. We don't feel worthy of God's love.

Maybe we've felt like we've done too much. We've sinned too much. We've gone too far. Maybe we've been away. We've pulled away from God for too long. Maybe we've been told too many negative things about ourselves. We've just been just taken down several pegs. We've been rejected by earthly authority figures or people we care about. And so we just, we genuinely wonder, does God love me? For other of us, we fall into a kind of a different group that we believe that he loves us. We never really maybe struggled with this question, but we can't really articulate why. We can't explain how we know. It's not something we really wonder. We just kind of accepted it and believed it. But if someone were to ask us how we knew, we couldn't explain how we know that God loves us. Well, thankfully for us, the answer to our question today will answer for both of those groups. If you struggled with it, you will be able to leave today. You will walk out of this room knowing for certain that God does love you. Spoiler alert, he does love you, but we'll get into it. He does love you, and you will know that. And then for those of us who haven't struggled with it, but can't really tell why, we are going to know why. We're going to have scripture to back it up. We're going to have a reason for it. We will know why he loves us. So if you're in the group that you just aren't really sure if God loves you, it's likely because you are using a wrong definition of love. Now there are so many definitions of love there are different types of love. I love tacos and I love my husband. But not in the same way and I just use the same word but I don't actually love them in the same way. And you know this you know if I said I love tacos you know it's not the same kind of love towards my husband. But we just have this one word for so there's lots of different types of love, but we're going to focus on two.

The first one is a love that loves because the object is valuable. It's a love that loves because the object is valuable. This is the most common type. We're really familiar with it. These are like things like clothes, shoes, maybe food, tech, things that we can have, that we can consume, things that are valuable to us. They add value to us. lots of things maybe like literally anything at home goods just anything that's that stuff's god value to me and so these this is a love but we love the thing because of its value or because of the value that it adds to our life that is one type of love but if you don't as a person feel valuable, you're going to naturally wonder if God loves you. If you don't feel like you have any value, maybe it's from sin, maybe it's from a lack of parental love, maybe a lack of self-esteem, whatever the reason why, if you feel that way and you don't feel worthy of God's love, you're going to struggle with this question. But there's another kind of love. This is a love in which the love gives value to the object. The love gives value to the object. Now, most of us are familiar with this way as well. It may be a little less common, but we're familiar with it. Probably most of us have had some sort of lovey, stuffy, blanket, stuffed animal, some sort of comfort item we had as a child. I brought mine. I dug this out of my trunk. I did wash it. This was my blue blanket. I have had it since I was baby. I don't remember when I got it because it's been so long. But I had it as a baby. And I used this thing probably longer than is socially acceptable. But I loved it. I slept with it every night. I sat on the couch and watched TV with it. I took it on trips with me. I loved this blanket. Now, this blanket has no monetary value. I don't think I could give this blanket away, let alone get any money for it. It is so raggedy and junky and old, but my love for it gave it value. It is valuable to me because I love it. I loved it so hard that it actually started falling apart. And when I was like 10, I think, 9 or 10, my grandma had to re-sew some patches on for me. And I remember thinking, but that's not the same. That's not my blanket. But then I finally realized a refurbished blanket is better than no blanket. So we went with it. But it was just, it's so raggedy. And you can still see the patches are coming off. There's holes in it. But I still loved it. And my love gave it value. This is God's love for us. We may be raggedy and broken and damaged and completely falling apart in need of repair. But his love gives us value. So we said that today's tough question is, does God love me? But I think the deeper question we're asking is, am I worthy of God's love? And the answer is no. We're not. You're not. I'm not. We are not worthy of God's love. But God doesn't love you because you're worthy. his love makes you worthy.

God's love is what makes you worthy. Romans 5 verse 8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were still sinners, not after we got our act together, not after we got cleaned up, while we were still sinners, before we ever could even think about receiving God's love and his salvation, Christ died for us. He loved us when we were, as a humanity, living in active rebellion against him. He still came and died for us. We were considered enemies of God before we received his salvation. Talk about being unworthy, being an enemy of God. But he loved us, that he demonstrated it for us by sending his son, and then he put his righteousness on us. His blood has covered us. So now that we have an accurate understanding of the type of love that we're actually talking about, Let's look closer at how we know that God loves us. We're in 1 John 4. This is kind of our verse for today. Starting in the second part of verse 8, it says, "God is love. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” God is love. It is part of his character. It is who he is. The love here, the word love could be capitalized. It could be a proper noun because it is who he is. He is love. And because he is love, he loves completely, fully, purely, unconditionally. He cannot be anything besides who he is. He cannot go against his own character. He cannot do anything that is not in his nature. And so, therefore, since he is love and that's who he is, we know that he loves us wholly and completely. But we don't just have to read the text and understand it intellectually. He modeled it. He demonstrated. He acted out that love by sending Jesus to die for us and atone for our sins. That is the ultimate act of love. God wouldn't have sent his only son and Jesus would not have willingly gone to the cross if they didn't love us.

This verse here in 1 John is such a powerful verse and one that we can hold on to and remember when we are struggling to believe that God loves us. But it's actually even more powerful when we remember who wrote it. Who wrote 1 John? Who wrote it? John, it wasn't a trick question. It was John. It was John. Yeah. John, not the Baptist, it was John the Apostle or John the disciple. This was one of Jesus's 12, his buddies, his closest followers. He was one of the founders of the early church, became an apostle. He wrote the book, the Gospel of John, 1 and 2 and 3 John, and Revelation. He was even one of Jesus's closest inner circle, one of his closest three with John's brother James and the Apostle Peter. But before all of this before he was any of that John and his brother James had a bit of a reputation they were fishermen. I imagine they were brash fishermen you know what they say about sailors and I find it interesting that Jesus actually gave them a nickname when he was calling the disciples. We see it in Mark 3:17. It says, “James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, to them he gave the name Bonerges, which means sons of thunder. Sons of thunder.” Sounds like a Marvel character or maybe like a Greek god or something. Sons of thunder. It actually kind of sounds cool. I don't know if Jesus meant it to sound cool. I don't know that that's what he was going for. And we don't actually fully know why Jesus gave them this nickname, but Jesus had a reason for everything he did. And he knows what goes on in a man's heart. So for whatever reason, he felt it was appropriate to give them the nickname Sons of Thunder. It was likely for their thunder-like qualities, their passion, their anger, their impetuosity, their fervency, which to be honest, that served them well later on down the road. that passion, that fervency, served them well as they were persecuted with the early church. But he had a reason. He had a reason to give them this name.

We actually see an example of this in Luke 9. Jesus and his disciples were headed into Jerusalem. So they sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village. And the Samaritans and the Jews did not get along. But they sent a messenger ahead to ask if they could get things ready for Jesus and the disciples to come. And John and James did not like that. It says in Luke 9, when the disciples, James and John saw this, they asked, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village. Jesus is like, whoa, slow down, sons of thunder. We're just gonna go to a different village. We don't need to smite them. We don't need to completely destroy them and call fire down. But they were ready to go to battle. And again, they were defending Jesus. I kind of think their heart was in the right place, but they were ready to rock. They were ready to throw down. John had a reputation of being thunderous. I imagine he was one who started fights and finished them. But then John started spending time with Jesus. Because Jesus loved John, John's identity started to change. Now, Jesus always loved John. Long before he was a disciple, long before he was a son of thunder, long before he was even born, Jesus loved John. And then once he started spending time with Jesus, John was able to see it. And he took on this new identity. John actually started calling himself by a different name. In the Gospel of John, we see three times where he called himself the beloved disciple or the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was no longer identifying as the son of thunder, but as the one Jesus loved.

That's how he chose to be identified. That's how he wanted to be remembered. No matter what has been said to you, no matter what names you've been called or identities that have been put on you, no matter what you've done, said, thought, you too are a child of God and you are the one Jesus loves. You are the one Jesus loves. The amazing thing about that is that Jesus or God didn't just sit up in heaven and shout down, Hey kid, I love you. Okay, bye. Good luck. He didn't stay distant. He came near. The Bible says that Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us. He came to earth to demonstrate, to show love in action. He doesn't love us because we're worthy. His love makes us worthy. And then by his love, our identity changes. That's how we know we are loved. Because when we encounter Jesus, we are changed. We are transformed. We are made new. We are given new identities. We're no longer identified by our sin, our brokenness, our trauma, our damage, our raggediness. We're identified as sons and daughters of the most high king. And in case you needed a little bit more proof, I have some. Perhaps you fall into a third group. We talked about two groups at the beginning, but maybe you fall into a third group that you believe that God loves you, but you're not sure if he actually likes you. Ever been there? You love someone, but you don't really like them right now. Maybe something they did or something they said, you're like, you are not my favorite person. Do we wonder that about God? Okay, God, you love me, you made me sure, but do you actually like me? I have some verses for you. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves you. He will take great delight in you. In his love, he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Psalm 18:19b says, "He rescued me because he delighted in me.” Psalm 149:4 says, "For the Lord takes delight in his people.” He delights in us. We are loved by a good father who also likes us. God is not going to delight in something he doesn't like. You don't rejoice with singing over something you don't like. His delight from these verses shows that he loves us and he likes us. He takes pleasure in his people, not because of anything we've done, but because he made us and we're his.

This week, our challenge for you is to meditate on the Zephaniah passage. Meditate on Zephaniah 3:17 every day on your card on the program. You can tear it off and mark that you're going to do that every day that you're going to meditate on this until you start believing it. Sometimes we just got to repeat it over and over. We got to preach scripture to ourselves. And the more we focus on the word and we meditate on scripture, the easier it will be for us to believe and to live like it. So I encourage you, commit to doing that this week. We can be confident that we are loved by God. My prayer for us is that we can be convinced of what Romans 8:38 says. “That neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You are loved deeply, wholly, completely, by a good God who made you, who gives you value, who makes you worthy by his love and who delights in you.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this truth. We thank you for these tough questions and the answers that your word has for them. May you use these answers and these questions to remind us of who you are, to grow our roots deeper, to make our faith stronger. God, you are so good and you are so faithful. You are not hiding from us. You are not distancing yourself from us. You want us to know you. You want us to have these answers. God, thank you for your love. Thank you that you like us, that you want a relationship with us. You are such a good, good father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Tough Questions: Part 4

Tough Questions: Part 4 - When God Feels Far Away

Psalm 16:8-9, 11; Psalm 88; Matthew 13:14-15; Jeremiah 29:13-14

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in our tough questions series, and so far we've covered questions like, why did God let it happen? What about hell? And why didn't God answer our prayers? I just want to ask, how many of you have had any of those questions before? Just raise a hand. Have any of you struggled with, there's no shame. Oh my goodness. Okay, there we go. I was like, there's no one raising their hand. I've definitely, yeah. A lot of these questions, at some point or another in our faith, in our walk with God, these questions have come up. And so I just hope our prayer is that God is reaching you and speaking truth into your life. And whether it's a question you're asking right now or maybe it's just one that you've had and you kind of had some resolve. And maybe this is just a nice reminder of God's truth and who he is. We just pray that you guys are being encouraged. And so we're going to continue today in that series. If you've grown up in the church, you've probably heard this phrase, God is always with you. God is always with you. I tell people this as a pastor. I tell my kids this. I want them to know God is always with you.

