Searching For God's Approval // Jamie Nunnally

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See, I I eat like a child if you don't know this already.

First of all, I eat one food at a time.

Like I eat all the turkey.

Then I, yeah, who else?

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

You people that like just go around and sample everything.

I don't I don't know what's wrong with you.

Um also I I I in uh the green bean juice is is no lie.

I when things start touching each other, when my food gets on other food, I'm like, stay in your lane, bro.

The cream corn is is one of the worst offenders of this.

It just gets everywhere.

Even get on my elbow a little bit, right?

And depending if you're at the adult table or the kids' table as to whether or not you can just take care of that cream corn, right?

That's on you.

So, hey, I pray that you guys have an awesome Thanksgiving this Thursday.

We have a couple in our church that has said, hey, if you know of anyone who doesn't have anywhere to go on Thanksgiving, we would love to invite them to our house.

So if that's you, uh if you would see me afterwards and I'll get you in touch with that family.

Cool?

Cool.

Well, we are ending our series.

It's a it was a three-sermon series called Searching for God, uh, where we talked about the fact that we're all on a search for God.

Um, and during the series, we've been looking at some of the things we find ourselves searching for when it comes to our relationship with Him.

The first week we talked about searching for God's voice.

God wants you to hear his voice, and you can hear his voice.

He has given you a spirit so that your spirit can talk to his spirit.

He has outfitted you with an apparatus that receives his voice.

We often hear God through spontaneous, persistent thoughts that suddenly occur yet remain with us.

If you want more information, check out Sermon 1 in this series.

Last week we talked about searching for God's will.

Can you know God's will?

Yes, you can, but it takes cooperation, it takes collaboration, and it takes continuation on your part to walk in his will.

The written word reveals God's will for everyone.

The spoken word reveals God's will specifically to you.

And ultimately, you will know the will of God when you embrace a walk with God.

It's all about a relationship with Him.

Again, if you've missed those messages, they're available on our app, our website, Facebook, YouTube, just Google it.

It'll show up somewhere, okay?

Uh today we are finishing this and we are talking about searching for God's approval.

What does God think about you?

You've ever wondered that when I asked that question, what does God think about you?

You know what I've found?

Most people hear, what does God think about the worst part of you?

What does God think about that deep dark secret?

What does God think about that?

But I want you to consider, we're gonna go to the word this morning and look and see what God thinks about you.

Do you ever feel like God's just disappointed in you?

Do you ever feel like you've let him down?

And maybe you don't even know how, but maybe, or maybe you've just felt distant from him.

I want to let you know this morning that Scripture has an answer for you when it comes to the question of does God approve you?

Do you have God's approval?

So let's just ask this question first.

What does God think about you?

What does God think about you?

I'm gonna share two things with you this morning that the Bible says God thinks about you.

Here's the first one God loves you and he likes you, even though he knows you.

Now, see, here's the thing.

If I say God loves you, or if I were to ask you, does God love you?

you'd be like, Yeah, God loves me.

Because you've been trained to say that.

God loves you.

Or you tell someone else, God loves you.

The problem is, is what does that mean?

Well, what does that mean God loves you?

I like saying sometimes, God likes you.

Because sometimes I love someone even though I don't really like them very much.

You know what I'm talking about?

Maybe this Thursday at Thanksgiving there's gonna be someone at your house.

You love them, but you don't always like them.

Sometimes you just want to be in another room than the room they're in, right?

And so I want to let you know, God loves you, but God also likes you.

He wants to hang out with you, He wants to spend time.

You know, there are people in your life that you look forward to spending time with them, right?

That's how God feels about you.

It's kind of hard to wrap your mind around, isn't it?

Because the third part of this, God loves you, guys, like God likes you, even though God knows you.

Because you know all the stuff you've done that's wrong.

Well, guess what?

He does too.

And he does not condone it, and he doesn't think that what you've done wrong is right, but at the same time, he loves you and he likes you.

Let me show you this verse, Ephesians 1 5.

Some of y'all are like, show me a verse, preacher boy.

