I Shall Not Want

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And now, here is this week's message.

So good to be with you.

So good to be with those of you who are watching online wherever you're watching from.

My name is Tori, I'm the associate pastor here at Gateway.

I hope you're having a great start to your summer.

I know that we are in the Shepherd household.

Yesterday we got back from taking the kids to Dollywood.

Um yeah, that was fun.

That was the first time being able to actually ride any rides there.

I think my son's traumatized from Big Bear Mountain.

I told him I was like, this is gonna be great, you're gonna love it.

He did not love it.

Okay, it was just it was not his cup of tea.

Uh nonetheless, we had a good time.

So, with it being summertime, the kids are out of school, spending more time around the house.

We've been going to some fun places.

I don't know if it's just a combination of those things or maybe any one thing in particular, uh, but there's a name we use to call our children when they're behaving a certain way, and it's had to be used a lot recently, and that is they are being a want monster.

Um, this is a phrase I actually learned from Pastor Charlie.

He just dropped it casually in conversation one time, and I just latched onto it because I'm like, that's that's exactly what my kids are sometimes.

And so we tell them all the time, hey, hey, don't be a want monster.

Now I've got three kids.

I've got Morgan who's four, I've got Palmer who is three, and I've got Sloane, who in 27 days is going to be one year old, which is just crazy.

Um, but here we are.

Now, of my three kids, Palmer is the easiest to make happy.

Um, don't mistake that with the easiest, because she can throw a bigger meltdown than any of them.

Um, but she is she's easy to make happy because she would be content doing the same thing all day, every day.

In fact, it's pretty much how every day begins.

As she wakes up, she goes to her closet, grabs a princess dress, comes downstairs, grabs a snack, sits down, and wants to watch a princess movie.

Um and if we left her there, she would be there all day.

It's really all she wants.

In fact, I got a picture to show you.

This is her roping in her cousin, uh Callie, and uh yeah, just cool as a cucumber.

Like that's all she needs.

Morgan, on the other hand, he's my uh he's my wanter.

Um, he's a little trickier.

Parenting Morgan is basically just a practice in marketing, right?

Because everything has to be sold.

Hey, this is fun.

This is gonna be the best thing ever.

Nobody's ever done anything like this before.

This is the best piece of cake, this is the best candy.

Whatever you can do to upsell it, I mean, he is buying.

He is all over it.

He wants incessantly.

Now, um, if you have a kid like mine, you understand that the problem with this is that whatever the new thing is only is new for about six minutes.

Uh, and then you go to find a new new thing because the new thing is the old thing.

Now, I wish I could say that this goes away as we get older, uh, but I found, au contraire, it just seems like our desires start to shift, they get a little more expensive, sometimes they get dressed up in adult language.

Um, but even now we find ourselves wanting to keep up with whatever's going on.

Uh, one of the it things that my wife likes to latch on to is whatever the it girl water bottle is.

Women in the room, raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about.

All right, yeah.

Husbands, you know because you saw it on your Amex uh receipt that they went and bought another$30 water bottle.

And you're wondering why?

Because our cupboard is full of water bottles dating back to 2006, which promise and guarantee that you will drink more water if you just buy the water bottle.

Um and I don't understand the water bottles because they're clunky, they're big, they don't go in the dishwasher, they don't fit in a cup holder.

Um what is he?

We had the Yeti, we had the Stanley, we had the Corksickle, we had the come on, help me out, Jeannie.

You're you're the Awala.

Now my broommates.

I was sold on the Awala.

So let me just say that.

I'm team Awala.

I am I am here to stay.

What's it now?

The broomate.

Broomate's the new one.

Um we don't have a we don't have that.

You don't tell K that.

Um any of us.

There's there's stuff we want, right?

We want more square footage, we want more opportunities.

Sometimes it's not material things.

It's we'd like to have more influence or more respect or or more recognition, or maybe we're just bored with where life is, so we want the next, whatever the next is, the next season, and we want, want, want, want, want.