This comes from Psalm 16:8-9, 11, which says, “I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will rest secure because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful ones see decay. You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with your joy and your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” So just from the psalms we know that he is with us through thick and thin through joys and hardships he will be with us now until we join him in heaven but what if we don't feel that what if we don't feel God's presence every moment of every day maybe you've been in a season of life or a time in life where you just don't feel God's closeness his uh his love you don't feel much of anything from him. And maybe you've put effort to try and feel closer to God. Sometimes that kind of backfires and you feel even more estranged from him because the thing that you thought would bring you closer doesn't and it just sends you reeling. Maybe you've opened your Bible to read it but it doesn't really make sense or it's just not connecting with you and you're definitely not closer to God after that. Maybe you've been at church and everyone around you is singing during the worship time and their hands are raised and maybe even some tears are coming down their faith or their face with just how much they're connecting, but you're singing and you don't feel anything. Maybe you just feel numb. Maybe you've been praying, trying to connect and talk with God, but you hear nothing back. We talked a little bit about that last week. And you want to believe, you want to experience God's presence, but you just don't feel anything. If you've been there, if you've experienced this, or maybe you're in this right now, you know just how isolating, how depressing, how frustrating this can be. You've cried out only to hear echoes back. You've looked around to see evidence of God, to see nothing. And you start to feel so far away from him. And maybe the doubt starts to creep in. And maybe you're starting to think there's a distance between me and God, and I don't know if it can be overcome. If you felt that before, if you're feeling that right now in this point in your life, you're not alone. I said this last week. I want to say it again. You are not alone in how you're feeling in your relationship with God.

We're going to read Psalm 88. But before you do that, let me just pray. Let me pray one more time for us. Bow your heads. God, I pray, Lord, through the preaching of your word, that your spirit would comfort us, would reach us. and maybe we're in a good place right now in life and so this is just going to be helping us spread deeper roots of faith to know that when that tough time comes lord we we know the truth and we can be reminded of your presence but maybe we're in it right now and so god i pray that again through your word and through your spirit you would reach people and that they would know that you are there with them and that through a time together as a church through the preaching of your word through worshiping, through song, through fellowship around a table, we pray that we would feel and experience your presence, God. So we give this morning to you. We pray this in your name. Amen. If you've been with us long enough and you've heard us preach out of the Psalms, you know that we love mentioning the Psalms as our go-to book for relating with emotions. It's a very, it's got all the human emotions in it, the good, the bad. There is a Psalm for how you are feeling. And sure enough, if you're feeling like God is far away, there is a psalm for that too. There are psalms for times of consolation and desolation. Consolation times where we're moving closer to God and times of desolation where we feel like we're moving away from God. So I want to read Psalm 88. And it says it's a song from the sons of Korah. And if you ever see that title above a psalm that you're reading, you can just know this is going to be a darker, sadder psalm. The sons of Korah wrote sad songs. We all know those bands today that only write like sad, emotional, emo songs. That's the sons of Korah. So if you read that and you just are like, oh, is this going to be happy? And you see that title. No, it's not going to be happy. Get ready for tears and anguish. All right.

Psalm 88 says this, "Lord, you are the God who saves me. Day and night I cry out to you. May my prayer come before you. Turn your ear to my cry. I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death. I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am like one without strength. I am set apart with the dead like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken me from my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape. My eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, Lord, every day. I spread out my hands to you. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do their spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave your faithfulness and destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion? But I cry to you for help, Lord. In the morning, my prayer comes before you. Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my youth, I have suffered and been close to death. I have borne your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me. Your terrors have destroyed me. All day long, they surround me like a flood. They have completely engulfed me. You have taken me from my friend and neighbor. Darkness is my closest friend.”

Do you feel the anguish and the pain i mean can you hear the author the author fighting back the sense of betrayal he's sharing with god his fears of being abandoned i just want to go section by section through this chapter in verses one through eight we see the author pleading over and over again and like i said last week repetition in the old testament is key to understanding the heart of the person writing it. So just, he's trying to convey, this is all that's on my mind. This is it, God. And he seems to convey that he's holding God responsible for everything that he's going through. All the pain, all the hardship. But he also conveys that God is the only one who can deliver them. Have you ever had similar thoughts? God, why are you doing this to me? Please save me. Like, God, you're responsible. This is your fault. But also, I'm looking to you for the answer. And I think I love that because I think we've all said that at some point. And it's just an honest line to God. We don't understand. We're kind of blaming him. But we're also acknowledging that he is God. He's the one that can do something about it. Verse 5 sticks out as this theme in the Old Testament. I am set apart from the dead like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. and it's this idea of not being in God's presence the author is saying your presence would be the answer to be in your presence would bring me peace would be life-giving would help me feel full and without your presence life feels hellish it's terrible it's a place of suffering and so that's this theme throughout the old testament but also throughout the bible of we want to be in God's presence. And there's no middle ground. It's not like, hey, over there is not God's presence and that's really bad. And over there is God's presence and it's better. And I'm just in the middle and life is fine. No, we want to be in life's presence. And the farther away we are from him, the worse it gets. And so all this descriptive language, I'm thrown into a pit. Another theme in the Old Testament of near death, being in the ground. That's the language that the Old Testament is using of being in the ground means I'm feeling like I'm buried. Going back to the being cast out of God's presence, that makes us think of Adam and Eve, the first to be cast out of God's presence. After sin, and what sin did to the relationship between humanity and God, they could no longer dwell in Eden where God's presence was, and So they had to leave. And again, there's this pattern throughout the Old Testament of those who disobeyed, who rebelled, were no longer able to be in God's presence. We'll come back to that more later.

Verses 9 through 12, we see that the pleading continues. And in verse 10, I mean, this just shows just how sad and struggling he is that there's not even hope in death because God isn't present there. In a way, they're saying they're as good as dead. And the author rattles off these questions in 10 through 12. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do the spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness and destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion? These are all rhetorical questions saying, God, you're not there. You're not in death. But I feel like I'm in there right now. I feel like I'm dead because I don't get anything. And I'm not able to respond in the way that I want to. to you. And he's appealing to God's character and reputation. And he's saying, I want to declare your wonders. I want to sing your praises. So God, help me out. The psalmist is trying to appeal to the God of life and saying, please undo this. Make me feel alive again so I can praise you like I was created to.

Then in 13 through 18 there's there's more pleading verse 14 why lord do you reject me and hide your face from me he's accusing Yahweh of afflicting him through neglect that's another theme that the Israelites would have that phrase of hide your face is again when God looks on us there's these phrases in the old old testament that repeat over and over again God looked on him with favor he faith his face shining upon him was a blessing and so to hide God's face meant rejection and God couldn't dare look we kind of have that we have a similar phrase today right I couldn't dare look upon you I couldn't I can't look I can't bear to see which again just conveys that it's so bad and I just can't I can't acknowledge that And so the author's crying out, God, you're not looking at me. I just want to see your face. He sees himself helpless and overwhelmed before God.

And then in 18, the psalmist ends with this bleak note of loneliness. You have taken me from friend and neighbor. Darkness is my closest friend. Just the loneliness, the feeling of abandonment. when we feel far from god this is where the enemy loves to come in and start to do his work the enemy loves for us to be isolated wants us to feel alone wants us to not look for community to reach out just wants us to kind of disappear and say yeah no one cares you're in such a bad place that nothing can help you no one can help you and so the psalmist is saying i feel like god you're my last hope and i don't even think you're going to help me now unlike other psalms this one doesn't end with a praise to god we've seen in other sad psalms that there's all this sadness and at the very end it's like but god praise you for you are good and i know you love me and you're so steadfast and it kind of always ends on this uptick of like but i know you're going to figure it out and i'll be okay this one doesn't it just ends right there with God, I'm lonely. And I think that's also, I think the other Psalms are helpful to know that like, hey, we should end by praising God. But I think this also just validates that we can have seasons of feeling at our absolute lowest and just bring that before God and just leave it there and say, God, this is where I'm at. This is what I'm feeling. It emphasizes just how frustrating and scary and devastating it feels like to have God not there with us. Now you may be wondering, does this venting and this psalm and how much the psalmist is accusing God, is that worship God? Is that okay? Can we have that in the Bible?

And I want to quote this theologian. He says, “Psalms such as this one, despite being accusatory of Yahweh, actually express faith in him by directing concerns to him. The accusations of Yahweh do not necessarily accurately depict Yahweh's character or his actual role in the psalmist's life. Instead, they express the emotion of the psalmist toward Yahweh. In this regard, psalms like this one show that Yahweh is willing to listen to any and all prayers directed faithfully to him.” I take such great comfort in that thought, that God is listening. We don't have to have a polished, I praise you, God, at the end. That's great. If our hearts are there, by all means, we should. But he will also listen if we're just coming before him saying, God, this is what I have right now. This is where I'm at. I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to even talk to you because I'm so frustrated and lonely and scared. And I love that God listens. God hears you and is listening always and faithfully. I know sometimes in our anger and in our hurt, we can say things that are more hyperbolic. We can use some exaggeration. I know I've been guilty of this. Sometimes in my lowest moments, if I'm arguing with a wonderful wife, I will say words like always and never that are not good to say in arguments, but I'm just feeling that frustration. And I'm like, you always or you never. And that's not good. That's not accurate, but I'm just wound up with emotion and I'm feeling hurt. And I think that is what's here. Again, this psalm, just because it's in the Bible, doesn't mean that, oh, this is how God is. God abandons us. God, no, this is just the author saying, God, this is how I'm feeling. This is just where I'm at, thinking of you and almost kind of like, please prove me wrong. Please show me that you are good, that you are faithful.

So this psalm validates and shows that there are times where we don't feel close to God. And David isn't alone in this feeling. Or David, he writes other psalms like this, the sons of Korah. Israel as a nation has felt moments like this where they have not felt close to God. We'll get to some of the reasons why. Paul had moments where he didn't feel close to God, wondering where God was. Adam and Eve, like I mentioned, they were once who said, God, where are you in the midst of this? You can go through the entire scripture and find moments where people who are known for being, the relationship with God was so tight, had moments, had seasons of, God, I'm just feeling far away from you. And even Jesus on the cross as Father, Father, why have you forsaken me? That distance that he felt in that moment from God. So I want to look at some scriptural reasons as to why we don't always feel close to God. I think there's three possible reasons that we see from Scripture.

The first is, maybe you're over-sensationalizing God's presence. Maybe you're over-sensationalizing God's presence. Jesus said, even in John 6:30, some people are always looking for a sign. And so maybe you've had in your life some experience with God that was really good. You felt his presence, and now you're just chasing that exact feeling forever. And anything less than that or anything different feels like it wasn't as close to God. And maybe you did. Like we at youth ministry, we often talk about the mountain high experience, right? The mountaintop experience where at camp, you feel close to God. You're worshiping every day. You're hearing God's word. And then after that, you come back down from the mountain. You come back to real life and you just don't feel as close. Now, the reality is you may be close. You may be reading God's word every day. You may be praying. It just doesn't feel the same. and then we can compare and say, but God, I'm not close to you. And he's like, I'm right here with you. We're talking every day. It's just not up here in the mountain. It's back here in the normal. So maybe you're over sensationalizing God's presence. You're chasing experience that you've had before. Maybe you're frustrated because you're in a moment where your expectations have set the bar up here and saying, I've heard of someone else. This is what it means to be close to God. So again, anything less than that just feels like, nope, not feeling God's presence. Maybe there's moments where you've thought you've ruined a spiritual moment god's presence and work can still be true even if you get distracted in something that's happening or maybe you were the cause of the distraction.

I remember a time I went to a christian college and I was a resident assistant for a year and we had an RA we had training and it was orientation we all got prepped. We were there for a week. And it was like the day before students were coming and they had this ceremony and we were going to have this commissioning time for us RAs. There was a time of prayer and it was in this auditorium. I sat right in the middle with my RAs right in the middle. This is embarrassing to say. I got the giggles and I just couldn't stop laughing and snickering in this. I don't even know what I was laughing at, but that person up there was trying their best to have this very spiritual, like, hands up, and they're praying, and I just, like, I lost it. And then I laughed, and I laughed, and some people around me were, like, all, because laughter is infectious, and they were all laughing, too. And then it got past the point of funny, and I just kept laughing, and then they got annoyed, and they're, like, dude, get a hold of yourself. And I was ruining this spiritual moment. And I look back, I'm, like, well, God, it's not like I scared God away and he was no longer there because I started laughing. He's still there. He's still doing his work. And so sometimes we can feel like, oh, I ruined something and God's presence is no longer there. And really that's probably just us feeling something when the truth is God is still there. He's still with us. It just took a different tone and so be it. God's work is still being done. His presence is still there. The reality is feelings aren't the only evidence of God's presence in our lives. That's the point here. If we're not feeling it, that doesn't mean that it's not true. If we always felt God's presence, there wouldn't be really a need for faith, right? We just know. In some sense that we have, we just know he's always there. Then we'd be like, yeah, he's either here or he's not. But faith, this is part of our faith that we need is to, even when we don't feel it, we can know and believe and trust that God's presence is with us and that he is walking step-by-step with us every day.

