An End To Idolatry

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As a believer, all the way through life as a believer.

It isn't just meant for conversion.

It's how we create faith to God.

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Gracious, Heavenly Father, Gracious Redeemer, Gracious Spirit.

Sometimes we get so used to these words that may this pour over us that we've received goodness and mercy from you all the days of our lives.

Would you give us a fresh look from these verses this morning of how you have been oriented to us predominantly in grace?

And may we just bask in it, enjoying it, and may they shift us to be humble before you and in this power, in the grace you provide, obedient to you.

This we ask, this is our great need this morning.

Amen.

Please be seated.

My name is Blake Hardcastle, and I'm the uh spiritual formation pastor here at Grankway.

I'm new, so if I don't look familiar, maybe you've been traveling this summer, I'm the new guy.

And if you're new, welcome to Grway.

And uh we can form a little club together, new people of Grand Parkway Club.

Uh I want to uh directly this morning will be in the book of 1 John, just a small little portion, and just give you some um bearings.

So, Neil, for a good part of the summer, has been walking through the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John is really like a um like a scrapbook, and kind of turn the pages, and there's vignette after vignette, photo after photo, and he's communicating again and again.

Here's what Jesus did, here's what he said, and so your response should be to believe in him.

First John is written decades later, uh, predominantly to those who did believe.

And so, if you're someone who's come to faith, believed in Christ, this is written to John's first audience, but really applicable to us.

So this morning, um, I wanted to ask you to do something, and that is I want you to think about this question.

And the question is this what do you love?

And I really want you to think about a person.

I really want you to think about a thing.

What's something that you love?

What's something that um kind of has a grip on you?

Maybe you're kind of proud to say, well, yes, I do fill in the blank.

And maybe something that's um you eat one, it turns into three dozen, or or you've collected one, or you you bought one and now it's turned into a whole room of collection, or you never miss when something's on.

Or something that's what kind of reoccurs, what what keeps cycling through your dreams and your fantasies?

What would that be?

So you had a little flash here.

For me, one of those things is this wonderful thing here called the frosted animal cracker.

And uh maybe it's a cookie.

I don't need to ask you if it's in Texas because the last service confirmed it's here.

Um anybody experience these?

Okay.

Oh, you know about them.

All right, yes.

And so um for those of you who don't experience them, it's fine.

I'm pretty sure they're very low where the kids go, oh, mommy, I want this.

And so this has been a um a love of mine for a long time.

Now, listen, before you start making a list, go buy these cookies for Pastor Blake.

Do not buy them.

Satan, you can no, you will not tempt me with these.

Uh I'm trying to abstain from these things because my experience has been this wonderful shortbread cookie that was good enough on its own, has been, you know, fully immersed.

It's a Baptist cookie, fully immersed in this frosting on both sides, and pink and white and sprinkles on top, and you eat it, and then your taste buds, they open up with loving arms, and then they take it all this in, and these receptors in your brain start shooting off, and then one turns into five, turns into two dozen, turns into like, you know, an insulin overload, pre-diabetic coma, just sitting on the couch, what did I do?

It is strange how something so small can get a stranglehold, a grip on us.

This morning's tech, we're not gonna bash cookies, but we're gonna look at is what are the things of earth that we engage in, and do we engage in them wrongly?

To where instead of uh being something that points us to God, it really becomes a fence and a blockade and a prison.

Really be something that shackles us.

So let's dive into the word.

There's just three verses this morning.

1 John chapter 2, verse 15.

1 John 2:15

I'm gonna read all three, and then we'll walk through them line by line.

Do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that's in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is of the world.

And the world is passing away along with its desires.

But whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Verse 15.

Do not love the world or the things in the world.

All right, Blake, are are you saying I can't love Coke Zero?

Are you are you saying I can't love New York or my black lab or my favorite movie?

Or Blake, please don't tell me you're saying I can't love football.

Are you saying I can't love my grandkids?

It depends.

If by loving these things, if what you mean is I engage and enjoy this, and it actually moves me to gratitude to God.