And and this want affliction um is not really a a privilege for those who have money or a um a price to pay for those who don't.

It doesn't discriminate.

We can all be a want monster.

Now I'm giving Kay a hard time, but I gotta admit, the way the want monster manifests in me is the social media that I is like my favorite of all of them is Facebook Marketplace.

I I just love it.

I think it's awesome.

I love the hustle, I love the hunt, I love the haggle, right?

It's like the world's biggest yard sale, but forever.

Um, and I just find it fascinating.

I'm I'm on Facebook Marketplace so much that uh when I get the screen time report, I actually have to delete the app.

I've talked about that in other sermons.

I just get so guilty looking at this thing.

But what I've noticed is that when I delete the app, my usage tends to migrate over to Amazon.

And I'm on the Amazon app and I'm going through scrolling, putting things into a list, knowing good and well I'm never gonna buy these things.

It's like my want monster list, right?

And this is, I guess, the digital, pitiful, decadent version of what used to be window shopping.

If I remember window shopping, let's go to them all and look around.

Like, I don't even bring my wallet with me, I'm just gonna have a good time.

Which that's a euphemism if I've ever heard one, because the legal term for that is loitering.

Um this guy likes to loiter, all right?

So, because I'm a cheapo, I don't want to spend any money.

So, why then am I looking for this stuff?

Why am I wasting so much of my time looking at things I don't actually need?

Well, it's because somewhere along the way, in my wiring, I've been wired to want.

I'm actually just looking for something to catch my eye.

I'm looking for something to pluck my heart, something that I could hang on to and say, I want that.

And that's the wiring that I want to talk about this morning.

Because the way that our society and our economy is ordered, is it is designed to keep us in a wanting state.

You can buy an iPhone, but there's going to be a new one next year.

Right?

You can leave and drive a new car, and it's not even gonna be six months before they're marketing the 2027 version, and we're still in 2026.

There is an upgraded version of everything that you can purchase, right?

You can't even just buy a refrigerator now, right?

There's the premium refrigerator.

And you have to buy the premium refrigerator, or your new refrigerator comes with ads on it.

So you can be sold more things, right?

We are designed, or this the this economy is such that it is designed to keep us wanting.

And here's what I want you to see is that that living in a constant state of want, it's not just annoying, it actually does harm us.

Right?

It wears us down.

Now the question is, how do we actually fix it?

Right?

Because if you've ever been to the place where you've been so fed up with just being inundated with advertisements or things taking all of your attention or being glued to your phone or whatever the issue is, you've probably had what I call the simplicity fantasy, which is I wish I could just unplug all of this stuff, I could sell my house, move to a cabin in the woods, and grow my own tomatoes and let the world spin by itself.

Some of you, and I'm not even being silly here, this is how you ended up in Middle Tennessee.

Because you were from somewhere like California or New Jer New York or New Jersey, and you just felt like the hustle of life was just way too much for what you had going on, and you said, I want to go somewhere simpler, I want to go somewhere slower, I want to try to unplug from all of this stuff.

Now, um, like it's good, it's good to pursue that, but the reality is it's not as easy as just unplugging.

There's a question I used to ask people, um, and I and I and I still ask them from time to time, but it's if you could press a button, and all forms of social media would cease to exist, right?

Up to and including texting, like the only thing you could be able to do on your phone is to call people, would you press that button?

I've asked that question for years, and I have never had somebody say no.

Ever.

People who make a lot of money on social media.

Right?

Because I think we all discern that like this is probably not the way we're supposed to live.

Right, that brings a lot of positives, but I'm not sure those positives outweigh the negatives.

And we're just too tired of being uh exposed and inundated with all of this stuff.

So the hard reality, there's no button.

We have to live in this world.

But maybe the harder reality, I think this is where we get stuck because we often use that as the excuse, is that even if there was a button, it wouldn't fix the want monster in you.