Number two, so first, maybe you're over sensationalizing God's presence. Number two, maybe your heart has hardened. Matthew 13:14 says, “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah. You will be ever hearing, but never understanding. You will be ever seeing, but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.” Sometimes, we harden our hearts or our hearts become hardened through whatever circumstances, and we can just no longer hear and sense God and what he's trying to do through his spirit. Maybe someone hurt you, and that bitterness and that lack of forgiveness has hardened your heart. And even though God wasn't the one that hurt you, it was someone else. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. Our relationships with other people matter to God and affect our relationship with God. So maybe someone hurt you and you've closed your heart. Maybe your world got flipped upside down and you're just feeling the craziness of the world and you close your heart. You become embittered and hard-hearted. But the number one cause of a hardened heart is ongoing sin. either that you are committing or like i said the bitterness and callousness that comes from not forgiving someone who is sinning against you pastor Craig Groeschel puts it this way when it's cold outside we bundle up right you get layers on get your coat get your gloves maybe scarf some boots maybe a little beanie you get all bundled up and you're covered in clothes you can't feel the cold. Well, when we are covered in sin, it's very hard to feel God. That sin acts as a barrier to what the Spirit is trying to reach, how the Spirit is trying to reach us, talk to us, speak to us. And all that sin makes it so hard for us to feel God's presence, to sense God's presence, to hear him speak. And so this might be a reason that you are not feeling close to God is that you have some sin that needs to be resolved, that needs to be brought before God, that needs to be worked on.

Number three, maybe God wants to draw you closer to him. Acts 17:26 says, “From one man he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth. And he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far away from any of us.” That was Paul preaching to Athens, which is this epicenter of culture and different peoples. And it's that phrase in that verse that says, perhaps they would reach out for him and find him, though he is not far away. God did this so that they would seek him. Sometimes the challenges in our life are there as an opportunity for us to grow closer to God, to take a step closer to God. Oftentimes we think of challenges and hardships as being done to us, and we're just afflicted, and that may be the case. But it's also an opportunity for us to take a step closer to him in faith and say, God, I need you even more now. Have you ever noticed that challenges, hard times, suffering can produce the best from you? It's hard by all means. It is so difficult. But when you get through it and you look back, you can say, have you ever had that experience? We're like, man, I kind of stepped up. That was awesome that I handled it better than I thought. That I've learned something from that. I think one of the truths about that too is that comfort, ease, and prosperity can produce our worst. When we just get comfortable, when we feel like we can just go without even thinking about it, that's often when we're not taking steps closer to God. We're just kind of an autopilot. And we're just neutral. And really, there's no neutral when it comes to our relationship with God. We are either moving closer or we're moving, drifting away. so maybe this distance that we feel from god is an invitation to take a step closer to him sometimes challenges and hard times and suffering can produce the best

I think one of the examples that comes to mind it's one of my favorite movies which is remember the titans and you guys seen remember the titans there will be spoilers first it's a true story second the movie came out in like 2002. I don't know. It's amazing. You should watch it. It's one of my favorite sports movies. And this idea of hard times and suffering and challenges producing the best. And so that school in the South dealing with racial diversity and segregation, they have to work through it and they come together and they go undefeated. And it's amazing. And it brings unity to the team, to the town. And so I think we can think of something similar in our lives that sometimes it's the hardest things that produce something so good. Out of deprivation can draw out desire in us. God wants to be pursued and loved and desired.

Jeremiah 29 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all nations and places where I have banished you, declares the Lord. I will bring you back to the place for which I carried you into exile." That's rough to see that this is God saying, I did this to you, knowing that I was going to draw you back. And so there's times where it may be true. God, why did you do this? Maybe he really did do it. And it's really so that we could respond in a way that says, God, I'm taking a step closer to you. Just because God feels distant doesn't mean he is absent. Just because you don't feel him doesn't mean he's not there. Don't believe everything you feel because feelings aren't facts. And so sometimes you'll need to get out of your feelings and rely on your faith, rely on the truth and say, all right, God, I don't have a clue of where you are. I haven't heard from you in a long time, but I still believe, please help me. I'm reaching out to you.

I got three steps to take to move closer to God. If you're struggling, or if you want to just log these away for a future time where you come to this place, but here are three things that'll help you move closer to God. The first is, and it's very obvious, pray. Don't stop talking to God. Don't stop. Oftentimes, it's one of the first things to go is we kind of just start withdrawing. God, you're not there. Well, I'm also not going to be here. And we step out of that relationship. And I'm trying to encourage, I want to encourage you, no, keep talking to him. Even if it just feels like echoes, there's nothing back. Keep talking with God. Sometimes I pray, and feel free to take this. I just pray for me to see what God is doing so I can just know, it doesn't have to be in my own life. Just God, help me see what you're doing in the lives of people around me. Give me a sign somewhere that you are at work just so I can praise you. All right, okay, that was clearly you. You are still here. It's okay to ask God for these things as evidence of his presence.

Number two is to fast. I know you guys love this one, so we all do it, right? All of us are fasting? Yeah, for sure. Our spiritual and mental and physical aspects of our body are all a part of who God created us to be. And so sometimes we need that physical deprivation to be more sensitive and attuned to what God is doing in our hearts and to sense his presence in our lives. Author and pastor John Mark Comer says, In fasting, you are literally praying with all your body, amplifying your prayers, increasing your capacity to both hear and be heard by God. So if you are serious about God, I haven't sensed you, I need to hear from you, maybe it's time to take a fast and say, I'm going to fast for a whole day, 24 hours, and I'm going to be listening to God. I'm going to be praying to him. I'm going to wait patiently and intentionally for him to respond to me.

The third one is to continue in community. Like I mentioned before, so often isolation is something that we go to when we're not feeling God's presence. We just kind of, we also just leave. And I think that is the work of Satan that he loves to get us alone. And so opposite of that is to continue in community. There is no shame in not feeling as close to God. I think we can feel that shame. And we can see people worshiping with their hands raised and be like, oh, I'm not there. That's not me. And all of a sudden we just like, we send some distance. Like, I'm not as Christian or I'm not as holy or I'm not as, no, there's no shame in wherever you're at with God. That is something to be shared. That is something to put that burden on us as a church family to say, help me, man, I'm not feeling it, but you guys are. I want to be around you. Continue in community, share your life with people that care about you, that love you no matter what. So I want you to pull out your programs right now if you have them. There's an action step on there. And I listed all three. This week, what are you going to do? Are you going to choose to pray? Are you going to choose to fast? Can't wait to see those. Yeah, fast. Everyone choose fast. Let's all fast together. Are you going to continue to community? I think I put in there something like, I'm going to connect with someone. I want you to mark something down if you feel led. I'm feeling distance from God. And so here's the step I'm going to take to move closer to God. I'm not going to drift away. I'm not going to take steps back. I'm going to move closer to him in some way, shape, or form. Maybe you threw one of those three. And if that's you, go ahead and put your name on that. Mark that off. And at the end, you can drop it in the bucket. And we want to pray for you this week as you do that. I want to end with this. It's a liturgy, kind of a prayer. And I've been really, in the last couple of years, I've really enjoyed and appreciated these liturgies because I think in times in my life where I don't know what to pray, the words from this give words to my feelings and my circumstances. And maybe I'm just too tired or too grieved and I just don't know what to say. And I can read this liturgy and say, yes, God, this is exactly how I'm feeling. And so I wanna read one to you as our prayer at the end. It's from this book called Every Moment Holy written by Heidi Johnston. And if it helps right now, I would just encourage you guys, This will be our ending prayer.

So you guys can close your eyes and just hear this as a prayer over us today. It says this. Jehovah Shalom, God of our peace. You promised that our burden would be light. Yet here I am, shoulders bent under the weight of a silence that is long and heavy. I call to you and wait and hear no answer. I cry to you, but do not hear your voice. Untethered, I feel the loss, not of you alone, but also of myself and who I am in you. I recall with longing days when the waters parted at your command and you carried me father-like into your presence. When your loving kindness was the whisper that revived my weary soul. When your presence was the pillar that marked my path by day. and your voice the flame that banished darkness and kindled my song in the night. Oh God, my God, where is your comfort now? Why has your voice stilled? Have I wavered or wandered from your path? Has my heart been drawn away? Search me, oh God, and find within me any pride that caused me to stand at a distance, even as I mourn your absence. Any sin that brings dishonor to your name, grieving your spirit and robbing me of the intimacy I so crave or so long to crave. Rid that from me. If my gaze has drifted, help me trust your grace and look you in the eye once more. God, if this distance is instead a hidden blessing, then let me be found faithful. If in this season of loneliness, your silence simply offers me a chance to do what will never be asked of me again in all of eternity to come, to trust without sight, believing that time will vindicate my hope and prove you ever constant, then give me the courage to stand. Trusting that these lines I throw out are not cast into emptiness, but passing through the veil have taken hold of things eternal. Give me boldness now, even as doubt crouches at my door, that I may choose to anchor my heart, not in the ebb and flow of feelings, but in what I know to be true, that your word can be trusted, that your promises unbroken in all of history remain constant for me, that you are still who you have shown yourself to be, unchanging in holiness, extravagant in grace, relentless in love. Could it be that even now within this darkness, you are shaping and preparing me, deepening my trust and forming within me a richness of love or a truer humility, which will one day be used in your kingdom or for your glory in ways I cannot yet understand. If so, then fix my eyes on what for now is hidden from my view. Hold my soul fast, O God of my salvation, that I may praise you even here within the silence, for you are my rock and my redeemer, my stronghold, and the sustainer of my faith.

God, that is our prayer this morning, that if we are in that time right now, feeling lost, that we would cling to you. And God, we beg, we pray, we plead for your presence in our lives. Meet us this week, God. Show up for us this week. Open our eyes to what you are doing so that we can praise you. and we can have more faith in you. God, thank you for our time this morning. Thank you for the people around us that love us, that care for us. And thank you for the opportunity to have a meal together. We pray a blessing over the food in our time together as a church family. We love you and we pray this in your son's name. Amen.

Tough Questions: Part 3

Tough Questions: Part 3 - Why Didn’t God Answer My Prayer?

John 14:13-14, Mark 11:24-25, Matt. 5:23-24, 1 Peter 3:7

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in our series, Tough Questions. And so far, it's been tough question after tough question. And I'm really enjoying it because we say this every week. But these are questions that I really do think we have all wrestled with, struggled with. Maybe still we have this question lingering in the back of our minds. And so I love that we are creating time in our service, in our church life, to cover these things together. And so I want to ask you this morning a tough question. Have you ever felt like you have had a prayer go unanswered? Have you ever felt like in your life, however long you've been walking with Jesus, and however long you've been talking with him, have you ever felt like you've had a prayer go unanswered? This part of our faith can be confusing at times. Praying and not getting an answer. It can be a place of doubt, of insecurity. It can be confusing because we read in the Bible stories where God answers prayer. We read stories like Joshua in Joshua 10, who's battling the enemies that God has called him to battle, and it's not going well, but Joshua knows, hey, if I just get a little bit more daytime, I can finish this battle. And so God, he prays to God, and God holds the sun still for hours, letting them continue to battle so that they can get the victory. And we read that. We're like, okay, God, you do miraculous things. You have done insane. You've answered prayer in amazing ways. And then we pray for good weather on a trip, and it just rains the whole time. We're like, all right, God, you did it then.