In fact, I enjoy God more because of this thing of earth I'm I'm experiencing.

If by this you mean I experience God as not stingy, not mean, I experience him as Psalm 23, he's my shepherd, I have everything I need.

If you're saying I experience him as these things are important, but they're not more valuable than him, then I say, yes, love him.

But if by love you mean that a thing becomes your identity, or becomes kind of coordinates, which you locate yourself in a reality.

If by this you mean that this provides value and worth, and maybe you don't know if it does this until it's um threatened to be removed, or something you're longing for that's threatened to be hindered or prevented, and your response is prickly and grouchy, or just a plain old jerk and mean.

What's happened then is you're an idolater who cannot get you're an idol.

You're an idolater who cannot get the thing which you're hoping will rescue you.

Strong words.

They're not mine.

This is what John is saying to believers.

Well, Blake, you have this verse on the screen.

I've been looking at it the whole time you're talking, John 3.16.

I memorized it in first grade, they gave me candy.

God so loved the world.

And so this is a good example of when we interpret the Bible, we want to use the Bible to interpret itself.

We also want to play by the rules, which means we we do something called norms of language.

Norms of language is that a word uh it can have some variation of meaning, but it can't mean anything.

There's some boundaries.

So, for example, in English, the word love can have a couple different meanings.

It could mean um affection.

So you I love my wife.

It could mean allegiance and devotion.

I love the Green Bay Packers.

It could be the score in tennis, right?

30 love.

Don't understand it, never played tennis, it just know it exists.

Uh, it could be a greeting in the UK.

They speak English there, you know, hello, love.

But it can't mean spaghetti.

And it can't mean hair condition, it can't mean anything.

There's some norms of usage.

And so, in the norms of usage of the word world in the New Testament, what John is talking about and in in 1 John and what he's quoting Jesus by saying in his gospel, two different norms of language, and the context helps us understand that.

So it's so in his gospel, he's saying, God has loved the world.

He doesn't mean to love bratwurst and and bicycles.

He's saying he has loved people.

This world.

In 1 John, he's talking about things, not people, talking about the things of this world that we enjoy.

And what is happening is we get to sidetracked or confused, and these things rise up as competitors for God.

Second part of verse 15.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

It's talking about allegiance.

You can't have both.

You can't love the world and love the father.

You can't give your attention, affection, and devotion to the world and give attention and affection, devotion to the father.

They are exclusive.

It's not an inverse where one gets more and one gets a little less.

It's not that.

It's exclusive.

Let me give you an illustration.

In the advertising world, there's this thing called good, fast, cheap.

And it works, you know, in kind of almost any um work we do.

My previous role, I spent a lot of time with college students, and and they're not the only ones who do this, but they're just maybe the uh the best at it.

It's called procrastination.

Maybe this is you know part of that tribe.

And so often what can happen is uh, you know, it's week six in a semester, and now this big thing is due and it's worth 50% of your grade, and they didn't assign it.

It's not it's it's Monday, it's due.

They didn't assign it on Friday, they assigned it, you know, here's the syllabus.

You've known it for a while.

And yet somehow you put off the like future Blake, that guy's amazing.

He's gonna get that done.

Current Blake, he doesn't have to worry about that.

And so we get to future Blake, and it's the weekend, and he's gotta make something, I mean, good or good enough, let's be honest.

Or um, and it can't be fast, or it has to be fast, so it can't be cheap.

It's gonna have to cost me, it's gonna cost me time, obviously.

It's probably gonna cost me sleep, it's probably gonna cost me some relationships because uh you're in the way of me getting this done.

Uh good, fast, cheap.

It's exclusive.

You can't have all three, it never works.

You can't love the world, love the father.

Matthew 6 illustrates this.

You can't have two masters.

If something becomes ultimate and life-giving, if something becomes where I must have this, and if I don't get it, God, you're a bad God.

And everyone else who's been a part of that, you're all bad people.