All right, I will.

Ephesians 1, verse 5.

Ephesians 1:5

It says, God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.

Listen to this.

This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

I love that.

It gave him great pleasure.

You know, if you were to get in front of God and say, you know what, God, thank you for saving me.

Thank you for adopting me.

You know what he'd say?

My pleasure.

Because he works at Chick-fil-A on the weekends.

That's that's what's going on.

Have you ever played the game where you try to make the Chick-fil-A worker say my pleasure?

I have I've gotten like up to five in one visit.

All you have to do is just keep saying thank you.

It's like here's your meal.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

No, thank you.

And they'll go, My pleasure.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

That's great.

It just keeps just keeps going back and forth.

Try it sometime.

I love this.

God adopted you into his family through Jesus Christ.

It's what he wanted to.

Look, sometimes I feel like Jesus is on the cross and God's like, oh, these people, I'm having to kill my son for them.

And they're just, they can't get it together.

Sometimes we feel like it was this big chore for it's what he wanted to do.

It's what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

That means, think about this your redemption is God's dream come true.

That's what he wanted to do.

He was just waiting.

You can actually look when Adam and Eve first sinned.

The very first thing he did is he created a sacrifice to atone for their sin.

You can read about that.

And through that sacrifice, he gives them clothes.

He wouldn't let stupid naked people deal with it.

No, he's like, here's some clothes, right?

He's so merciful towards us.

He loves you, he likes you, even though he knows you.

Amen.

Here's the second thing I want you to know when it comes to what does God think about you.

God is not mad at you.

God is not mad at you.

Now, this is a pervasive thought many of us have on a regular basis.

I just feel like God's mad at me.

Guys, I want you to understand.

Theologically, I'm going to demonstrate it to you.

God is not mad at you, he's not angry at you.

How can I say that?

Colossians chapter 1, verses 19 and 20.

Colossians 1:19

It says, For God in all of his fullness was pleased to live in Christ.

And through him, Christ, God reconciled everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross.

So God, through Jesus, made peace with everything in heaven and everything on earth.

Now let me ask you a question, okay?

No, this is gonna be really hard, you got to think.

Are you in heaven right now?

No, you're not.

Okay.

All right, here's another one.

Are you on earth?

Good job.

Great job, you guys.

You're on earth.

Write that down.

Write it down, take notes.

You're on earth.

Okay, so that means that God made peace with you.

Don't you believe that?

God made peace with you.

He's not up in heaven angry, throwing lightning bolts at people who do wrong.

No, does he condone your sin?

No, he doesn't condone your sin.

Your sin hurts you, your sin hurts others, your sin hurts his heart.

But he is not angry at you.

The wrath of God on our sin was poured out on Jesus, so it no longer has to be poured out on you.

Now, when you sin, there are natural consequences that you're gonna have to deal with.

If you steal something and someone finds out, you may need to go to jail.

Because God forgives, but the state of Georgia doesn't.

See how that works?

So there are natural consequences to your sin, but the spiritual consequences of your sin have been paid for by Jesus Christ.

If you think God is still mad at you over your sin, then you also logically have to think the cross of Christ was not enough.

That's not good theology.

God is not mad at you.

Feeling that God is mad at you is not logical in light of the cross.

Jesus either paid for your sin or he didn't.

Sin has natural consequences, but Jesus took the spiritual consequences of your sin.

If you feel that God is still angry at you because of your sin, you are believing a lie.

Now, Jamie, are you saying we can sin?

I'm not saying you can sin.

Stop going there.

I'm not saying sin's okay.

I'm just saying that you are free to come to God with all that you are in honesty and authenticity and say, Lord, here's here's where my heart is.

I want to sin, I want to do these things.

He's not shocked, he's not surprised, he knows exactly where you are.

Remember, he loves you, likes you, and knows you.

And then he says, Let me help disentangle you from this sin tendency.

That's how it works.

So when I say he's not angry at you, I'm not saying he's okay with your sin.

I'm just saying he's not up in heaven fuming, oh, they did that thing again.