Because as easy as it is to blame this, right, the real issue is it's a heart problem.

You can go to the middle of nowhere and you're still gonna crave something.

Right?

The heart is wired to want.

So where should we direct that wanting?

Hold on, I'm gonna respond to someone's marketplace message.

One thing I love about the Bible is that no matter how complex and new and unique the problems we experience today are, the Bible has this way of reminding us that they're really not.

Right?

The Bible was actually written over a around a 2,000-year period.

Different parts of the world.

And when you piece together this literature and you and you look at it at one, one thing that's really cool when you read it from start to finish is that in all these different stories and different contexts, you can see human nature showing through.

And all the specifics and and the details of the things that they were dealing with.

I mean, that might be you know a little different.

The reality is a lot of these issues that come through are heart issues.

And so we can see ourselves reflected in that.

And so this morning, as we talk about this want issue, I want to zone in on some of the more famous words that Jesus ever said.

Uh, if you even if you didn't grow up in church, you might have heard this before.

This is from Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

Jesus says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

This morning I want to slow down and I want to look at those two words.

Two words that in the link in the English seem like the same word for tired, but in the original language we see that these are actually two different words entirely, meaning two different things.

Those are weary and burdened.

So weary is this word that's written in the active tense.

And I know this seems like it's in the weeds, but but hang with me.

Because it's an active word, it means that this is the tire that you do to yourself.

This is what happens when you're worn out from laboring and striving and running yourself into the ground, right?

But but when we look at burden, this is actually in the passive tense.

And the distinction is important is because this word is referring to a tiredness that's put on you.

Maybe the image here would be like a packed mule, right?

And you just load up this mule with a bunch of stuff to the point where its knees start to buckle.

And the reason I point this out is because this means that when Jesus is addressing those who are tired, he's not just addressing one type of tired person, he's addressing two.

If I were to take these words and retranslate them to maybe a more modern vernacular, the words I would use are burned out and overwhelmed.

And it's in these two words that we see the two great challenges that we have to live with and deal with when we live in a constant state of want.

Right?

The first is weariness or burnout.

This is the self-inflicted kind, the tired you do to yourself.

It's the tired that comes from chasing.

You know, when I look at come to the differences between generations, when I look at the boomer generation and the older Gen X generation, a lot of the want and the keeping up with was really centered around material things.

This is just a sociological observation that if you wanted to present yourself as somebody, you would do that through your stuff, through your house, through your car, what was in your house or in your car, what you wore, your title position.

It was very material.

Now, as we shift over into the younger Gen X, more millennial age range, a lot of the way of standing out wasn't as much material as much as it was experience.

Right?

You got to go on these trips, you gotta go on a once-in-a-lifetime thing, you gotta go to the new restaurant or the new place as soon as it opens, and you gotta put it on social media.

You gotta be so active and so involved in what is current in the world so people don't think you're just a lame loser who sits at home, but you are uh you are adventurous and you are exciting and your life is full, right?

And it's really not even about as much doing the stuff as much as it is this outward validation that we're trying to communicate that we are important, that we're somebody, that we're current, that we know what's going on.

Now the problem is that there's not anything bad with any of this stuff.

Not wrong to have nice things, it's not right wrong to go on nice trips.

But it is wrong to live in a place of constantly having to prove yourself and to feel like if you can't keep up and you can't, you know, rival or meet what somebody else is doing, that it somehow meets your less than.

And the problem is a lot of us work ourselves in this place of exhaustion, just trying to prove something to people who aren't even paying attention.

Now the second thing we see is wanting in a way that leaves us burdened, or this is overwhelming.

And this one differs because the first one is something that we pick up through striving, the second is the one that gets loaded onto you.

And they kind of go hand in hand.

Because I know some people who are really good at keeping up.

The problem is no matter how fast you try to keep up, you will never be able to keep up enough because the world is moving faster than you can.

It's just not possible.

Right?

You can give your very best, and it will still not be enough.