Or something I have and it seems to be being threatened, God, if you take this away from me, you're a bad God.

But that's when something of earth has risen up and usurped him as the first and best thing in the universe for you.

That's when something that was intended to point you to him has replaced him.

That is the idolatry that John is warning his hearers about.

So, two possibilities.

So if you're like, I maybe, maybe I'm a world lover, Blake.

I I I don't know, I don't know.

Two possibilities if you find yourself flirting with the world, loving the world.

John Piper, a theologian, he says there's two things can be happening here.

First thing is if you're a world lover, it could very well be you're just not saved.

You're just not regenerate, you're just not born again.

It makes perfect sense.

If God hasn't done what we just sang about in this last song, if he hasn't redeemed you, or if you haven't been washed in the blood of the Lamb, then yeah, the greatest thing you could experience is stuff of earth.

This is as close to heaven as you're gonna get.

And in a in a church this big and a room this big, it's possible that there's been advantages to kind of flying below the radar and kind of putting some Christian polish wax on your behavior, your doing, your saying, and people don't necessarily get a deep look into you.

And maybe you're just busy and you don't get a deep look into you.

Maybe it's been where it hasn't been a time where the Holy Spirit has has turned something in you and made you believe Jesus is truly God's son, and that you're in dire trouble, deserving death.

And in his grace, which we sang about, Jesus has died in your place instead, and then resurrected, and in that resurrection power, you you now live a life devoted to pleasing him.

If that hasn't occurred, then yeah, you're a world lover.

It's all there is for you.

Paul writes to Timothy describing this.

He says, Look, Timothy, understand this.

In the last days, there will be times of difficulty for people to be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable.

You can't please them.

Slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

And we could stop there and shake our heads and go, hmm, sounds terrible.

Sounds awful.

And yet Paul continues right to Timothy says having the appearance of godliness, having the outer coat, seeming like they've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

But internally, he's not but their God.

And when their God or gods get threatened, when they don't get recognition, they become slanderous.

When they don't get acceptance, they become unappeasable.

When they don't get control or pleasure or power and all the rest of idols we can make.

This never looks like someone bowing down to a statue, which may be what you think of when you think of idolatry.

But internally, their heart is laid out on the floor before an idol, before a false rescuer.

And here's the sad irony is it will never rescue.

It will never treat it, it holds out the offer of help, but it will leave you dead, damaged.

So what do I do?

If I'm convicted, what do I do?

If someone's convicted of being a world lover, there's four things.

In fact, you're gonna see these again in a minute.

1 Peter 1 tells us you need to be born again, and in the word is what often God uses to birth someone spiritually.

I've not known everyone, obviously, but all the believers I've ever known, all of them had some personal interaction with the scripture that was part of their coming to life, coming to faith.

A part of their growing into someone who is maturing as a believer.

It has never happened apart from that.

And so if you've kind of veered or put off, or it's been some days or some weeks or some months since you have really consumed the word.

I'm not saying you're not saved.

In fact, the next category would be those whose hearts have grown cold, they're just kind of grown weary.

But if you're convicted of world world-loving, read the word.

It's what he uses to wash us.

Second thing is uh Matthew 11.

Cry out to Jesus to open your eyes, that he'd open your eyes, that you would see the Father, that you wouldn't just be stuck at experiencing some part of earth and just be consumed by that, but that it would move you to him.

I'll explain this in a minute.

The third thing is Ezekiel 36, is this cry out that take out of me a heart of stone and put in me a heart of flesh, take in me a heart that's dead towards you, God, and put in me one that's alive.

In the last Jeremiah 29, forsake your sins.

Don't give up until a new birth arrives.

These four things.

Now, what if uh the second category Piper says, okay, you could be born again, but it is your love has grown cold or weak, or you've just gotten confused.

Maybe you've gotten so full on the things of earth that you no longer have an appetite or not much of an appetite for God.

Maybe once you felt like knowing Jesus was the most important thing, and that fire that was burning has kind of shrunk down to just the very tip of a wick.