He's well aware that's why he sent Jesus, okay?

So, in light of these two things, why don't we feel God's approval sometimes?

Why?

If you're like sometimes you're just going through your week and you're just, you just, you don't feel God's approval necessarily.

Maybe you feel distant, maybe you say we're gonna talk about that.

I'm gonna give you four reasons why we don't feel God's approval.

Here's the first one is our conscience is condemned.

Our conscience is condemned.

Let me explain what this means.

Uh the Lord has this year, I've been on this path of studying the conscience in the New Testament.

There are dozens, dozens of scriptures, especially in Paul's letters, about our conscience.

What our conscience is and how God speaks to us through it.

It's it's I've never heard a sermon on it.

It's funny, it's all throughout the New Testament, never heard a sermon on it, so I might preach one next year, we'll see.

Okay.

But this is where, if you're wondering what I've been studying, what's really been motivating me in Bible study, this is it.

I've been studying the conscience.

When you're doing things you know you shouldn't, even though you're saved, you said Christ lives in you, you're in Christ, there's a relationship there, but you're still doing things you know you shouldn't.

Paul calls this having a defiled conscience, or having a guilty conscience, or having a condemned conscience.

Hebrews 10, 22, it says this let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting him, for our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean.

Now, real quick, the Bible talks about three types of consciences.

It talks about a clean, clear, and good conscience.

That's what we want, that's what Jesus is offering to you.

A guilty, condemned, or defiled conscience, again, that's when you feel conviction over your behavior.

You're saved, but you know you're not doing the right thing.

And then third is a seared, branded, or burned conscience.

That's when you don't feel about your bad behavior.

You should feel bad, but you don't.

So those are the three, and I don't again, I don't have time to unpack this.

Do your own study.

Like I said, we might talk about it next year.

Okay?

But you have God's approval, but you don't have the Holy Spirit's green light for all of your behavior.

Does that make sense?

So you have to learn to listen to your conscience to determine whether or not what you're doing is okay.

Guys, holy Christians are happy Christians.

If you want to be happy in your walk with the Lord, pursue holiness.

What is that?

His way?

His way of doing things?

Sanctification, the con the concept of gradual growth over time.

Embrace that and the holiness, you'll begin to walk in holiness and you'll be happy.

A holy Christian is a happy Christian.

Pure Christians are at peace.

Pure Christians are at peace.

When you know of nothing that you have against the Lord, the Lord have against you, you know of nothing that's separating the two of you, then you have a pure conscience.

You have an undefiled, a clean, a clear, a good conscience.

And so look, if you feel distant from the Lord, ask the Lord, show me what's going on in my life that's giving me a guilty conscience so that the blood of Jesus can be sprinkled on that guilty conscience.

I can repent and I can begin to live in the way He's called me to live.

Amen?

Here's another reason why we don't feel God's approval sometimes is we're looking at circumstances.

Right?

The dishwasher breaks down, you get a flat tire, you get diagnosed with an illness, or you just get the flu, a friend gossips about you, whatever it is, something bad happens, and we have this incredible ability to think that it's God doing what some bonehead did to us.

Isn't that true?

And we look to our circumstances, guys.

I need to let you know what's happening around you is not an accurate reflection of how God feels about you.

This is really important, you need to grasp this because if you don't, next time your refrigerator goes out and you leave everything that's in the, you lose everything in the freezer, you'll think, God, why did you?

He's like, you should have bought a better brand.

I didn't do that.

You see what I'm saying?

But we just we think that the Lord's doing this to us.

I want to show you this verse, Romans 8.35.

It says, can anything separate us?

Can anything separate us from Christ's love?

Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death?

The next verse, he says, No.

It doesn't mean that there is not a one-to-one correlation between what happens to you, the annoyances and nuisances of life, and how God feels about you.

Those annoyances and nuisances and the persecution and the problems, it's just part of living in a broken world.

But it's not an accurate reflection of how God feels about you.

So if someone on the way home from church, and I pray this doesn't happen, if someone rear-ends you and you're like, oh God, what are you doing?