And so when you're striving, you're tired from doing, but when you're failing, you're tired from the shame that comes on that.

You know, when you live life with this disposition of constantly seeing the world through a lens of what am I lacking in my life?

When whenever you encounter someone, all you're doing is picking up new expectations, right?

And you're measuring up what you have against what they have.

I mean, be this your house, right?

It's like, you know, by maybe I don't even own a home at this point.

And by this age, I really should have owned my first home.

Or, you know, this person, they they they're they're moving on to a bigger home, and I'm stuck in this home, or or maybe it's your kids, right?

You you feel like I should be having kids, and I don't have kids, and and I feel like I'm falling behind, or I look at my kids and I look at their kids, and why don't my kids behave like that?

Why aren't my kids involved in sports?

Why don't my kids and you're just taking this blessing that God has given you, right?

And you're just measuring it up against something else.

We do the same in our marriages, right?

I maybe you want to be married and you feel like that's something that hasn't happened for you yet, and it's a point of insecurity or anxiety, or maybe you are married and and maybe you wish you weren't when you see what everybody else's marriage looks like, and you think, well, why doesn't my spouse do that?

And why don't we have fun together and look at the way that he looks at her and look at the way she looks at him, and we don't look at each other like that.

And and everything we observe about our life is done through this framework that says, what is missing versus what do I have?

And it's not just a matter of the way that we kind of this physical and emotional thing, it's it is more spiritual than you realize.

Because it's not possible to live your life this way just about material things and it not bleed over into the way that you follow Jesus.

Right?

Here's one of the ways that this manifests when when we're talking about what it looks like as a follower of Jesus.

When I am constantly looking at my life with this kind of finish line mentality, with this get to the next, level up, then in following Jesus, I find myself placing a greater emphasis on being like him rather than being with him.

Jesus becomes a means to some set end, whether that's my own maturity, whether that's something I want him to use me for, whether that's this place that I believe that he's taking me, right?

I'm more interested in what God wants to do in me and through me than I am just being connected with him.

And I and look, this is a very subtle difference.

It's the type of difference that most people in your life would never recognize.

It's something that you have to do some self-reflection in your own heart.

Because if I put my own growth and my maturity or or mission first, in my pursuit of Christ secondary, what ends up happening is that road leads to burnout.

Because all I'm gonna do is try to do something that I don't have the power to do.

Because sin is too powerful and I'm too weak.

I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not mature enough, I don't have the discipline, I don't have the energy, and so if there's going to be any growth in my life, it's not gonna be from my own effort.

It's gonna be because I'm connected.

And to both of these challenges, whether it's burnout or being overwhelmed, Jesus gets the same three-word invitation come to me.

Come to me.

He doesn't say try harder.

He doesn't tell the burned-out person to run a little bit faster.

He doesn't tell the overwhelmed person to stop complaining or that they're falling short.

He says, that heaviness that you are living in, give that to me.

And in its place, I'm gonna give you something else, and my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Now we've heard this invitation before, right?

We agree with it in principle.

The question is, what does this look like in practice?

What would the evidence of this be in my life?

Well, if we go back a thousand years before Jesus says this, we we see evidence of what I think this posture looks like in King David.

And he reveals that posture in the 23rd Psalm in verse 1.

He says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Man, what a word for today.

I shall not want.

What I what I love about his his saying this, he's not saying that I shouldn't want.

He's not saying there aren't things to want.

He's saying I don't have to want.

Because of what I have in Christ.

He's able to say this not because there was nothing to want, because most people believe that when he wrote this psalm, he was in one of the most difficult seasons of his life.

I'm sure there were a lot of things that he wanted that would have provided some security.

It's not that there was nothing to do.

After all, David was a king, he had plenty to get done.

He is able to say, I need not want, because he realized that regardless of whatever his present situation looked like, God was fully sufficient for him.

And that reality for him is our reality.

The question is, where is our attention oriented?

Right?