That little just barely lit smoldering tip.

There's great hope for us in Matthew 12 where it says Jesus speaking about him, the bruised reed he does not break.

The smoldering wick, he does not extinguish.

If someone I'm loving the world, or I think I'm flirting with the world, or I'm not sure, maybe you're gonna explain some more, I don't know for sure.

Maybe what it's done is in some sense, your experience of God, your you're you're relating to him has kind of been sss broken, some like a branch that's it's not on the ground, but it but it's been some break, and it's kind of hanging by some wood fibers and some bark.

What this text says is what he does not do is come by and snap it off and say, you know what, enough of that one.

No.

In fact, the same thing someone needed to come to faith in Christ is the same thing they need for that faith to be rekindled.

Pouring over the word, pleading for open eyes, pleading for a new heart.

Instead of uh making me alive, making me renewed.

The same gospel God uses to give growth in the first place is what he uses to demend that branch.

The same gospel uses to light fire in someone is the same when he re-ignites the smoldering wick.

We need the same gospel, we need it at birth as a believer, all the way through life as a believer.

It isn't just meant for conversion, it's how we orientate to God.

God, you do for me what I can't do for myself, and when I can't, I repent and I get up and I walk in faith.

And I repent and I get up and walk in faith.

That was verse 15.

We'll go a little quicker now.

Verse 16.

So here's gonna be the first reason why not to love the world.

And the reason why we should not love the world, the first one, is because the things of this world are meant to be signs pointing to something.

They were never to be the end or destination on themselves.

Verse 16 All that is in the world is not from the Father, but is from, but is from the world.

This is talking about uh the world has an unappeasable grasp for more, more possessions, more pleasure, desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes.

These are things that we don't have.

Uh I I have a deficiency, uh, he has what I want, she has what I want.

I don't have it, I'm longing for it, I'm grasping for it.

John Piper, again, is helpful here, and he talks about this pursuit of pleasure, the pursuit of a physical pleasure or an aesthetic art pleasure.

He said, He writes this there's a lust for the gutter and a lust for the gourmet.

There's a lust for hard rock and a lust for high roff.

There's a lust for penthouse and a lust of Picasso.

Just because it's good taste, just because it's expensive, just because it's refined does not mean it's not an idol.

We don't get a pass because something is really excellent in this world.

The command is to keep ourselves from idols, whether they're crude or whether they're high culture.

They are not.

They have a shackling grip on us.

Last part of this verse, the pride of life.

This is going to be translated the goods of life.

Instead of the things we don't have, these are the things we do have.

And uh I have it and I like it, and I want you to recognize I have it, because when you see what I have, I like what I have more.

There's a pride of self-sufficiency here.

And so you got a great ride, and you bump your music and you pull up, and I hope that you look over here at me because my whip's better than yours.

Corinthians and Deuteronomy are helpful here.

Corinthians says, What do you have that you did not receive?

Everything you ever have and ever will enjoy has been a grace gift to God for the believer and non-believer.

The rain falls on the pagan and on the believer, just the same.

The breath you just took, the time in history you exist, whatever you enjoy, whatever you experience, none of it has been you alone.

Not one bit of it.

Did I make this really clear that it is he who gives you power to get wealth.

So you may say, look, I got some stuff, but I can show you pay stub after pay stub after paste up, work week after work week, calluses, scars.

And yet the word tells us your ability, your skills, those are gifts from God.

Are you really good at math?

It doesn't make sense to you?

That's not your doing.

What was literature or language?

Was that meaningful to you?

Maybe you have people skills and you can be very winsome.

All those things are an enabling by God.

And sometimes we we think, well, no, I did this without realizing whatever I have done, I could have done none of it without what he first did.

So we're still on.

And so here's my challenge, my charge to you.

Follow the signs.

In Joel Rigney in his helpful book, The Things of Earth, he talks about the stuff of this world.

So bratwurst and beer and tandem bicycles and boats and balloons and all the stuff starts letter B and all the other letters, all the stuff of Earth, they are signs to be directing us to something greater than them.

