Narrow | Three Life Changing Words

Hello and thank you for joining us on the Sierra Bible Church Sermon of the Week.

We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Nate Leverett.

Yeah, like Em said, welcome.

We're uh wrapping up uh a series that we've done throughout the summer uh on discipleship.

What it looks like to be disciples under Jesus to help uh in this mission that he invited us into to disciple the people around us, uh, whether it be our kids, our neighbors, people in our groups, these kinds of things.

How we want, come on forward.

Yay.

So, what we're gonna do today as we kind of kick off this morning, I just want you to try and answer a question.

Some of you, I'm gonna ask you to do it out loud.

It's open mic time in church.

Yeah, it's gonna be awesome.

Uh some of you are like, this is why I left the last church.

Well, they thought we didn't do it, but we rarely do this here.

Well, the invitation is this to answer this uh short question uh with a couple of words, just kind of giving praise, uh, reflecting for our church body this morning.

Uh, and so here's what you can answer in a couple of short words.

I told them keep my mic on, because if it turns into a lot of words, we're gonna have that awkward moment where I cut you off and your mic dies and we move on.

So keep it short, couple words, little phrase.

How has God shown you his love?

Hopefully, all of us can answer.

Eric's ready.

Let me add a little bit to it as you're thinking about raising your hand or maybe just giving a quick shout out to God as he has demonstrated his love to you, his personal, perfect, awesome, gracious, patient, sacrificial, steadfast, good, lavish, everlasting, and one more time, personal love.

How's God shown you in a few words or word?

Uh, yeah, with with my parents and their relationships there.

It's just amazing.

Better than I thought it could be.

Awesome.

Other people, we're just going quick, kind of like popcorn praise.

Here we go.

Tana's ready.

Tana with a TH.

He took me out of a life of death into a life of living.

Amen.

My wife is a rock star.

We agree, Matt.

I agree.

And yes, thank you, Lord.

Others, go ahead.

We're just gonna shout out a few more that God loved us so much that he sent us his son, and that uh Jesus was willing to lay down his life and suffer and die for us all to save and rescue us.

Amen.

Thank you.

Praise God.

Other ways, God's shown his love to you.

We've got one up here, do a couple more.

How he's moving in the life of our students.

I miss that.

Our our students, how he's moving within their lives.

Awesome.

How God's working in students, student ministries, what he's doing.

Praise God.

Go ahead.

Our fellowship with other Christians and um what we share together.

Cool.

Oftentimes God shows us his love.

One last one over here, real quick.

How God brought me to this church.

Blessings.

Thank you.

Through John and Kelly.

We're thankful you're here, Kat.

Very sweet.

Lots of us hopefully could raise our hand.

Hopefully, if we just pass the mic, which we will never do, I promise.

We're gonna do two things that are sort of awkward.

That was one, so you made it.

Collected breath.

You did not have the mic in your the next one's coming, so I'm not sure if you'll survive that one.

But uh one of the things that's fascinating, I think, in scripture, and it was a real aha kind of awakening thing for me as I thought about my uh role as a disciple under Jesus, is that uh, you know, when when you look at scripture, and you if you just asked of scripture, God, do you love me and show me the place where you point to like direct, clear, overwhelming evidence that that love is true, the entire Bible would point you to what?

Or who?

Jesus.

Thank you.

Diane was preaching the gospel over here, right?

And this is the clearest declaration.

I mean, this is where the Bible says, every single page points to this incredible thing that God did in coming, Emmanuel, with us, going to the cross as a perfect sacrifice for our sin, bearing the punishment ours deserved, so that we could live eternally and free and forgiven.

That's big number one.

Now, what I was curious, and you guys were the same as first service, if anybody would answer as to this is how God shows me his love, is one of the places in scripture that over and over and over it says this is a demonstration of God's love for you.

None of you did, so I'm glad you're all here this morning.

Because what the scriptures teach us over and over and over this morning is this.

What?

David's on it.

These are the words of Jesus.

Those whom I love, if you're gonna ask Jesus, tell me who you love, I what?

Rebuke and discipline.

So if God's gonna show you or demonstrate his love for you, he's going to what?

Rebuke you or discipline you.

All right, this is gonna be a good morning.

So be earnest and repent.

Next, this phrase is used throughout the scriptures multiple times.

We find it first in Proverbs chapter 3.

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

The Lord what disciplines those he what?

He loves.

As a father, the son he delights in.

The author is trying to say, when this is a representation of his delight in you.

That his discipline is not punishment, he's not paying you back, he's demonstrating his love and delight for you.