How come you didn't do it for me? We read stories like 1 Kings 18, where Elijah prays to God and asks for fire to come down to an altar that he's built when he's going up against the false prophets of Baal. And their altar, nothing happens, but God sends fire down. And he answers this prayer, again, in amazing ways. And so we know that God does that. But when we pray, maybe for finances and a promotion, because we're struggling with paying our bills, nothing comes. The promotion doesn't happen. and month after month, bills are starting to pile up. Or maybe we pray for that friend of ours and their marriage because we know it's a bit rocky. And we're praying for them. We're praying, God, can you keep them together? But in the end, they actually get divorced, and it's very sad. And we're like, God, how come you didn't answer that prayer? We read stories in the Bible like Daniel facing the lion's den and being thrown into the pit with lions, starving lions, who would have devoured anything, but by a miracle in Daniel's prayer, he survives, he spends a whole night in there without being touched by any of the lions. So we know that God answers that. There's power in praying. But when we pray, maybe for someone that we know, for healing, for a miracle, the cancer is still there and takes that person away from us. The medical intervention wasn't enough. And we're left wondering, God, why didn't you answer my prayer? Why didn't God answer my prayer?

That's our tough question this morning. We know, again, that prayer is an important part of our relationship with God. We know that prayer is powerful, but it can also be confusing at times. Maybe you've prayed out. Maybe you've been praying for days, weeks, years, the same prayer request over and over to God. I think we've all been in that situation. And I find it comforting to know that I'm not alone in feeling that. I find it even more comforting to know that the very one who God called a man after my own heart, David, felt similar things. David was a king in the Old Testament, wrote some very important scripture. And so if you want to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 13, we're going to be there this morning. We had our family movie night last month, and we watched the movie, David. and I loved, I hadn't seen it before. I love the tension. It's an animated movie. I recommend it to all of you. It's great. But there's some tension when David is anointed king by Samuel, but Saul is still king. And so David knows, okay, God wants me to be king, but I'm not the king yet. And he, David goes and serves Saul. And so there's this tension there. And Saul knows that David is favored by God and Saul becomes paranoid. Doesn't like that there's this king. He can tell from God has moved from him to David, and David has to run from Saul because Saul wants to kill David. And there's a time in David's life where he's running for his life, Saul and his army out to kill him. And there's a point where David is hiding in a cave, desperate, alone, frustrated, trying to make sense of everything that's happening. Because what is happening doesn't seem to line up with what God told him. And in that pain and isolation, maybe fighting a sense of betrayal, David writes. He writes Psalms. And I love that through his words, he's able to articulate so many of the feelings that we still have today when it comes to our desires and what God has in store.

So let's go ahead and read Psalm 13. It says this, “How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart. How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me, God. Answer, Lord, my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death. And my enemy will say, I have overcome him, and my foes will rejoice when I fall.” We'll pause right there. Maybe you've prayed something similar to God in your time. Verses one and two, David prays over and over again, how long, oh Lord? Nowhere in the Old Testament is this question asked with such emotion and urgency than right here. Repetition is huge in the Old Testament. So when you see things repeated, it's trying, the author's trying to say, hey, I'm getting your attention right now. This is important. And David asked four times in a row. How long? How long? You can almost read it with the energy and the more frustration that he's getting along the way. How long, God? And then in verses three through four, David is begging God to answer him, asking for deliverance from death, from his enemies, asking God to do anything. I brought this, I brought us to this passage this morning, and it doesn't answer our question yet, but I think it gives validation and credit to our feelings that we may have at times in life when we're praying over and over again, and we feel like God hasn't answered us. And if you felt that, again, you are not alone. I think many of us in this room have felt that, and David has felt that. All right, this is the part of our series where we're creating and allowing space to ask hard questions, to voice our doubts and struggles. There's that misnomer that if you have faith, you cannot ask questions or feel any frustration towards God. Well, this psalm shows that you can, and it's good to let God know how you feel. And as Pastor Lauren and Pastor Chris have said, our doubts and struggles can actually draw us closer to God. And for David, it did. It brought him closer to God in his darkest, most challenging moments. So again, I'll say prayer is powerful, and it can also be confusing. We know that it's powerful because Jesus says in John 14:13-14, says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” So from Jesus, pretty straightforward. He's saying, hey, just ask me, and I will answer you. I will do it. so what happens when we ask God and what we prayed for doesn't happen what's going on is is God not listening. Is God mad at me? Does God not care? Is He busy somewhere? Else why didn't god answer my prayer?

Well in order to answer that question we need to understand two things. First is the nature of God and then is the purpose of prayer in regards to the nature of God. Let me take a moment to just give a gentle but firm reminder to all of us in the room. You guys ready for this reminder? You are not the main character of the story. Some of us need to hear it. Some of us know that, but some of us need to hear it. You are not the main character of the story. That would be God. And God doesn't exist to serve us. We exist to serve him. We have to understand that as we pray and that affects our prayers, the nature of God. God doesn't exist to serve us. We exist to serve him. And so with that understanding of the nature of God, then comes the purpose of prayer. And Pastor Craig Groeschel puts it this way. And I completely, I just love how he says it. So I'll just quote it. It says, “The purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. The purpose of prayer is to know God so that we can do his will.” I'll read that again. “The purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. The purpose of prayer is to know God so that we can do His will.” God isn't a spiritual Santa Claus. If we're just a good boy or a good girl, and then at the end we'll just get what we want. And he's going to check the list and be like, oh, you've been good enough. I'll answer your prayers. Oh, but you swore a couple times and you lied, so nope, not answering your prayers. Not how it works. Not how Jesus, it's not how he does things. He isn't a drive-through either. We can just go through life and pull up and say, hey, I'd like this, this, and this. And then we drive through and God gives us what we want and we just go on with our lives. Not how God works. God is not a button to be pushed. He's a relationship to be pursued.

The purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. The purpose of prayer is to know God so we can do his will. But Pastor Andrei, Jesus says in John, You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. So why can't I just ask for stuff, maybe good stuff even, and expect God to give me what I want? Well, here's my second reminder, right? So you're not the main character. Love you guys. You're not the main character. Second reminder, it can be dangerous to just pluck a verse out of Scripture and just come to a theological conclusion that that is exactly how it works all the time. We need to use Scripture to understand Scripture. So there's other Scriptures in here that we're going to cover right now that explain a bit of how the relationship with prayer and our relationship with God works. Four possible reasons why God didn't answer my prayer. The first one is maybe you have a broken relationship in life. Maybe you have a broken relationship in life. Mark 11, this is where Jesus is talking to the disciples to have faith in God. He says, if you have enough faith, you can throw a mountain into the sea if you have enough faith. And then he says in chapter 11:24-25, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” And then this part, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” So Jesus seems to be saying that our relationships with other people matter. And this makes sense, right? If you're a parent, you've got kids, and your kids are being mean to each other. They're hitting each other. They're just being terrible to each other, right? And then later that night, they ask you, hey, can I go over to that friend's house? Can I stay up late to watch that movie? Well, you're going to say, no. Look at who you've been today. Look at you. Your sister's mad. They're hurt by you. Your brother, that broken relationship matters, right, into what they want. And so likewise, our relationship with others impacts our relationship with God.

Matthew 5:23-24 says, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar to God, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them. Then come and offer your gift to God.” Again, our relationships with others impact our relationship with God. And God may be wanting you to do something about a relationship that isn't where it should be in life. 1 Peter 3:7 says, "Husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner.” I'll get to that in a second. And as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. Talking about strength there, okay? Just the general, that men are usually stronger than the women. That's a separate sermon, but that's what he's talking about. But the author of 1 Peter is saying, practice love and consideration, else your relationship with God, if it's not good between your spouse, your relationship with God isn't going to be where it should be either. So the first reason that if you're praying and you felt like God hasn't answered your prayer, maybe the first filter to think through is maybe you have a broken relationship in life and God is trying to get your attention, wanting you to restore, to reconcile, to forgive. Secondly, maybe you have the wrong motives.

Matthew 6:5, Jesus is instructing people on how to pray. He says, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full." He's talking about the Pharisees there, and they had this habit of making a scene and a spectacle out of their prayer times. They'd be out in public, they'd say these long, elaborate prayers just so that people would think they're so holy. And she's just saying, look, the motive in praying has got nothing to do with my will and aligning their hearts with what I'm doing. They just want all this attention, that selfishness that they have to be seen in a certain way. Similarly, today, maybe we have prayers that are selfish. We just want God. We treat them like that button, that drive-through. We're like, God, come on, I just need some stuff in life. We can pray, God, I have this business or whatever I'm doing. I pray that you would make me successful. Bring me more of that financial stability. But maybe we're not even tithing. We're not honoring him and have a relationship with him and obeying him in a way that we're called to. We want glory. We want attention. We want money. We're treating God like that, but not pursuing him like the relationship that he wants to have with us. So maybe you've got a broken relationship. Maybe you have wrong motives.

Thirdly, maybe you don't believe that God will do it. Let's take a look at Mark 9. Mark 9 is the story of a father who brings his son to Jesus, and his son has been demon-possessed. And just an absolute tragic story of a boy who's grown up with this demon, and this demon has tried to kill him multiple times by throwing him into fire, throwing him into water. And the father had brought the boy to the disciples. The disciples couldn't cast out the demon. It's a separate question of where their faith was at. But we get this conversation in Mark 9:22. “And Jesus asked the boy's father, how long has he been like this? From childhood, he answered. It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” And note this from Jesus, if you can. Some gentle rebuke right there from Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes. Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.” The more I read this this week, the more I related with that father. And not in a good way necessarily, but in a very human way. I think when we read this story, we're quick to go to that end sentence that the Father has. But help me in my unbelief, which is a good prayer. We want to have that. But we forget that first part where he says, if you can, Jesus. Doubting Jesus and who he is. Can Jesus really do it is what he's saying to Jesus. I don't know if you can. If you can. And I'm sure we can relate to this father who's desperate at this point in life, right? Having this boy who's been tormented, but his faith comes into question. And Jesus is redirecting the conversation from the question of his ability to the need for faith, right? And we believe in God, not just because of what he does, but because of who he is. So this line from this dad is real. It's an admittance of lack of faith and a genuine desire for more.

I spent this summer I spent a summer, not this past summer this was many years ago, I spent a summer in the Philippines for missions work and I was brought to this place called Smoky Mountain and it's just outside Manila Manila is the main city there and Smoky Mountain for 50 years was the city's main dump and it's all the trash and it houses 30,000 people that live in this dump and I cannot tell you how, I cannot emphasize enough just how poverty stricken world this place is. And it's called Smoky Mountain because of all the trash that's been dumped there. There's random fires that are just always going off, all the waste and the materials there. And also the main way for those people to make money is to sell charcoal. So they're always burning stuff, bagging it up, trying to sell it. Well, when I was with the church that I was interning for, they took me for a day to take a tour of Smoky Mountain to kind of show the humanitarian work that was being done. And it was shocking. Like it was absolutely shocking the filth that these little kids were just living in, walking around in every day. And this guy took me up to a boy who couldn't walk. And he said, hey, could you pray for him? Could you heal? Maybe God will heal him if you pray for him. And immediately I had doubts. And there's a part of me that's a shame to admit this, but I didn't believe that my prayer was going to make a difference in this boy's life. I prayed, the man translated, nothing happened. Day just continued. Said God bless and just kept on with the tour. I don't know what God's will was in that moment. I don't think it was completely up to me and my faith because I believe that God can do anything. If God wants that boy to be healed and walk again, he'll make that happen, whether with my time there or with someone else. but I do know that I didn't believe I had a huge lack of faith in that moment and I felt guilt even as I was praying I could hear my inner voice saying this isn't going to do anything and when I said amen and I looked up that inner voice also said see see you knew the whole time and it's this mixture of insecurity on my part and self-doubt and but ultimately I was just doubting God. And I did not believe in that moment. I had a serious lack of faith. But like I said, it's not just on me. I don't necessarily mean that faith guarantees answered prayer. If I had just had more faith, God would have healed. I don't know.