So look at this picture.

This is a picture, this picture of the book, but it's a picture of a sign to Grand Canyon National Park.

Anyone been to the Grand Canyon National Park?

You still pay attention?

Great, thank you, front row.

All right, and those of you who haven't been, no, no judgment here.

I've been, but I've not taken my kids, so I do feel kind of bad.

We should probably go.

So it's pretty amazing.

So Grand Canyon National Park, I'm not sure how far it is.

You can Google map it right now.

Uh from here, it's pretty far away.

And then even when you get off the highway, it's not like right there you gotta go, you know, through a big national park.

And and you finally get to one of these things.

And there's a couple of them depending on which direction you enter from.

It's a sign.

And it's a pretty good sign.

Okay, this isn't like, you know, you looked on Pinterest and watched some YouTube videos and put it together.

This is like a legitimate stand, the torrents of nature sign.

And so what would happen if we drove up there and you get out, and oh, everyone's tired and cranky, oh gosh, we're not there yet.

And so you huddle everyone around the sign, you take your picture, and you finally just give up because one kid won't smile, and so you finally take a picture, and you get back in the car, and then you turn the car around and you go back the way you came.

That is loving the world.

So, what the sign is supposed to do is to show you, okay, recognize me now, move along past me and go see the canyon.

If you stop at the sign, you miss the thing you're supposed to see.

The sign is nothing compared to the canyon.

The sign's good and all.

But the canyon is what you go see, and your breath's taken away.

And you get there early in the morning, and then this rim is lit up with color, or you get there in the afternoon or late evening, and then this rim is lit up with color.

And it's just it's so immense.

And you don't need to buy a single postcard.

Every picture you take is gonna be incredible.

The sign always points to something much greater than itself.

And so, whatever parts of the world have you really enjoyed, as great as they are, they've always been designed to point you to the Father.

You're never supposed to stop and camp out there and hug the sign, love the sign, kiss the sign, and then go back.

It's always supposed to move on from that to the Father, to which all these signs point.

The desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, when it becomes a desire for God, we are wielding how He's made us and the things of earth for how they've been designed.

Back in my frosted animal cracker sugar things.

I'm not sure what they are, they're cookies.

Eating a few.

I mean, power pack, lighting up my senses, cookie.

Thank you.

Something so small, do so much.

Thank you.

When that becomes, mmm, sugar, mmm, sprinkles, mmm, the white one, mmm, the pink one, mmm, ten more.

And I just sit it in the bag, and I never move on to the Father.

And not just a tip of the hat, oh, thank you, Lord.

If I never move on to Him, or just give some, check the box, I've missed why they exist.

I've missed it completely.

I've missed completely.

How why has God wired my chemistry to where this thing grips me?

It's a pointer sign.

Oh, you think this is great?

You think this is great?

I've got something that's gonna blow you out of your mind.

And you can't, you can't even handle it.

Because I have to give you a new glorified body in the life to come when you have to fully experience this.

But you are not gonna believe what it's like to be in my presence.

It was always designed to be a sign.

All right, Blake.

So let me help this.

Are you saying, I mean, should I desire dinner?

I'm a little confused here.

Should I not desire a job?

Is that what you're saying?

Should I not desire a spouse?

Should I not desire the child in my womb?

Should I not desire grandkids or a healthy body or a good night's rest or a morning sunrise?

Or how about a great book or evening with friends?

I'm gonna give you two two patterns and you can hatch out the rest.

Yes, desire dinner.

Because desiring dinner can lead you to truly desiring God in this way.

When we desire food, if we can shift that to actively depending upon Him in need, I mean, barring some couple of things happening, I got to eat pretty regularly.

I mean, now I'm talking about it, you might be getting hungry.

It's how he's we wired us that we would need this regularly.

And it could be a regular metronome in our life where we move to him.

So desire food, desire dinner.

It's from him.

How your body digests it, the Krebs cycle, whatever other chemistry is happening, all that's his design.