It wasn't him.

And he's not trying to tell you how he feels about you through that little fender bender, because he already told you how he feels about you through the cross of Jesus.

He loves you, he likes you, even though he knows you and he's not mad at you.

So don't look to your circumstances to determine how God feels about you.

Here's another reason why we don't feel God's approval is that we're focused on feelings.

We're focused on feelings.

Guys, how you feel about God is not an accurate reflection of how God feels about you.

His word tells you how he feels about you, not your feelings.

So it doesn't matter how you feel when it comes to your relationship with God.

We are called believers, not feelers.

Our relationship with the Lord is based on our belief in who Christ demonstrated himself to be, not on how we feel about our salvation in any particular moment.

Because, guys, you know this.

Your feeling, how you feel with the Lord, it just goes up and down.

It's not consistent because we're not consistent.

His love is consistent, but our ability to comprehend it and receive it and walk in it is not consistent.

So you can't look to your feelings to determine how God feels about you.

And let me talk to you about emotions.

Ephesians 4, 26, it says this don't sin by letting anger control you.

See, anger's not bad.

Anger is not a sin.

Letting anger control you will lead you to sin.

You'll do something that's sinful when anger is controlling you, but feeling anger in and of itself is not a sin.

Y'all, emotions are just lights on the dashboard of your life.

You guys know when when you might be driving your car and all of a sudden a light pops on the dashboard, you're like, uh-oh, maybe it's the tire pressure monitor, maybe it's time to fill up.

Uh or maybe you know there's like the the oil light comes on something, and that that dash, the light has illuminated to let you know that there's something that needs to be taken care of.

Emotions are just like that.

Emotions pop on, they're good, they're like lights on your dashboard, but if you let them control you, you'll live from your emotions, not with your emotions.

You see the difference?

You've got to live with your emotions.

You've got to learn what they're telling you.

Like, I'm angry because this person said this to me, I'm sad because this expectation wasn't met.

I'm happy because something good happened I didn't expect.

Emotions are good, but you live with them, not through them.

Your emotions are not truth, they're just a momentary reflection of how you feel right then.

So you've got to learn to inspect your emotions, not let them control you.

Emotions must be monitored because they're not always accurate.

How you feel is not always true.

You know this, right?

I mean, have you ever been mad at someone?

You're like, no, they're just rah-rah, rah.

And then all of a sudden you find out that they're actually good people and you just misunderstood?

Yeah.

So your emotions in that moment had you going down a path that was completely wrong because you didn't have all the information.

That's why we don't live by our emotions.

We live with them, we don't live by them or through them.

So we have to make sure that we're not focused on our feelings, that we don't let that affect our walk with the Lord.

Guys, can I tell you the truth?

Times of distance, times of silence are normal in the Christian walk.

It's perfectly normal to feel at times distant from the Lord.

Not everyone in Scripture felt just really.

Close to God.

Guys, I don't.

It's common for me.

Like, if it's like Thursday at 10 in the morning, like I'm not sitting there like, oh Lord, I just love you so much.

I'm just so in love with you.

I love Him.

I don't always feel in love with Him, right?

That's normal.

So I want you, I don't really want to relieve you of the pressure that you have to always feel in love with God.

You can just go grocery shopping sometimes, and you didn't even think about it, and He's not like, well, they're not thinking about me now.

He's like there's maturity in a relationship is where you don't always have to be together and your feelings for each other don't change.

Right?

Guys, I love my wife.

She's in Birmingham, Alabama with Isaac and Eva.

She's running a race.

That girl runs races, y'all.

She's running a race, she's visiting her family and stuff like that.

My love for her isn't at a different level because she's not here with me.

It's remaining constant.

Does that, and it's the same with the Lord.

You may not feel him all the time, and that's okay.

That doesn't mean that you don't love him or he doesn't love you.

Also, look, sometimes not hearing God is normal.

Hearing God is normal too, and not hearing God is normal.

Like I, as your pastor, I want to let you know.

I'm not like going through every moment of my day.