But what scripture does tell us is that faith matters in our prayers. Matthew 9:22 is the woman who was bleeding for 12 years and touches the hem of Jesus' garment. And he turns to her and says, your faith has healed you. Luke 7:50 is the immoral woman. And Jesus says, your faith has saved you. And there's an interaction with two blind men. And Jesus said, do you believe? And they said, yes. And Jesus says, according to your faith, let it be done to you. And their sight was restored. It's in Matthew 9. So your faith matters. I'm not talking about the prosperity gospel here where you name it and claim it. This isn't saying that however much faith you have equals how much you're going to be healed or how much your prayers are answered. It's not some kind of equation that I can give you. But what I can say is that your faith matters when you pray. We need to believe that God can do what we're asking him to do. And we can even expect God, please do this. I would love for you to do this. Understanding that if it's his will, he'll do it. But we can't determine what God's will is for him. And this is key. If he does it, if he answers our prayers, we worship him. And we say, God, thank you. You deserve all the praise. That was all you. And if he doesn't answer our prayer, we worship him. We say, God, you are good. And I love you. And I need you. so this is a reminder for us to look in our hearts and to ask do we actually believe that god can do what we're asking him to do now you may be sitting there and saying okay my relationships are good my motives are right and i have faith god still hasn't answered my prayer for the fourth is this maybe god has something different this is kind of a catch-all right this is everything else that we put into this category of God's timing, God's will, how he's going to answer our prayer.

Maybe he's saying, no, all of that can just fall under this. Maybe God has something different. 1 John 5 says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him.” Maybe he has something different for us. Maybe his plans and the way in which he'll meet our needs is just different than how we drew it up in our minds. And it's that line, according to his will. Either way, whether it's how we did it or maybe it's a different way that he's addressing it, we can be assured of his involvement in our lives, that he hears us. He hears our prayers. Paul knew this and lived according to this. So Apostle Paul, he writes, references a couple times in his epistles, a thorn in my side, a thorn in my flesh, this thing that bothered him over and over again in life that he asked God to remove. He said, God, can you just take this away? Some theologians have guessed at what that was. Maybe it was an eye problem. Maybe you couldn't see really well. Some have said it was malaria or migraines, epilepsy, speech disability. He said that he was not the smoothest order. Or maybe it was just another person in life that was a situation that was toxic. He says he pleaded with God for three seasons, three times. He preached the gospel for 30 years in major cities around the Mediterranean. He was shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, imprisoned. He wrote a third of the New Testament. And he prayed three different times, God, can you take this away from me? And I don't think it was just like there was a Tuesday back in that year that I prayed once and then two years later. I think it was like seasons of prayer of something on his heart, and he's just over and over again laying it before God, and then maybe coming to a place of contentment, and then another season of his life, he's like, no, God, please, can you take this away? And Paul, God doesn't take it away. But Paul realized that God's grace is sufficient, and God's power is perfect in our moments of weakness. That's what he says in response to God not answering his prayer. So we pray God help us get that house. Help me get that job. Help me find a partner for life and when they don't happen it may feel like we're not getting what we want. But over time I think we often see that God actually just had something different in store. And we can praise God for that we can thank him maybe it's a relationship that you were really wanting it to work out. But over the years you're thankful it didn't because maybe it led to you meeting your spouse. And you're like you know what God I did pray for that a long time ago thank God you did not answer that prayer. Now I found the person i'm supposed to be with and it's wonderful. Maybe it's a job and you're like God I really want this job and you don't get the job. And you get a different job and come to find out that job would have sucked and it was like God, thank you for sparing me something I thought i wanted. But you knew better. Maybe God's got something different and you just have to trust him and ask for a holy patience in the waiting.

Now sometimes this leads to us asking, why why bother praying if God's got his own plans? Why why pray why do I need to pray at all? Well let me remind you again the purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. The purpose of prayer so we know God so we can doHis will. I want to come back to that Psalm of David if you're still in psalm 13. If not it'll be on the screen. This is how David right he said how long he's pleading with God. He's got all that frustration and then verses five and six. “But I trust in your unfailing love my heart rejoices in your salvation I will sing the Lord's praise for He has been good to me.” I love that! I love David's heart that he can have both emotions, right? He's holding this frustration and this, God, why aren't you doing anything? And the next verse says, but I trust you, God. I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. He hasn't been saved yet. He's still asking God, but he knows that God will do it. In whatever way, in whatever timing, David knows that God will answer that prayer. No matter what happens, we should be able to pray and praise God. You are good and you are deserving of my praise.

Another prayer that teaches us this is the Lord's Prayer. This is how I want to close this morning as the band comes up. I just want to cover, maybe you are familiar with the Lord's Prayer. Maybe it's been a while since you've prayed it. And I think we have it on the screen. And this is it. It says, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. That's just like holy be your, all the reverence to you, God. And this is the line. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is our prayer. That's the whole idea of us getting on board with God's will. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven is a place where God's will is carried out perfectly, where God is acknowledged as God by everyone, where he has completely His sovereign will is being carried out. And that's what Jesus is saying. We're praying that that would happen here on earth. And we are a part of that happening. So God, help me understand your will. And help me to carry out your will here on earth. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

If you guys have a program, I want you to pull it out right now. And there's a part on there. There's an action step that says, I'm committing to praying the Lord's Prayer every day this week. And I'd love for you to join me, and I'm going to pray that every day this week. I'm going to do it. You guys are welcome to join me. Because if you're struggling with this question, if you're wondering, God, God hasn't answered my prayer, I think instead of leaning away from God, I think it's time to lean into him. And to pray just as he taught us, to ask those questions, to run through those filters. Maybe, God, is there a relationship that's broken? God, are my motives in the right spot? God, do I have faith? Is there something else? Are you going to do something else? And in the midst of it, to trust God in the waiting. So if you would mark that and drop it in the bucket, we would love to know if you're praying that with us and connect with you this week, if you're going to pray the Lord's Prayer every week.

Tough Questions: Part 2

Tough Questions: Part 2 - A Voice From Hell

Luke 16:19-31; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Romans 5:8-9; 2 Peter 3:9

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, there's an unwritten rule in churches that if you want your church to be happy, to enjoy Sunday, to come back, and to be with us next week, you don't talk about hell, you don't talk about politics, and you don't talk about money. Well, some good news for you this morning. We're going to save politics and money for another Sunday, but we're going to be talking about hell today. Whoo. Sorry, I got some bad news. There is, I would say, kind of a cultural awkwardness around hell, especially this word. Growing up, I wasn't allowed to say that word. I would get in trouble, the old soap in the mouth kind of a thing. I was raised a little old school, but I wasn't allowed to say the word hell, so we replaced it with H-E, double hockey sticks. Anybody else? Yeah? H-E, double hockey sticks. And maybe to date me a little bit, we had physical calculators in school. And if you wanted to, you could type out 7734, flip the calculator upside down, and it would say, hell. We thought we were so cool as kids. Look at that. There were also other words you could type out with numbers and flip it upside down, but we'll save that for another sermon. The word hell gets thrown around a lot today, right? There's some common casual uses of this word. One might be something you could probably say to something. It'd be one of the meanest things to say to them, but you could tell them, you, you could go to hell. Maybe you would hear our society and world to say, ah, this world's just going to hell in a hand-basket, right? Or maybe you're out here driving on 65 or 80. You're trying to go through the past the malls, the worst traffic in Northern California right there. And you get cut off and then you do the WTH finger hands. You're like, what's going on, man? Why are you doing that? Or maybe if you've ever spent any time in the South, you might've heard from time to time, “Ah hell no!”

It's easy to laugh about hell because the topic is weighty it's complicated it's scary and as a child growing up i grew up in the church and uh i had a little bit of a fear of hell i don't remember the church really talking about hell on the regular but i knew it was a bad place It was for bad people. It was hot and I did not want to go there. Absolutely not. And this would come up from time to time when I might have an anxious prayer of God, please don't send me to hell. Please. And it would come up quite often as I would get in trouble. Shocker, I'd get in trouble as a kid, okay? I would pray, God, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that. Please don't send me to hell. And we're in a series today called Tough Questions. Pastor Lauren kicked us off last week. And we're going to wrestle with some of these questions today, and one specifically around hell. And I want to give you some scripture and kind of some understanding to help us kind of unpack this topic a little bit. But the big question comes up, and I get asked this a lot as a pastor, and maybe you do as a believer or a Christ follower, that why would a loving God send people to hell? Why would a loving God send people to hell? Because there's some tension here, right? We talk about how God is great, how he's loving. We sing about that this morning. Won't forget all your mercies and your love. Your love is unfailing. Lord, I'm grateful. You're amazing. So we see that, and yet hell involves an eternal fire, this weeping and gnashing of teeth, and it gets stuck because it's like, I hear that, but then we talk about loving. There's just one of these things is not like the other, right? These aren't lining up.

And so I want to talk and kind of address hell today, if that's okay with you guys. Hell is indeed a real place. But if I wasn't sure if hell was a real place, and maybe if I was the devil himself, wow, that sounded really strange there. But if I was the devil and hell is a place, I would try to convince people of this. This would be my strategy. I would try to convince people that hell is not real and doesn't need to be taken seriously. Because if I ended up being successful in that, we could live and you have the mindset that I can live however I want. I can justify all my sin. I can reject Christ with no fear of God. I can live a self-centered life. I can crave comfort. I can reject sacrifice. I can avoid persecution. And I can love this temporary world. sadly this kind of describes culture to a bit right so we're going to talk about hell today and hell is actually a subject that is as very profound and found all throughout scripture and in fact it's interesting that Jesus was the one who who talked the most about hell than anybody else and it's surprising because when we see the life of Jesus we see how loving and caring and compassionate of a person he was. And so a thought for you, I want a key insight, is that when Jesus talked about hell, he never used it as a scare tactic to frighten unbelievers into heaven. If you look at the scripture, what he actually does is he uses hell to motivate believers or the spiritual people of that day to live more holy and obedient lives. I want you to hear anything about hell this morning. This is what I want you to hear, okay? Listen to me right here. Jesus doesn't want anybody to go to hell. He doesn't. Jesus deeply, deeply, deeply does not want anybody to go to hell. And Jesus even has a radical teaching on hell. We read in Matthew chapter five, it says, Jesus says this, if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. Oh, you say, what? It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. This is an extreme metaphor, guys, okay? Like, could you imagine us following this? Like next week we show up and everybody's wearing an eye patch. Like, oh, you too? Yeah, me too? Okay, cool. Stop the page. Like, this is crazy. But that's how much he doesn't want people to go to hell. Jesus said, get rid of part of your body. Jesus here, he's actually talking about lust of the eyes. He's like, if your eyes are stumbling, Just get rid of it so that you can't even see, so you don't even struggle with that. He wants to remove anything in your life that keeps you from serving God. That's his heart. He wants people to avoid hell at all costs.