Food can become a worship experience.

Oh, not in the food itself, not in like, oh, the palate and the salt and not move beyond the sign.

It can be a worship experience of him.

Desire a job, yes.

Desire a job because God the Father is a worker.

Right?

Creation.

The six days of creation, and he's made you and me as workers.

Desire a job, desire work because in work we don't find our fulfillment or identity.

That's that's hugging the side.

In work, what we find is the hard edge of our ability.

And we get to the end of ourself and we find there's more work than Blake.

There's more work than me.

And that's not meaning, oh, quit your job, change it, because now it's not uh fulfilling.

No, now it now we're getting in worship territory.

Now it becomes, God, you've got to help me.

You've got to do what I can't do on my own.

You've got to change my thinking and feeling and acting and speaking to her, to him.

You gotta empower me to synthesize what my what my um boss is asking.

You you gotta help me have this hard conversation.

You gotta help me do what I can't do on my own.

When work becomes work, that's when it really can become worship.

Because we find the end of ourselves.

And we've in and there is where you find God can meet you with everything you need.

If it's always something you can do, you don't need him.

And so some of it maybe just pick a little sign that we can lay on, and that's all I need.

When you get to the edge of yourself, that's when work, whatever kind of work, what kind of every kind of effort, whether it's physical, mental, uh, verbal, whether it's head, heart, hands, when we get to the edge of what we can do and we look to him to do for us what we can, that's when this becomes worship.

So, yes, desire a job, desire work, because it's it shows us our great need of him again and again.

All right, verse 17.

We're gonna at the end, we're gonna land this thing.

Here's reason number two to not love the world.

Verse 17 says, and the world and the and the world is passing away with its desires.

Would you invest whatever income, whatever money, whatever riches you have in a company that you knew Friday was tanking and you get none of it out?

If you knew that, but you wouldn't do that.

Would you buy a vehicle that you knew Tuesday is getting stolen?

I don't think you would.

In fact, probably what we do is okay, I'm gonna I need to buy something.

Let me go on this website.

It's Amazon, we know it is, okay.

And uh let me look how many stars did it get?

So it got a 4.5.

Okay, oh, only eight reviews?

Well, that's just they paid for that.

That doesn't count.

Oh, it's it's got a thousand reviews and it's a two-star.

I'm definitely not buying a two-star.

And you 999 people who bought after the first guy said it was terrible, you guys are crazy.

No, we want a four, basically, four is like the okay, three and a half, maybe.

A two?

No, wait.

One?

Of course not, I'm not buying that.

When when we love the world, when we would love the things of the world, you are planning for disappointment.

You are planning for pain.

You're preparing the way to be hurt.

When we put our hope and trust in an idol above God the Father, the idol can't do anything.

It can't rescue, it can only let you down and harm you.

What John tells his readers, don't love the world, it's a bad investment.

Whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Whoever comes to a sign, a thing of this world, and moves on past it to the presence of the Father, they're the ones that flourish now and forevermore.

Let me read one last quote to you.

This is Randy Elkorn, he's our author, and he helps us think about uh the when we evaluate, am I a world lover?

It's kind of lengthy, it's one slide here, but I'll read it for things that's helpful.

He says one way we begin to do this, evaluate if we're loving the world, is asking, what are the novels I'm reading?

What are the movies I'm watching?

What are the things that preoccupy me?

What are the things that I talk about?

Am I proud of my favorite professional, college or high school team?

Am I willing to talk about and defend that team and yet am ashamed of the gospel of Christ?

Something is fundamentally wrong if you won't talk about, talk to people about Jesus with any kind of passion or enthusiasm, like we talk about the sports team or a movie or a TV program, those things become idolatrous.

Passions we invest in other things should be directed to Christ.

Let me rephrase this.

What are you an evangelist of?

What is the good news you're telling others?

Oh, you've got to try this restaurant, it's so amazing.

Oh, you gotta try this beautician, she's incredible.

It very well may be when we are confused and become world lovers, we have a gospel of something else, we say.