Because if our attention is constantly looking out, all we're going to do is notice all the things that are lacking in our life.

But when we fix our eyes on Christ and we look to him and we rest in him, the reason we're able to say, I shall not want, isn't because there aren't things that we need.

It's just a recognition that there's nothing that I need that can't be satisfied in him.

Be that resourcing, be that emotional health, be that relationship satisfaction, whatever deficit is there is in my life, it doesn't mean that when I just choose to rest in him, that all those needs go away.

It's just recognizing that he's sufficient to meet those needs and alleviate my wants.

So as I mentioned, we we've heard this before.

This isn't the first time we've received the invitation to come.

I find that we're really good at coming, we're not as great at staying.

And so this morning I want to talk about three habits of the heart that I think really help us hitch our wagons to Christ and follow him for the long haul.

Here's the first habit I want to look at.

To abide in Christ.

This is something Pastor Chris mentioned this morning when talking about Discover Gateway.

In the upper room in John 15, Jesus says to his disciples, I am the vine and you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing.

What does it mean to abide?

And the Greek word for abide is this word uh minnow and it means to remain or to dwell or to stay.

And I love what Jesus says here.

He doesn't say produce in me.

He doesn't say perform in me.

He doesn't say strive in me.

He doesn't say work really hard to show everybody else that you got it in me.

He says abide in me.

Stay attached.

Stay connected.

And as a result of staying connected, look at what he says next.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

And this is where I think we get this flip-flop sometimes.

Right?

We mistake abide in Christ as obey everything that he said.

And your obedience is the measure of your relationship with him.

And if you are living it out, that means you're abiding.

But if you're struggling and faltering, you're not abiding.

But that's not what the verse implies.

Right?

The fruit is not the cause, the fruit is the effect.

Connection is the cause.

Right?

The only job of a branch isn't to bear fruit, but is to stay connected to the vine.

Because it is the power of the vine flowing through the branch that allows the branch to produce anything at all.

And in the same way, the the follower of Jesus, it's not our job to be good people.

I hope that happens.

I think it's a mark of being connected.

I think it's what maturity looks like.

But I don't think being good people is the goal.

I think the goal is for us to stay connected to the only person who is good.

And to allow him to do a transforming work on the inside of us.

To the follower of Jesus, right?

Our primary job, believe it or not, is to follow.

To stay in relationship.

Because apart from him, we're not going to be able to do it anyways.

To the driven person or the progress-oriented person, or kind of the type A doer in the room, abiding feels like passivity.

Right?

We think staying connected, right?

When everything is telling us to just go out and do something, you hear this from time to time.

It's like, I don't I don't really care about the worship.

I don't really care about the reading.

Tell me what you want me to do, Pastor.

Where do you want me to go?

Who do you want me to help?

Who can just mobilize me?

And that's great.

But one of the hardest challenges for those types of people, myself in that camp included, abiding isn't doing nothing.

It's resisting the urge to do the wrong things.

It's recognizing that before I can do any of that stuff is as helpful as it is, it's not as helpful as me being healthy and whole because I'm connected to the vine.

Because yes, the world may need me to go do this, and I could really help somebody today, and it could be really important and it could be good.

The problem is if I'm not connected, I'm gonna burn out and I'm gonna be worse off because of it.

I have to stay connected.

So, what does it mean to abide in Christ?

Well, it's to do the things that focus your mind and heart on him.

Simply put, it's to do the things that stir your affections for Christ.

It's from that word affection, we're gonna go to our next habit, which is to delight in Christ.

Psalm 37, David says, Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I love this word, delight.

Now, through the years, some have used this verse to turn God into a vending machine.

That He's this transactional God, that you put your coin in and you get your snack.

Right?

Bless God, get your blessing.

This is the anchor verse of the prosperity gospel movement.

The problem is that interpretation of it is a really shallow read because it misses the point of what the psalmist is trying to say entirely.

He's saying, when you delight yourself in God, he becomes the desire of your heart.