Jesus uses a very particular word here for hell in the Greek, or Aramaic when he was speaking to the people, here in this chapter in Matthew chapter 5. he reversed to the word meaning Gehenna. And this is actually an actual place. It's actually the valley of, let me get this right, Ben Hinnom. And it's in the southwest region of Jerusalem. We got a picture I want to show us. And this place has an incredibly dark history. This place was actually a place that began to have its origination centuries before Jesus. So this is a new thing Jesus is talking. He's talking centuries earlier. And what happened in this place is that the evil king Ahaz, sacrificed children to a false god, Molech, by burning them in this place. Can you imagine? We read this in Jeremiah 7:31. They said, “They have built the high places of Topheth in the valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in fire.” You can't believe this. Today, this is actually still a real place and you won't find any homes or businesses or anything in this valley because it is believed to be solely cursed. a place to be completely avoided at all costs, a place cut off from God. Later in life, they had to find a place to put their garbage, and so they chose this location. And they began to fill this valley with their garbage, their human waste, dead animals, sewage, even bodies of executed criminals. And it had a horrendous smell, as you could probably imagine. And there was a smoldering fire in this place that never ceased to burn. A place that gained the nickname, "The land of no more.” No more beauty, no more laughter, peace, friendship, joy, hope, chances. And Jesus' picture of hell here, not just as a basement dungeon in heaven where the bad people go, but a place completely cut off from everything good, cut off from God's presence. And this is our core definition today. So what is heaven? Heaven is defined as the presence of God. And so in turn, hell is defined as the absence of the presence of God. It's a horrible place. the land of no more. So why hell? Why would God even begin to create a place like this? Why does hell exist? Something we have to wrestle with.

And I think there's two reasons, the first of which I think you guys will be on board with, and that is that hell exists for God to righteously punish Satan. Hell exists for God to righteously punish Satan. Satan is the embodiment of all that is evil. Not just a harmless cartoon we might think about, right? Red suit, pitchfork, something that would be very, very not so harsh, right? Maybe we see cartoons or something funny with it. But that's not the reality. The reality is that behind every addiction is Satan. Behind every abuse is Satan. Behind every fear is Satan. Behind pain and shame is the evil one himself. He has titles he used in scripture all throughout the Bible of destroyer, deceiver, dark angel, accuser, tempter, wicked one, thief, father of lies. And his mission is simply this. To steal, to kill, and to destroy. That's all he's about. To steal, to kill, and to destroy. to steal your faith, to kill your joy, to destroy your health or your finances, to steal your marriage, to kill your friendships. This is the father of lies. And hell is a place to punish the embodiment of that evil. It says this in Revelation 20:10, “And the devil who deceived them was thrown in the lake of burning sulfur where the beast and the false prophets had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” In the end, Revelation tells us the end, that Satan is defeated and thrown into this place forever and is tormented day and night. And this punishment sounds just and fair, right? As you would probably agree that this is where the devil should go. For everything that he has done since the beginning of time, this is fair.

The other one is a little bit harder to walk through and this next verse i want to share with you is is really hard because it's really not what we like we don't want to hear this and especially in our culture today we don't like about it when someone talks about something called sin i don't want to talk about it but this word sin is actually a greek word “hamartia” which means missing the mark. It's actually an archery term. That means that you do not get a bullseye. Anything outside of a bullseye is not God's will. It's not God's best. And doing something that is not God's will, his best plan, wrong in the eyes of him, is sin. And our culture doesn't like that word. Culture prefers to have maybe a view of God that would kind of turn a blind eye to something, right? Be like, okay, I know you're doing that, but I just don't, just don't let me see it. As long as you're not hurting anybody, like, that's fine. Or a view of God that was just like, hey, I saw that. Wink, wink. Hey, don't do that again. Don't do it. But as long as we're not hurting anybody, right? Sin's not that big of a deal, right? It's okay. You do you. You do you. I'm going to do me. We'll not talk about it. Just let it be. But the truth of the matter is that Scripture says that there is a standard to life. And that's holiness. And when we don't hit the mark, it's called sin. The truth is God is a holy, perfect God. Therefore, he must be just. and wickedness and evil must be punished. And you feel and understand this when someone does something wrong to you. You think and say, that needs to be punished. There should be a consequence for their action. And you agree with this.

And so for reason one, hell exists for God to righteously punish Satan, but hell also exists for God to righteously punish evil. And for those who have sinned without Christ, this is the destiny. Paul tells us this very clear, but there is hope in the gospel, okay? Don't go downer on me, just stay with me here. It says this, 2 Thessalonians chapter one, says, “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut up from the presence of the Lord and from the glories of his might.” So what is hell? Hell is being shut out from the presence of God and his glory. Man, Chris, that sounds harsh. Yeah. It is. It's painful. It's not fun. I don't like to talk about this. You know me. I've never preached a sermon on hell. This is the first time in my ministry career I've ever preached a sermon directly on hell. I don't like to talk about it. There's no joy in it. But if we don't accept the reality of hell, we will never appreciate the depth of God's goodness and grace. Because he is good. God is good.

I want to tell you guys a story. Jesus told this story first. and it's about two guys. And this is the title of today. If you're taking notes, I think it's on your program. But the title is of the story is A Voice from Hell. And Jesus says this in Luke chapter 16. He says, “There is a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every single day.” So here's character number one in the story. This rich man. This rich man, based upon this description we just had in this short verse, was most likely royalty. He was the rich of the rich. And how do we know that? We know that when he says he was dressed in purple. Purple was the most expensive dye in the first century. And only the richest of the richest of the richest could even afford to purchase the dye to have their clothes stained that color. And when they would walk around, you would immediately recognize, that guy's loaded. But you would also know and see that it talks about he was dressed in fine linen. Linen was the creme de la creme of fabric in that time. And that it was said that a single outfit of linen would equal the wages to feed a person for an entire year. So not only is this guy rich, he's wearing the linen, He's also loaded because he stained it purple and he's living in luxury every single day. This is how rich this dude was. We're probably talking equivalent billions dollars equivalent, okay? Jesus continues on, verse 20. “At his gate, the rich man's gate, there was a beggar named Lazarus.” Now this isn't the same Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead. He's a different bro, but Lazarus. "He was covered in sores, longing to eat from what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.”

Here's character number two, Lazarus. Poor dude's had a rough life. He's had it handed to him. We don't know the history or the story, the background, or anything more than behind this. But he's just outside just trying to survive. He's just trying to make it, not even day to day, he's just trying to make it hour by hour. The guy's got some sort of disease that's got sores on his body. He's sleeping on the streets. He's outside this beggar's house, just hoping that something would get thrown out to him. And in that culture and time, people would eat with their hands. And so after a meal, their hands would be great, messy and nasty. And so they would take bread and actually clean their hands with the bread. And then they would gather up the bread that had fallen on the table and on the floor. The servants of the house would then just go outside and throw it outside the gate. And the dogs, the ravaging dogs of the city would run around cleaning up that food. And so Lazarus is out front of this rich man's gate trying to compete with dogs for scraps of bread that had been wiped on the rich man's hands. Let's just say Lazarus probably had some better days in life than when he is right here now. He's starving. He's living among the dogs. And the dog's even to a point licking his source.

Jesus continues on, verse 22. “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried.” So both of the bros die. Don't know the context, but they're both dead. Lazarus, the beggar, he's carried by angels to Abraham's side, which we understand as heaven or a place of comfort finally for him. But the rich man, he dies and he goes to Hades. Scripture says this in verse 23. “In Hades, where he was, the rich man was in torment. He looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.” He recognizes the beggar. So he called to him, The rich man goes to Hades. Hades was known as this place of the dead, a place of punishment. And he's in torment. You can read here. He's in agony. And he cries out, hurting, asking for just a little tiny bit of relief. I don't know about you, if you've ever been just thirsty as all get out, a little drip, you might as well have not given me anything. But that's how desperate this rich man is, just for something. And he's begging for a drop of water. He continues on. Jesus, He says, the rich man says this, “Then I beg you, father, the rich man, send Lazarus to my family for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so that they do not also come to this place of torment.” The rich man is begging Abraham to send Lazarus back to his family, to his brothers, to warn them so they don't end up in the same place as he did. And this is the story. This is what Jesus teaches us.

I see four different kind of thoughts or images I want to pull out from that scripture for us this morning. The first of which is that the rich man was fully conscious and aware. This is scary. He had memory. he remembered the rich man. He remembered his family. He felt pain. He was in agony. He was hurting. And he was full of regrets for his life. Number two, his eternity was irrevocably fixed. It was too late for him. He knew it. There was no more chances, no more do-overs, no more, oh, wow, this is scary, God. Let me try life again. The land of no more. forevermore. Three, he knew his suffering was just. How do we know that, Chris? Well, we knew his suffering was just because he complained about the pain, but never about the injustice. You catch that? He said, this place is horrible. Please help me. But he never said, this is unfair. Send me back. I deserve to be in heaven. He never says that. and finally he begged and pleaded for someone to help his brothers come to know Jesus he begged he pleaded for someone to go tell his brothers about Jesus so that would be saved so that they wouldn't all end up in the same place someone go tell them he's crying out tell them about god's grace his goodness his forgiveness his mercy Jesus doesn't want anybody to suffer like this he doesn't so if i were the deceiver the destroyer the prince of darkness the evil one i would try everything that i could to convince every single person that hell is not that big of a deal don't take it seriously these are fairy tales it's not a real place so that you could then live your life any way that you wanted justify your sinfulness reject christ live a life of no fear live a life ridiculously self-centered reject sacrifice avoid persecution love this world all there is it it's like so many people today but when Jesus talked about hell. It wasn't to scare people to heaven. It was used to motivate people to act like the believers that they are.

And a lot of people will still say, hey, it's not fair that good people go to hell. Pastor Lauren talked about this last week. We need to talk about it again right now, Okay? It's not fair. It's not fair to send good people to hell. Here's the reality. In your purest essence as a person, none of us, including me, are perfectly good. It says in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned.” How many is all? All. “And fall short of the glory of God.” Nah, pastor. Mm-mm, mm-mm. Not falling for your tricks. I know my heart. My heart's good. All right? I'll ask you some questions. A little back and forth interaction, okay?

I want you to raise your hand. I'll be the first person to raise my hand. Have you ever lied? Raise your hand if you've ever lied. I've lied. Okay? I've lied. If you're sitting next to somebody right now who doesn't have their hand up. Uh-huh. Yeah. Hey. Liar, liar. Pants on fire. hang on a telephone wire 7734, upside down okay, okay, okay, okay raise your hand I will raise my hand again first if you have ever stolen anything pastor's stolen before? yes, he has story for another day, it's actually really funny I'll tell you someday, okay I was a kid, I didn't know about it no, no, just kidding, but I still stole, okay okay, so I got one more for you do not raise your hand, okay keep your hand down on this one but uh raise your eyebrows at me okay okay all right have you ever lusted have you ever yeah don't look at the person next to you i'm not starting anything in church right now okay save it for the ride home i'm just kidding okay so we think about that but here's You think, oh, I've never done it. Jesus and his teaching equates, if you have lusted, it's as if you've committed adultery in your heart. Whoa. So, we all are lying, thieving adulterers in the eyes of God. Yikes! Welcome to Spring Valley Church. We're so glad that you're here with us. We want to be a loving, welcoming church with no judgment. We want you to be here encouraged today.

You are not good. So you can't say, why would God send good people to hell? We're not good. It's the reality. We're not. But God is. God is good. God is holy. God is just. And so because of that, he must punish sin. I'll say it again. God is holy and just. He must punish sin. But here's the good news. Good news. You guys held on to good news. I love this. God is not only just, but he is also love. God is love. It's not just what he does. God just doesn't have an action of love. It's actually a character of who he is at his core. It says this in Romans 5:8, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Still sinners. Continue John verse nine, and since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation. For all of us, we are not saved by our own works, our own righteousness. We don't have any. We are saved by the grace of Jesus and the blood of Christ. And that, therefore, there is no condemnation. Guys, this is something to be excited about. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And because of the death of Jesus, he paid the full price for our sins. He satisfied the requirement of God's justice. He displayed his grace. He shows his unquenchable love. That is who Jesus is. That's who Jesus is. He doesn't want anybody to perish or go to hell. Who did Jesus come for? Jesus came for sinners, not the righteous. He came for the sick, not the healthy. He came for to give us and present to us a brokenness to be redeemed from, to be freed from our lies and our lust and our cheating and our envy to bring death to our sins and to give life to our now.