Maybe not even much more, maybe just instead of the gospel of Christ.

And that is not to beat you with a shame stick.

That's not my point.

I need you.

I need you to kind of get me back in line.

I I need you to correct how I've been thinking and experiencing the things of this world.

I need you to to shift that so I can I can really live.

You may be thinking, all right, Blake, if I if I try and follow every sign, every part of this earthly world that I experience and move it, pass the sign to God the Father, um, I'm gonna be constantly in his presence.

And it's gonna disrupt my workflow, disrupt conversations.

Okay, let's not think more highly of our ability than we should.

I'll just take one or two times a day.

Maybe just try once a day.

And maybe that is at night when you think back, all right, God, I'm sorry, did I move past any sign to you?

Did I neglect you?

And what you might find as you begin to practice, you might find, oh, I've already been kind of doing this in some places.

Let's spread that other other areas of your life.

Or you might find as you're beginning to develop some muscles.

And it's not, it takes four and five minutes to move past a sign to his presence.

It takes four or five seconds.

And you might find that you truly are someone living in two worlds.

You're in the world, but you're not offered.

You're in this world, but you're also a longing for heaven.

You might find that.

Clyde's gonna come up, and we're gonna provide a time not to manipulate, not twisting anybody's arm, it's to give space to for you and God to have some final words about this.

It's not me talking, it's you and him talking.

And let me give you three things, and he's he maybe have something else entirely he's dialoguing with you about.

Uh, one would be what's a what's a regular sign you encounter, uh a regular rhythm of your life?

It could be daily.

That that needs to begin to shift to this, needs to be a regular call to worship for me.

And maybe you just practice that in these next moments.

Uh maybe it is to repent of kind of a habitual neglect of him and stopping at the sign rather than moving to the one the sign points.

And still, maybe it is to beg him for a softer heart.

If this isn't quite penetrating or landing, and I hear the words, but I'm not feeling it.

Penetrate me, Lord.

Pierce me with the word.

Let me feel it.

Let's just take a few moments and just you get in a one-on-one conversation in your heart and mind with the Lord about that.

Gracious Father, uh, we confess that we miss or we misuse the signs in this world that point to you.

And we should be left stranded on the side of the road, or better yet, stranded in the deep desert.

And the reason that does not happen is that Jesus was abandoned on our behalf.

On the cross, you stranded him to sin and death.

So, Lord, seeing him in our place and him conquering sin and death.

This produces humility in us, this produces gratitude in us, this produces repentance in us.

So we just ask you, make us deeply thankful of this, make us deeply joyful that there are hundreds of calls to worship in our life experience awaiting us.

And make us deeply hungry for your presence.

This we pray, this we need you to do.

Amen.

Thank you.

If you just give a few more minutes of attention, we have our video announcements if you'll watch those here now.

Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

Please pray for our students and leaders this week at Serve Berme, where they will be helping with construction and sharing the love of Christ.

Tomorrow, July 29th, is the summer meetup for kids, first through fourth grade at 10 a.m.

at Ninja Adventure.

Register online.

For our promotion weekend, kids two years old through fourth grade will meet their teachers, will commission families that are serving, and then we'll enjoy a meal together.

Promote Serve Celebrate will take place from 9 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

in the kids' boom.

Register online.

In two weeks, our final men's outing for the summer will be at Rudy's Barbecue in Richmond at 6 30 p.m.

If you would like someone to pray with you or you have a question about anything you have seen or heard today, some of our pastors and elders will be available at the front of the stage after our service.

If you're able, let me ask you to close our service by standing with me.

Uh it's our traditional practice to speak a blessing of what God's done in the text over us.

So hold out your hands.

This is the posture of submission and reception from God.

Let me speak over you.

Go and wield every one of your senses to experience legitimate goodness in this world.

Breathe in that experience and breathe out gratitude and joy for your Father.

Be in this world, but don't be of it.

And may the signs of this world get your attention and lead you directly to the Father Himself.

Amen.