I'm just like, Lord, what are we doing right now?

He's just like downloading all this secret revelation of the universe to me.

I mean, he talks to me and I invite him, and there's a there's an ongoing conversation.

I invite him into every aspect of my life, but I don't ever want you to think I'm just sitting here hearing from God constantly.

I don't hear from God constantly, and that's okay because you can't mistake God's silence for God's absence.

They're not the same thing.

There's this concept that infants learn called object permanence.

I don't know if you've heard about this or not, but but when a baby, between six and twelve months is when they learn this in their development.

Uh that's why you play peekaboo with a baby, and they cover their eyes and they start laughing.

Peekaboo! They start laughing because when they cover their eyes or you cover their eyes, they can't see you.

They think you're gone.

And then you remove the hands or they remove their hands and you're there.

They're like, ha ha ha, you're back.

So they don't get it.

They don't get that just because you can't see something at that moment means that thing doesn't exist.

They're learning that.

Guys, just because you don't feel God, hear from God, or see God doesn't mean he's not there.

Every night, the sun goes away.

Do you guys like, oh gosh, we just need to pray for the sun?

I can't see it.

I don't think it exists anymore.

No, no, you know it's coming again.

And God in his goodness has given us a moon that will reflect the light of the sun to let us know the light's still there.

If you're going through a season of darkness, look for the moon.

Don't look for the sun, look for the moon.

Look for that glimpse of light, that reflection to let you know that, hey, you're not hearing from God in a big way, he's not shouting from a megaphone, that's okay.

There's still a moon, there's still moonlight, even when there's not sunlight.

And if you're going through a season, look, and I know it's totally normal, totally normal to go through a season where you just don't like feel close to God.

I I I read about pilots flying airplanes.

Um I love sitting by the window seat and looking out the window and seeing, like seeing the 30,000-foot view.

It's really cool.

But sometimes you're flying through clouds and you can't see anything.

And I thought, well, what do pilots do when they're flying and they can't see?

I mean, for all they know, there's a plane right in front of them.

Do you know what they do?

They trust their instruments.

There's an altimeter that says this is how high you are.

There's a speedometer that's saying this is how fast you're going.

It's probably called something else.

I don't fly.

But you see what I'm saying?

And so they trust their instruments.

They trust the control tower that's telling them, no, you're on track.

You don't hear the control tower's voice, you don't see where you're going yet, but you're still on the right path.

You're okay.

Trust your instruments even though you can't see.

In the same way, you guys, this is what we do.

What was the last thing God told you to do?

Do that and keep doing it until you hear otherwise and be happy.

Be okay.

He loves you, he knows you.

He's not mad at you, he likes you.

And you you lean back on those instruments.

Trust your instruments.

If you're in a season of poor visibility, it's okay.

It's okay.

Check your conscience.

Make sure that there's nothing, you know, disobedience or unforgiveness or any of those things that clog up our relationship with the Lord.

But then be at peace, don't panic, just keep going.

Does that sound good?

Does that make sense?

All right.

Last one.

Last reason that we don't feel God's approval sometimes is because we haven't dealt with our past.

We haven't dealt with our past yet.

You guys see this uh this dollar bill?

What is this worth?

It's worth$100, right?

It's got Benjamin Franklin on it, looking all smug.

He kind of looks like a jerk.

Have you ever he's like, what are you doing with this money?

So this is a$100 bill.

What's this hundred dollar bill worth?

$100.

What if I told you that this$100 was acquired from someone stealing it from a bank?

What's this worth?

Didn't change the value.

What if I told you that this hundred dollar bill was a part of a drug deal, illegal drugs that were bought using this hundred dollar bill?

What's this bill worth?

How you were used in the past doesn't affect your value now.

Your value remains the same.

God has said that He loves you, He likes you, He knows you, and He's not mad at you.

Now, does that mean that robbing a bank or those things is good?

Of course not.

But it doesn't change your value.

Your value has not been changed because of how you were used in the past or what you did in the past.

God has not only forgiven but forgotten our sin.