That's what it means to delight in him.

And when God says, I will give you the desires, this is the same God who says, when you get serious about seeking me with all of your heart, you will find me.

I mean, that's good news.

That we've got a God that we don't have to dance for to get his attention, or we don't have to wake him up because he's asleep, or we don't have to try to prove ourselves that he would want to listen to us.

He's a God who's saying, look, if you'll just come after me, I promise you, stand on the promise of my word that you're gonna find me.

Because I want to be found by you.

And what we notice is that as our wanting reorients, we stop going to God for something that we can get, and we start going to God just for who He is.

Yeah, there's things that we need to go to and for, but but at the end of the day, God, you're just you're just better than those things.

And yes, Lord, there are needs that I need you to work in my life, and I need you to help me in this area, but but right now what I really need is I just need to be connected to you.

And when I get connected to you, God, as big as these issues and as real as these issues may be, I realize they just become a lot smaller.

Because you're enough, and delight is critical for the follower of Jesus.

Because delight is what makes this journey sustainable.

Because we got to follow Jesus for a long time, guys.

Delight is the difference between duty and love.

Duty asks, what do I owe?

Delight asks, what do I love?

Delight is sustained by willpower.

Duty, or excuse me, duty is sustained by willpower, delight is sustained by the very fact that our heart belongs to God.

Duty produces compliance, but delight produces worship.

And working for the Lord from a place of delight rather than duty is one of the great markers of long-haul discipleship.

Here's what I don't want you to hear.

I don't want you to hear that duty bad, delight good.

Right?

There is a time and place for duty.

But it's not the posture that God wants us to primarily operate out of.

This is a great parallel to marriage, by the way.

There's a lot of things I have to do for my wife.

I don't know about you, I felt like that vow list was kind of long.

So I gotta do it.

Now, I can do it and I can have a bad attitude about it, and I can check the box, and I can say I've done everything that I committed and said that I was gonna do, and it's gonna feel exhausting, or I could really just love my wife.

And when I love my wife, I find myself doing not only the things that I'm supposed to do, but actually a little bit extra that I didn't say I was gonna do.

And it doesn't feel like a lot of work either.

It feels like something that I want to do.

Now here's the honest tension.

What if it's hard for you to delight in the Lord because you just don't feel a lot of delight?

It's like when I tell my son, you know, he's I said, You want you want pepperoni pizza?

He says, I don't like pepperoni pizza.

And I you like pepperoni pizza, you know, like just Jedi mind tricks right now.

Like it doesn't always work like that, right?

You hear people say this, they're like, just love God.

I'd like to, but I don't.

You know, I don't know how to fix that.

So how do you fix it?

How do you delight in the Lord when you don't really feel anything there?

Well, you get there by being with him, by proximity and by getting in his presence.

Well, I don't know if I'm gonna like him.

You're gonna like him.

Trust me.

Right.

I don't, I mean, you can't conjure up an artificial emotion, but what you can do is you can walk into his presence, which he has openly extended that invitation to every single one of us.

And I'm just telling you, when you meet him, he's gonna be kinder than you could ever imagine, he's gonna be more patient with you than you ever thought possible, he's gonna treat you better than you deserve, he's gonna be able to correct you in a way that doesn't even feel like a whipping.

Right?

He is going to be immeasurably more than you could ask or think him to be.

And you're gonna love him.

And he wants you to love him.

Not because he's insecure if you don't, but because he knows that ultimately he's the best thing for you.

So how do you create that?

Well, like I mentioned, you get in his presence.

Now, paradoxically, as we already mentioned, duty is not bad, but lesser than delight, but it's amazing how sometimes duty is what leads to delight.

I say this many times that choices lead and feelings follow.

There are plenty of times that I don't want to read my Bible, or pray, or be in community, or go to church, or give, or worship, or sing, or stand, or serve, or lift my hands, or do any of the things that they tell me I have to do when I come here.

Like refill the mint jar.