Jesus would say it this way.

It's one of those verses that I think I would have written quite differently.

Every breach, every branch, excuse me, that does bear fruit, I would think like we'll celebrate them.

Like, let's put their picture on the wall.

This is what it looks like.

But Jesus says, every branch that does bear fruit, he will what?

Prune.

So that it will be even more fruitful.

He's going to prune.

He's going to cut back.

Now, the message this morning and how we're going to tie up this uh series on discipleship kind of comes out of some of my own personal stuff.

So I feel like I need to share a little bit of that.

I hope it's not too much.

But uh, this summer, towards the end of the summer, we found ourselves for a few nights at some friend's cabin that they let us stay in up in South Lake Tahoe.

And I got up really early the first morning because the thing I most look forward to is this disgusting black chair that I sit in and like that Tahoe freezing cold early morning with a cold cup of coffee and the word of God open.

And I sat before the Lord and I simply kind of said, Lord, like I've been prepping messages all summer.

I've been preaching my heart out around discipleship.

I think some people are starting to understand what a disciple kind of looks like in new ways, and we're recommitting to that.

But like, I don't want to think about prepping.

I don't want to, I just want to sit in front of you as your disciple.

Like, let me find this place at your feet this week and just let let me breathe it in and out.

Teach me what it looks like for me.

And it was an odd thing because it doesn't always happen this way, but it was very noteworthy for me that I felt like the Lord said, you know, maybe this week read the book of Hebrews.

I was like, well, that doesn't always happen.

And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna read the whole book, and I knew I had enough time before I was gonna jump on my bike because it was freezing outside to read the entire book in one setting.

And so I just started reading through the book of Hebrews.

And if you know the book of Hebrews, it kind of goes all over the place, and many ways it spends nine chapters trying to reconvince a group of Jesus followers that what Jesus did on the cross and in the resurrection is the final and full payment for their sins.

Like he was the final sacrifice, you don't sacrifice.

God poured his punishment out on Jesus.

You are not going to be the object of God's punishment.

And so, over and over, verse after verse, illustration after illustration, Jesus paid it all.

And then it's interesting because in in chapter 10, you begin to kind of see why he built all of this sort of reflection on Jesus.

And it's because this group of people that he's writing to, this original church, had started, like many of us, as a result of our salvation in Jesus onto what Jesus calls the narrow path that leads to life.

Part of the distinction of the narrow path is that what makes it narrow is there are challenges on it.

And there are challenges to stay on it.

So here's this group of people: salvation Jesus, I'm all in, right?

We see them come out of their baptism, they're like, I'm giving it all to Jesus.

I'm gonna go serve him on the mission field, I'm gonna do whatever, right?

Because he did whatever.

And I hope we've all been there at some version of our salvation, and then they hit some roadblocks.

It was tough.

They realized that, man, there's still some stuff stuck in and around this flesh they're carrying through life.

And in verse 10, there's this verse that you read, and in some ways, the author simply says this stick it out.

It's a narrow road for a reason.

You're gonna face challenges.

And he goes to the length of being very specific, says, Don't give up meeting together, don't give up gathering as my church.

And I know you want to, I know you feel like, you know what, this isn't working, you know, I'd be better off.

Don't stop meeting together.

Continue to gather and encourage each other to love and good deeds.

And you can see them kind of going, I don't know if this is gonna pan out.

And he says, stick it out.

Verse or chapter 11, then is this what we call kind of this great hall of faith, where he says there's a number of things you need to do if you're hitting those roadblocks and facing those challenges.

He says, Look at all these guys: Abraham, Moses, on and on, men and women.

He says, Man, these guys, they they longed for a country they didn't live in.

They longed for an expression, the full expression of their salvation.

They didn't experience it either.

Yet, so so hold up under it.

Look at their faith, let their faith shape and encourage you when you're facing those challenges.

But then it's as if in chapter 12, he's sort of like, but don't look too much at them, because who you really want to fix your eyes on, and Ben said this so well, I think, is who?

Jesus.

And this is what the author of Hebrews says in chapter 12.

If you have your Bibles open, uh, we're gonna spend some time in chapter 12 of Hebrews.

He says, you know, we're surrounded by all these witnesses.

He says, let us run with perseverance, the race marked out, let's keep going.

Verse 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, because he's the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

Man, I'm reading this chapter, going through it.

I've only got a little, like a page left.

And you ever get this way in your Bible reading, you're like, okay, I got to the spot that God wanted me to get.

I think I'm done.

I kind of got to that.

I was like, oh, I think it's good.

Now it's not freezing out.