2 Peter talks about this. I love this. This is such a great scripture. 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient. I love that Patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” He's patient Maybe you're here and you're like, I don't know why I'm here I don't know why this God thing, this Jesus He's waiting on you He's drawing you to him You being here this Sunday, this moment right now In that seat, ain't no accident or coincidence He wants you to know this He's drawing you to him He's sending people your way. God is patient, not wanting anybody to perish, but everyone to come to repentance in him.

A loving God doesn't want to send us to hell. In fact, he sent Jesus to save us from hell. This is the mission of Jesus. The enemy mission, kill, steal, destroy, end you, put you down, pull out anything good from your life. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Lamb, the Lion, the Judah, the Alpha, Omega, the Beginning and the King of Kings, everything he is, he came to give us life, to give us joy, to give us peace, to give us hope, to give us mercy. This is who Jesus is. This is why he came. And I want you to know everything within me wants you to know him. That's what I want. I want you to know him. He's amazing. And believe it or not, there was a time when I didn't know Jesus. I thought all pastors were born perfect. No. No. there was time in life where I had to choose Jesus. And I would put him on like a mask and I'd wear him around church and I'd go to school and I'd be around friends and I would take the mask off. Depending on where I was, there was a different mask that I was putting on and it was getting exhausting. It was so hard. And the harder I tried to be like God wanted me to be, the worse I got. And it was exhausting. He smacked me across the face one day in his loving grace that he is. He said, Chris, what are you gonna do? bro, you in or you out? And I said, well, I said, I like when I'm in church. I'm around good people. I like that. I don't like this other Chris. I'm hiding it and I'm playing this game and it just, it's exhausting. Jesus came to me in that moment. in my lies and in my hiding and in my sin and my gunk and my in life.

And he loved me. And he loves you just the way you are. There's no prerequisite. We just read a scripture that said, while we were still sinners, he died for us. He's already paid it. He has life for you. so so Jesus coming and dying on the cross is way more than just for us to avoid hell Jesus dying on the cross isn't fire insurance it isn't a get out of jail free card he wants to give us an eternal life he wants to give us abundant life now here in this moment to bring the presence of God into your life. He wants you to experience that, to give you a peace that scripture says passes all understanding, that people around you aren't gonna know. Like, what? That doesn't make any sense. You're like, yeah, I know. Doesn't either for me. A grace that covers our repeated failing and screw-ups time and time again in our sin. Because those are who in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation, friends. There's none. There's no levels to heaven. While you lived a Christian for these many years, you get this mansion. But, oh, you're a latecomer? you got the apartment down around the corner on the bottom floor oh you accepted him on your deathbed yeah you're a four-story walk-up no love what it says that Jesus tells the story of of of a farmer who hires people throughout the day to work and some show up at sunrise and work all day some show up at noon some show up in the afternoon and some show up just at the and help the guys put the bushels into the cart. You know what? Every single one of them was paid a full days wage. You know, the ones who had the most stink about it were the ones that were there at dawn. And Jesus is like, that's just how my love works.

So when you start taking heaven, the presence of God, and hell, the absence of God seriously, it changes how we live our lives today. You no longer live for the temporary world. You live for God in heaven forever. You live for his glory because the devil wants to take everything from you, to kill, to destroy, to steal, everything in your life. But Jesus wants to give you not just your life back, but an abundant life. That is greater than anything we could dream or imagine. But it takes a full surrender. It takes full trust for Jesus to come in and bring the freedom and to remove the worry about eternity. And he strengthens us up for this life. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Father, we thank you for your word. God, as we come before you right now in prayer, God, I thank you for this sermon. That is a hard thing to pray. God, but I thank you for the opportunity today for us to be reminded, or maybe here for the first time, about a God who loves us. Not a God that we think we know that would send good people to hell, God, but a good God who sent Jesus to save us from hell.

And so God, right now, I don't wanna be scaring people. I mean, this is the reality of where we're at, but I think I would be remiss, God, if I didn't give an opportunity for people to choose you and say yes to you for the very first time today, Jesus. And so God, as you stir hearts, as you pull people to you, as you draw people to you right now in this moment, maybe you would say, yeah, Chris, you know, I want this Jesus. I want this life. I want this hope. I want this grace, this joy. I need this. You said something about a peace. That doesn't make any sense. God, I need some peace in my life right now. And so maybe for the first time, you would say, yeah, Chris, I want Jesus for the very first time. I want him in my life. If that's you, just look up at me. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Jesus. And so I would encourage you, I'm going to put a prayer on screen. It's really simple. There's nothing magic about this prayer. It's just a prayer that reminds us of who Jesus is and you calling out to him for forgiveness and safety and life. And so if you would, if you're one, they want to pray that prayer, I'm going to read it out loud. You just pray it in your heart and accept Jesus and accept this grace and this mercy today. It says, it says, Father in heaven, I know that I've lived for myself instead of you. I've sinned against you. But I believe that Jesus died for my sin. So I confess my sin and I ask you to forgive me. I bow to you as Lord and leader of my life. Help me to live from this day forward. In Jesus' name.

As we continue to pray, God, I want to also think of those who have maybe made this decision sometime in their life ago. Maybe it was recent, maybe it was a long time ago, but you've been wrestling with some stuff. Maybe God's been calling you out throughout the sermon or recently of some things in your life that just aren't the way that God wants them to be. You're missing the mark in life. You're sinning. And so I just want to give the opportunity, I'd love this week to intentionally pray for you. And so if that's you, if you would say, hey, pastor, I just need some prayer. I'm fighting some stuff right now. I know I'm not going to hell. I have Jesus, but this life right now, it's just a fight. If that's you, just look up at me. I want to be praying for you this week. Thank you. I need your prayers. I'm fighting. I'm going through it. So Jesus, I thank you for this day. God, I thank you for hard sermons to preach through. But God, I see these as necessary. And so do you. You didn't shy away from this topic of hell when you were here on earth teaching and healing and drawing people to you without ultimately the reason you came, Jesus. And so God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for another Sunday to worship you, to give you praise and glory. And everybody said, Amen.

Tough Questions: Part 1

Tough Questions: Part 1 - Why Did God Let It Happen?

Psalm 73:11-26; Philippians 2:6-8; Deuteronomy 38:8; JOHN 3:16

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Welcome. Happy to be worshiping with you all this morning. I'm excited. We are kicking off a new series, as Pastor Andre said, tough questions, honest answers. And we are going to hit some pretty tough questions. I know the questions that are coming, and I know what we're talking about today, and we're going to hit some hard ones. But I'm excited for it because I think that dealing with these questions will actually help our faith grow deeper. I think a lot of times we approach these questions with some fear or some worry that maybe we don't know how to answer these questions. We don't know where to get the answers. Maybe we just, ignorance is bliss. We would just rather not know the answer and just kind of go along with life. Maybe we've tried to find answers, and in the past we have talked to leadership in churches or fellow believers and we haven't gotten really good answers. They haven't satisfied the question. Or maybe they haven't, you just knew that something wasn't right. They weren't biblically sound. They weren't theologically sound. Perhaps you even maybe avoided the questions because you're afraid of the answer. Maybe you just aren't really sure that you want to know the answer to this question because it could impact the way you live. It could impact the decisions that you make. It could challenge some of beliefs. And so it's just easier to not address the questions. Maybe you're like me. I was perfectly, just to be honest, I was a little nervous when I saw that we were doing this series. I'm like, wait, we have to answer these questions? Like that's what we're doing? Because I, for those of you that don't know, I'm not great at confrontation. I get nervous. I don't love that. I can think of a really great response in about three to five business days. But in the moment, I'm not great at it. I just, part of it too is I think that I feel like the confrontation is threatening our relationship. And so I get nervous.

And what I realized in preparing for this is that some of these questions feel like they are threatening our faith. That if we are like, well, if I don't have these answers or if I'm not sure what these answers are, If I'm asking these questions and I don't know, then maybe it's threatening my faith. And I'm telling you, it is not. Pastor Chris set us up great last week with our Easter service and talking about doubt and how Thomas doubted and how doubt was not the problem. It's what we do with the doubt. It's taking those questions to Jesus. It's asking him for help. It's being like the father who had the demon-possessed son that said, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. That's what we do with these questions and with this doubt. So some of the questions we're going to hit on, does God love me? Why didn't God answer my prayers? And the one we're going to focus on today is why did God let it happen? There's an old church tradition where I say God is good and you say all the time. And then I say all the time and you say God is good. So we're going to try, okay? Right? God is good all the time. Okay. It was fine. It was all right. But we're going to do it again, okay? God is good all the time. There you go. Much better. All right.

Well, we say this. We say God is good all the time. But do we actually believe it? Do we actually believe that God is good all the time? Or maybe a more specific question is, do we believe God is good to me? I think a lot of us can think God is good. He's good to other people, but he's not always good to me. So the question that we got to look at is, do we believe that God is good? And if he is still good, why does he let bad things happen? Do we believe that he is still good when we lose the job? When a loved one dies? When we have financial stress, relationship issues, children struggling, do we still believe that he's good? What about bigger than that, like nationwide issues or global problems, wars, famine, children starving, political turmoil? Do we still believe that God is good? And is he good? If he is good, why does he allow suffering? Why does he allow bad things to happen? This is an important question that I think we really need to wrestle with. 300 years before Jesus was even born, there was a Greek philosopher named Epicurus, and he was asking some of these questions, and he came to a few conclusions. He said, if God is not able to prevent evil, then he's not all-powerful. If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he's not all good. If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist? So today we're talking about the problem of evil and suffering, but really it comes down to what we believe about God. The problem of evil and suffering is not new. I mean, Epicurus lived 300 years before Jesus, and we can go even further back, back to the garden. When sin entered the world, the problem of suffering and evil existed. And many have tried to reason with it, figure it out, understand it, reconcile it with who God is. And it's a tough thing to wrap our mind around. But ultimately, it comes down to what we believe about God and his character. See, I think a lot of times we struggle with that. we struggle with God's character and suffering because we think it's contrary. But evil and suffering is not contrary to the story of the Bible. Evil and suffering is actually central to the story. Once sin entered the world, the overarching story of creation or of redemption involves suffering, involves evil. We would have nothing to be redeemed from if there wasn't evil and suffering in the world.

So Christianity, our faith, actually makes sense of, gives meaning to, and offers a solution for the evil and suffering we experience. I'll say that again. Christianity makes sense of, gives meaning to, and offers a solution for the evil and suffering we experience. The Bible doesn't avoid the topic of pain and suffering, so we shouldn't either. It actually addresses it in a variety of ways. We can look at many different examples. You think of Jeremiah, who was known as the weeping prophet. And he cried out to God, questioning why there was so much suffering. But it was because of the unrepentant hearts of the Israelites. You have King David. He was a king. He was loved. He was known as a man after God's own heart. And he wrote many of the Psalms, much of which were prayers crying out to God, asking, why? Where are you? Be my refuge. Be my strength, be my shelter. But why is this happening? We look in the New Testament. We just celebrated Easter that we talked about with Holy Week. Jesus is suffering. He understood suffering. He died for us. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, experienced immense suffering throughout his ministry. Both suffering at the hands of Romans and at the hands of Jewish leaders. but he also talks about a thorn in his flesh that he asked the Lord to take away from him, and the Lord said no. We don't know specifically what that is, but we know it caused him to suffer, and yet these people time and time again, person after person, experience after experience, suffered, and yet they stayed true to who God was. They followed him. They continued to trust him. Why is that? Why were they able to do that? Well, we see another instance of a person who was struggling with these questions.