Scripture says it's as far as east is from the west.

That's poetic.

That's it's impossible, right?

Now don't think about the globe, because if you keep going east, you'll eventually hit west, right?

You'll eventually hit where you started.

But on a plane, east keeps going in that direction, west keeps going that direction, and they only get farther from each other over time.

They don't get closer.

And so your sin, if you are trusting in Christ for your salvation, your sin is as far as it can possibly be from you.

And the more you're in Christ, the farther it gets from you.

Some of y'all don't believe that.

Let me show you.

Isaiah 43, 25.

I, this is God talking.

I, yes, I alone will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.

Let me just point out, he doesn't say he'll blot out your sins for your sake.

Although he does it for your sake.

But he does it for whose sake?

His sake.

I blot them out for my sake.

Why?

Because he loves you, he knows you, he likes you, he wants to be around you, he's not mad at you.

And so he blotted out your sins.

Does that help you?

Oh, yeah, big time.

But you know who it really helped?

Him.

Because he wants to be with you.

God has dealt with your past.

You need to as well.

Let me ask you a question.

How often do you think about a bill that you've already paid?

Are you up at night because of last March's power bill?

Man, I sure hope they credited that to my account.

Man, I hope no one just takes from me what was paid already.

You're not worried about it.

Neither is God worried about your sin that He forgave.

He's not thinking about it.

He's not bringing it back up.

The only one bringing it back up is you.

He's forgotten it as well as forgiven it.

He's cast it as far as the East is from the West.

Deal with your past.

If you need to make things right, if you need to ask forgiveness, if you need to go to someone, then do it.

But don't let your past, because see, if you don't deal with your past, you're going to project how you feel about your past onto the Lord, and you're going to assume he feels the same way about it that you do, but he's forgotten it.

So quit reminding him.

So my question to you is this are you searching for God's approval?

Even though you have it, wouldn't it be better to stop searching for it and start living in it?

Because it's already been given to you.

I'm going to ask you to stand.

A couple of things.

First of all, we have our baptism.

It's about to start in just a little bit.

Unless you have to leave, I would just encourage you to stay and cheer.

We have a bunch of people getting baptized, you guys.

So stay and cheer for those who are getting baptized.

And we have a remarriage happening as well, even after that.

If you want to stay for that, you can as well.

If you are getting baptized right now, if you're about to get baptized, you can go ahead and leave right now.

Go ahead and go through those doors.

And I think you've been given instructions on what to do, and I'll meet you in a little bit and we'll give you more instructions.

But for the rest of you, if you're not getting baptized, I want you to close your eyes.

Let's focus on the Lord right now.

The question I asked you, are you searching for God's approval?

I now want you to ask that question to the Lord Himself.

Well, Jamie, how do I do that?

You think the thought to him.

You can whisper it, you can say it under your breath if you want to, but he hears your thoughts.

So just say, think this, Lord, do I act like I have your approval?

Am I walking in your approval?

Or am I still striving for something you've already given me?

And again, some of you, you've been so trained by religion, when you when you start hearing about this, you're like, yeah, but what about sin?

What about Jesus?

Is your sin more powerful than Christ's blood?

No.

He either saved you or he didn't.

Start believing that he did.

Start trusting him.

Where is your heart?

Where is your heart?

I want to lead us in a prayer where we live in light of God's love.

If you will, repeat this after me.

Say, Father, thank you for saving me through the blood of your Son, Jesus Christ.

When you saved me, I got your approval.

I know my behavior is not always right.

But you still approve of me because you love me.

You like me, even though you know me.

And you're not mad at me.

Because Jesus bore the penalty of my sin.

So, Father, help me live in light of your approval.

Help me not ask you for something you've already given, but instead, help me to receive it, help me to believe it, and help me to walk in it.

Lord, I give you my life all over again, like it was the first time.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Yeah.

Thanks for listening to the VFC Podcast.

If you live in the Thomasville area, we would love for you to connect with us in person.

For more information about our weekly gatherings, including service times and directions, you can visit us at VFC Thomasville.org.