And I think the mistake would be to say, because God cares more about my heart and my actions, then He really wouldn't want me to do something if my heart's not in it.

Can I just tell you, those are a lot of things that I quote unquote have to do.

And if I just didn't do them because my heart wasn't in them, then the truth is that's not going to help me be any closer to them, anyways.

In fact, I find it's the opposite.

When I love the Lord from a place of duty, when the emotion is lacking, it's actually what creates the emotion.

Once again, another great parallel to marriage.

One of the times my love for my wife grows the most is when I choose to love her when she deserves it the least.

Now she can say that a lot more about me than I can her, right?

But the principle stands.

Duty compels me to demonstrate this love.

But that emotion and the sincerity of the heart behind that, it doesn't take long before those emotions start to follow.

And you're finding yourself delighting in this Lord that you've chosen to seek after.

All right, here's habit number three.

Remain in Christ.

In John 8, Jesus says this if you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

That word remain is the same Greek word that we saw for abide, it's minnow.

Now I use the same word because it just shows the layers and complexity of some of the words that are used in the original language.

But listen to what he attaches to the way he uses this word this time.

He says, Those who remain truly are my disciples.

The mark of a real disciple isn't having a dramatic start.

It's not a matter of having an exciting testimony.

It's not even a mark of what you're able to do for God.

The mark of discipleship is the one who remains, who sticks with him to the end.

And here's what I want you to remember about remaining.

Remaining is a choice.

It's a decision that you make on purpose over and over and over and over and over again.

Sometimes that choice will be easy, and sometimes that choice will not.

There will be seasons where it doesn't make sense.

There will be times when you ask God for one thing and he says no.

There will be times when God's timing is not your timing.

There will be doors that God closes or refuses to open.

There will be seasons where God seems to go quiet or the path that you were on suddenly stops, and you're looking at your life and you're not able to make sense of it.

And what you thought God had envisioned for you ends up not being the thing, and you're confused and you're not sure how to make sense of it.

And remaining is a choice that you make, not because you have understanding of what God is doing, but you choose to trust and refuse to allow disappointment to become an off-ramp.

Because there's a lot of things in this life that we just are never going to get answers for.

I can't tell you why some people get healed and some people don't.

I can't tell you why some marriages get healed and some end a divorce.

I can't tell you why little kids die sometimes.

I can't tell you why you lost your job.

I can't tell you why people go hungry.

There's a lot of big questions that I don't have answers for.

But what I do know is who God is.

And when I can't make sense of what's going on around me, the only thing I can do is lift my eyes up and say, God, your ways are higher than my ways, your thoughts are higher than my thoughts.

I don't know how to make sense of this, but I'm sticking with you.

One of the best pictures that we see of this is in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

Jesus at this point had amassed a huge following.

Sorry, Micah, I don't know, maybe yours will rival that this weekend or next weekend.

And then he starts teaching in a way that makes people uncomfortable.

And there's a lot of people who had followed Jesus up to this point because they had this idea of who Jesus was, and he says something that they're like, I don't, I don't get that.

That's weird, that's uncomfortable.

I mean, if you're the guy I think you are, I don't think you would ever do that or say that.

And it says that the crowd started to just dissipate and thin out.

And as the crowd is leaving, the 12 are standing there remaining, and Jesus looks at the 12 and says, Do you want to leave too?

And I love Peter's response.

He says, Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of life.

We've believed and we've come to know that you are the Holy One of God, that you are who you say you are.

And I love that in Peter's answer, he doesn't actually say no, I don't want to leave.

He just says, I don't have anywhere else to go.

Because if it's not here, I don't know where.

And honestly, that's a great spot to be in.

I don't know why you said this.

I don't know what that means.

I don't know what you're doing in my life, Jesus.

I don't know why.

I I thought I know that you're for me, but it really doesn't feel like it right now.

But I know who you are.

And I know that you're good.

And I know that you love me even when it doesn't feel like it.

So Jesus, where else am I gonna go?