We're going to be in Psalm 73 today. If you want to go ahead and turn there, it'll be on the screen, so you can look there in your Bible as well. We're going to be talking about Asaph. Asaph was a poet. He was a worship leader in the tabernacle for the Israelites. And he and his sons wrote many of the Psalms, including Psalm 73. In this passage, Asaph is talking about the arrogant, the arrogant people, the wicked people. And he says that he even envied them. Earlier in the passage, he said that he envied them because of their lives, that they could just kind of live however they want, do whatever they want, and yet they didn't have the consequences that he was dealing with. They didn't suffer the way he did. So we're going to pick up in verse 11, Psalm 73, 11. It says, “They, the wicked, say, How would God know? Does the Most High know anything? This is what the wicked are like, always free of care. They go on amassing wealth. Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted and every morning brings new punishments.” Our buddy Asaph here is having a little bit of a pity party, but I don't really blame him because we've all been there too. Right? In his defense, we've felt these feelings as well. We've questioned why is this happening? Why does their life seem fine, but all this bad stuff keeps happening to me? Why, God? Why is this happening? Maybe we're even trying to live rightly. We're trying to do what's right, follow the word, go to church, do the right things, and yet bad things still happen. Maybe it's the diagnosis that we weren't expecting. Kids making poor choices. A fight with our spouse, another bill coming through. It just feels like it doesn't stop. But if we're honest, I think many of us are asking, why does God allow bad things to happen to a good person like me? I think we're really, that's what we want to know. And we're going to come back to that question, so hold on to that. But first we have to answer the other question. If God is loving, why would he allow suffering? If we say God is good all the time and we believe that he is loving, he is good, why would he allow suffering? Well, it was out of his love for us that he gave us a choice. He gave us the choice to love him in return or to reject him.

But here's the thing. If love is a choice, suffering is a possibility. We can look at this issue of suffering and evil from a variety of different angles. We can look at it theologically. We can look at it emotionally. But God also gave us a brain. So we're going to look at it logically. Because there is a logical explanation here for this. Logically speaking, the only way to truly love someone is to have the choice to do it. If someone locked you in a basement and said, I will only give you food and water if you love me, what are you going to do? You're going to say I love you. Do you actually love that person? Absolutely not. But you want your food and water. You don't have a choice, so it's not actual love. God wanted a relationship with his creation. He wanted a relationship with his people. And so he had to give us the choice. He didn't want robots. He didn't want a pet rock collection. He wanted people to be in relationship with him. So he gave us the choice. It's called free will. He gave us the free will to choose love, to choose to love him, or to reject him. But in giving us this choice, it made loving God possible, but it also made choosing evil possible as well. so in order to have the freedom to choose we also had to be given the freedom to reject him to choose evil and honestly there are times when we will we will sin we will make poor choices and it will always lead to suffering so if we say we want God to remove all suffering and evil we if we say if you're good you would get rid of it all, well then he would have to remove our choice. He would have to take away our free will. And to be sure, he is powerful enough to do that. We believe he is all powerful, so he could. But he wants a relationship with us and he wants us to be able to choose him, so he's not going to remove that free will from us. Because the only two options to get rid of sin and suffering is to remove our free will or to wipe us out completely. Neither of those options seem great to me. We have the choice to love him, but that just, it comes at the risk of suffering. It comes knowing that we could cause suffering because we have the choice. We also often think that suffering is a lack of God's love. We think, okay, if God is loving, why is there suffering? But we just associate that with a lack of love, that he couldn't possibly be loving if we suffer. But we see this played out daily in our lives.

See, suffering isn't evidence of a lack of love. It actually can be proof of it. It's not evidence that he is not a loving God if we suffer. As parents, we discipline our children, not because we want to cause them suffering, but because we want to correct the behavior. We don't enjoy seeing them hurt or suffering the consequences of their actions. But if we love Jesus and we want to disciple them towards Jesus, we're going to allow those consequences to play out. We're going to help point them to Jesus. We're going to allow that suffering to happen because we love them. A couple of years ago, I got a piece of glass stuck in my foot. And I was very hopeful that it was going to work itself out. It did not. And after a couple months, I finally was able to get surgery scheduled in order to get this glass out of my foot. And about a week before surgery, it actually got infected. And I was very grateful that I had surgery scheduled because it was so painful. I could not walk on it. I couldn't touch it. It was just excruciating pain. And so I go and I go to have my surgery. But the reality of surgery is the doctor has to cut you open. He has to create a wound in order to bring healing. now that might feel a little backwards but that's the only way to go through it you have to suffer a little bit in order for the healing to come well after surgery he came up to me and he said you know I was not very confident I was going to be able to find this piece of glass because it was very tiny he said but the infection had created a pocket around it and I was able to see exactly where the glass was and pull the whole thing out. So my pain, my suffering for that week leading up to surgery where I could not even walk on my foot, I got to see the good of it. I got to see the purpose in that pain, that it actually made my healing more successful.

Now, we don't always have the good and the luxury of getting to see that play out like that, but I had to experience this pain in order to get to the healing. You see this in things like physical therapy. You know, you got to regain your strength and your movement. You see it in setting broken bones. If you don't set a broken bone, it will not heal properly and you will have many more issues down the road. Maybe even things like reprimands at work. Those are never fun, usually pretty awkward, but it helps you push you in the right direction, gets you going where you need to go. Maybe even like going through therapy or counseling, oh, those conversations can hurt. Bringing up old trauma, old wounds. But when we do it, it allows us to process through it to bring healing. All of these things, all of this suffering and pain is actually necessary. And in fact, it would be unloving to not address those issues. It would have been unloving for my surgeon to look at me and say, you know what, I'm to have to cause a wound to get the glass out, so we're just going to leave it there. That would be a bit unloving. It would be unloving as a parent to not correct my children's behavior. Because like a parent or a physical therapist or surgeon, God knows that good can come from our suffering. He loves us enough to allow the suffering to exist and then bring good from it.

Romans 8:28 says, “We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” He is so good to use our suffering for our good and for his glory. So we understand why God allows suffering in general, because it has to be allowed if we're going to have free will. But back to our other question. Why do bad things happen to good people? Because that's really what we want to know, right? That's what Asaph was asking. In Psalm 73, we want to know why does God allow good things to happen or bad things to happen to good people like me? The answer here is pretty simple. We're not good. None of us are good.

Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All have sinned. How many is all? How many is all? All of them. Every single one of us. All have sinned. None of us have met the standard. We've all missed the mark. Pastor and theologian R.C. Sproul Jr. said, “Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened to one person and he volunteered.” Jesus was the only one who lived a perfect life. He was the only good person who didn't deserve to suffer and yet he suffered for us on our behalf. Philippians 2 talks about Jesus' suffering. It says, “Who, being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

So not only did Jesus willingly give up the glory of heaven for a time, That was suffering already. But then he came in human likeness and had to put up with all this humanness, more suffering. But then he died the most excruciating, gruesome death on our behalf. If the God of the universe in human form, who was perfect and good, suffered, why do we think we're exempt? He was misunderstood. He was hated, betrayed, beaten, tortured, hung on a cross for us. He suffered. He literally cried out to God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He gets it. He gets our suffering. But he's the only one who was truly good. So why do bad things happen to good people? They don't. they only happen to broken people. Not since Jesus. They only happen to sinners and broken people like us. So then we go back to our original question. Why does God allow suffering? Unfortunately, there is some mystery to this question. And I can't answer this question for every individual situation. We don't know. We don't always get to know why we suffer specific things or certain circumstances.

But I do know this. God allows suffering, but not because he doesn't love you. John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” He loves you so much he literally sent his son to suffer and die for you. I also know that he doesn't or he allows suffering but not because he's abandoned you Deuteronomy 38 8 the Lord himself goes before you and will be with you he will never leave you nor forsake you do not be afraid do not be discouraged so why was he willing to allow his son to come and suffer why is he able to promise that he will never leave us or forsake us, it's because he knows something better is coming. Even though we suffer here on this earth, he knows that something better is coming. I've heard it said before, I think I've even said it up here, if it's not good, God's not done. If some circumstances your life is not good, God's not done. Now here's the thing, that could just literally mean heaven, that it's not good until we get to heaven. There are going to be times when issues are resolved and things, suffering ends, those seasons end, and there is goodness here and now. But we also know heaven is coming. The Bible says we will suffer. Jesus says it himself. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. We know the end of the story. We know what's coming. There will be a day when those of us who have chosen to use our free will to love Jesus will get to meet him face to face in eternity. That we will be in eternal glory with him. And we get to live with that hope of heaven right now. Revelation 21:4 says, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.”

Something better is coming. No more pain or abuse or trauma or tragedy or addiction. Something better is coming. Unfortunately, we're not there yet. at any given moment we could enter another season of suffering something could happen we don't live in fear because of it but we we just know that that is just part of being human it doesn't seem fair it doesn't seem right we don't always have the luxury of of of hindsight and knowing why they're what the purpose of our pain is or why something happened I still have plenty of questions for the Lord. But we know that in all of it, God is still good.

Back to our friend Asaph in Psalm 73. He struggled through these tough ideas. He asked, am I keeping my heart pure for nothing? Is this all for naught? Am I trying to be good for no reason? Because everybody out there who's just living their own life, doing whatever they want, doesn't seem to be suffering. But then we get to verse 16. When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their final destiny. Jumping down to verse 25. Whom have I in heaven but you? and earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Asaph didn't understand until he entered the sanctuary of God. When he entered the presence of God, that's when he got clarity. Friends, in the presence of God, there is peace. Even in the midst of our suffering, he was able to understand what truly happens to the wicked god made that clear to him that in the end there will they will have suffering too but more than that he was able to understand who god is that he is his Asaph’s strength he is Asaph’s portion and he is that for us too nothing in this world no amount of good things and no lack of suffering could satisfy us like God can. Nothing can satisfy us like God can. And when we go into his presence, when we seek him, when we read his word, when we pray, we find peace. Even in the middle of our trials, even in the middle of our suffering. Our flesh and our hearts, they will fail. They will because we're human and we often choose the evil thing. We choose sin. We choose the wrong way. We will suffer either at our own hands or the hands of others. But God is our portion. In his presence, there is peace.

I encourage you to memorize verse 26 this week. I'll read it again. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. We actually have a little option on the program on the Connect card to check that you're going to memorize it this week. We'll just all memorize it together because I think it's really important, especially when we're going through suffering, to be able to recall God's faithfulness, to remember how he has been faithful in the past, how he has brought us through our suffering. So if you would memorize this with us this week, check that box and you can drop it in the back with the ushers on your way out so we can pray for you as you're doing that. But when you are experiencing suffering, it allows you to call this scripture to mind in order to walk in that faith. It deepens your faith so that you know that he is with you. He is your portion and your strength, even during your suffering.

So again, these are big questions. The problem of sin and suffering of evil in the world, it's a hard one. But it's not contrary to the Bible or even to God's character. It doesn't count him out. It is central to the Bible and the story of redemption that he has written for us. Our faith in Jesus, our Christianity, it gives meaning to the suffering. It brings purpose to the pain, and it actually offers us a solution as we walk through suffering that we will face. He is a good God who loves us. And so if you are hurting right now, if you are experiencing suffering in some way, physical, mental, emotional, relational, whatever that may look like, Maybe you are just one of us living in a broken world, wondering where God is in all of this. I want you to know this. I need you to know that God is still good and he loves you. He is right there with you and he will never leave you. He understands because he suffered too. And in his presence there is peace. As Christians, we are living in the now and not yet. We have Jesus now. We have been saved. We have been redeemed. We have the hope of eternity, but we're not there yet. Something better is coming.

Let's pray. God, we just thank you for who you are. We thank you that you are good, that you are good on your promises, that despite our suffering, you don't change. You stay the same. We praise you that you are always with us, even in our suffering, in our struggles, in our trials. God, help us to remember how you have been faithful in the past and trust you that you will continue to be faithful going forward. Give us strength when things don't make sense. Help us not to be afraid of these tough questions, but bring them to you, bring them to your word. Seek out answers so that we can grow our roots deeper in you. That we can walk more confidently in our faith and in who you are. We love you, God. We praise you and thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.