So I stick my flag in the ground and say, I guess I'll stay with you.

In church, one day the roll up yonder is gonna get called.

And the question that you're gonna be asked isn't, were you as fruitful as a branch as this guy?

It's gonna be, did you remain in me to the end?

And when we do, we'll hear those words, well done, good and faithful servant.

What I hope you see about these three habits is that they're not totally independent.

But they're really more sequential, they kind of build on one another.

Right?

When the delight meter is a little low, the best thing you can do is abide in him.

You get back into his presence, you realize how much there is a love about him, and it just starts to bubble up.

Right, you have a hard time remaining.

It's possible.

It's not, it's not, it's it's very natural in human to delight in other things and get distracted.

Right, so what do we do?

We go back to abiding.

Has started apologizing a lot.

Um it's a good thing that he recognizes what's wrong.

I think he apologizes probably a little too much right now.

Um, but oftentimes his apologies are anchored by this question at the end, which says, Daddy, I'm sorry.

Do you still love me?

I hate that question because the first thing I hear is like, what have I done?

You know, like to make you even question that.

I want him to be the type of young man who recognizes when he's done wrong and has the humility to own it and to seek reconciliation if he's done something bad.

But I don't ever want him to wonder if there's an answer to that question at the end.

You guys, no matter where your walk has led you so far, can I just tell you, God doesn't want you to wonder what his answer to that question is.

It's very possible for us to be in this posture of saying, God, I've messed up royally.

I have missed it.

I have wandered, I have gotten distracted, I have done a lot of things that have hurt a lot of people.

But you don't have to wonder not if he would welcome you back.

This morning, you have an opportunity to seek repentance.

What repentance is, it's not the same as penance.

Penance is working off your sins.

Repentance is simply changing directions and saying, God, I'm gonna start walking your way instead of that way now.

And as you abide in him, you remember that your relationship with him isn't defined by you doing everything perfect yet.

You watch it grow over time.

The longer that branch is connected, the more fruit that it produces.

Why would you compare yourself to the branch next to it that's been connected for a long time when you're barely getting started?

So don't be discouraged about your life because you're still figuring this thing out.

The hope that we have is as we walk in Christ's direction, he's gonna do something in our life that changes us from the inside out, that we stay connected, and that the fruit that we produce is gonna be a blessing to those around us, but it's not something that we have to force or manufacture.

We get to enjoy the rest of being fulfilled and used by Him.

We're gonna close in just a minute.

When we do, I'd like to just extend an invitation to those of you in the room who need to make a turn.

Like I said, it may not and it may not be crisis level stuff, it might just be you know what I've been I've been really distracted.

Christ has not really been my one thing, there's been this one other thing that I keep saying, if I can just get that thing, then he'll be.

My one thing.

And it just seems like there's always one more one thing.

And I need a pivot on that.

We'd love to pray with you.

We'd love to help you just kind of work through that.

If you'd like to pray by yourself, this side of the altar will be open for those of you who'd like to just take a minute.

Communion to my left and my right.

Whatever God is doing in your heart this morning, can I just challenge you to respond?

Because if you're ready to abide, he's ready to meet you.

And you can leave here walking in a new direction.

And pray for us.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you.

Lord, that whatever it is in this life that we want, that we're chasing, whatever is lacking in our life that we're unsettled by.

But you'd give us the faith to stay and to say yes to you over and over and over and over again.

And Lord, I pray for every person who's saying yes and they feel like it's a constant uphill battle because there's just too many voices in their head or in front of them that are distracting them and calling them in a new direction.

I just pray, Lord, for a season that you would just provide a special covering over them.

Lord, to help them to tune out those other voices and that your voice would be amplified and that their relationship with you would flourish.

Lord, I pray that every person seeking you this morning would find you.

And that you would prove yourself to be realer and closer than they ever could have imagined.

God, thank you for meeting us in this moment.

We thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.

Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.

Thanks for joining us today.