I'm gonna throw my bike clothes on and go chase some single track.

And and then I look down at what the next section would be if I read it, which I was not going to read it, because I have my eyes fixed on Jesus.

I mean, where else can he end this?

And what does he say?

What's the title in your Bible if you have it right before verse four?

God disciplines his children.

And I was like, sure enough, I'm done reading.

I don't need that part.

I don't want to read about that, I don't want to dive into that.

I don't want to consider that God, my father, would be disciplining me.

Like, I'm just gonna go for a bike ride.

And so I read that section, knowing that God had something in there for me and maybe for us.

But I remember heading out on my bike and throwing my stuff on and heading out, and it was like as soon as I left the driveway.

As I'm wrestling with God, why do I shy away from this?

Why, if it's an evidence of your love and your goodness, do I want to like not hear it?

And I heard these couple of words.

It's because you hate to be wrong.

It's because you hate to be wrong.

You got something in you, Nate, that has a deep aversion to the reality that everyone else is living in.

And that is at times you are wrong.

It's okay.

I love you anyway.

Salvation came long before and after that truth.

In fact, it's a result of that truth.

But it was as if in that moment I had to like sort of choke these words up.

And I got back and I kind of wrote out then this little phrase, and there's a couple fill-ins if you have it on your on your outline.

This little phrase is as I began to consider the deep relevance for every disciple thinking about God as one who disciplines his children.

That this is part of what it looks like.

And so maybe this will be helpful.

Uh, the posture, the posture of a disciple is fundamentally the willingness to discover that I'm wrong and let Jesus correct me, or excuse me, and let Jesus correct me.

The rest of the stuff is kind of like what I do, and I accidentally left that on there.

I thought it might get erased between services.

It did not.

You know, so often I don't just own it, I deny it.

Anyone with me?

I defend myself.

I'll even deceive others to get myself out of whatever I did that is wrong or might be perceived as wrong.

I can go to apathy, I can go to anger, I can go to blame shifting.

It's kind of at least more their fault than it is mine, whereby I don't have to own mine.

But the reality that morning that Jesus was waking me up to, and maybe us this morning, is that it's the posture of a disciple that comes before the Lord with a sense that they're not doing it all right.

In other words, I am wrong.

That then isn't a place for the Lord's words, the Lord's hands, the Lord's discipline to begin to shape us into his image.

The longer I live in the little bubble that says I'm not wrong, the more adverse I am to that reality, the harder it is, albeit impossible it is, for God to begin to shape me as his disciple.

Proverbs 12 says it so bluntly.

I kind of love it.

So helpful for me.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge.

That's great.

But whoever hates correction is what?

Stupid.

You know, when you recall those verses, you're like, I thought I forgot that verse.

I mean, this was just like rolling in my head as I'm riding bikes.

Like, you're an idiot, you're an idiot, you're an idiot.

Come before your God, he's good, he loves you, and you are wrong.

There are places he wants to shape you in his love so that you can experience more of who he is.

I thought I'd make up a list uh of things that maybe you could relate to as well that that would answer for me this question of why I really hate being wrong.

At first, it was reasons I hate being wrong, but it's reasons I really hate being wrong.

And some of you, I think, are with me in this, or you're like, I hope my spouse pays attention because it'd be fun to hear them say at some point in our history of our marriage that they're wrong.

See anyone like the couples I was talking to after first service?

So, some of the reasons I really hate being wrong, I knew better.

Right?

Some of us are wrong the third time, fourth time, and if you have a place in your house, if you're kind of a little bit taller, especially bald for some reason, and you whack it, it kind of was a bummer the first time, the second time you're like, I'm an idiot.

The third time you're like, What is wrong with me?

I repent, I need a new house.

Because when we know better, when we know, when we look or we say that to our children, or we roll our eyes when our spouse says that, or we talk down to the person, or we give a friendly wave to the people driving near us that we don't approve of.

I don't like to be wrong because I know better.

I'm smart.

I don't like to be wrong because when I am, I hurt people.

I don't like to hurt people.

I would rather lie to you than have you know the truth that I do things that hurt you, which will cover it up.

It threatens my identity.

Some of you know this clear and well in your own story.

Because I am wrong turns into there's something deeply wrong with me.

And we go down this place where our identity is rocked, where we're shaped and flipped upside down without being able to be wrong and forgiveness.

So it threatens my identity, it threatens my position and my influence, right?

And this is true for all of us in different ways.

That we we don't like to be wrong because it threatens our our the influence that we have, and sometimes this can be a good thing.

Like I said, first service.

If I go big time wrong, there's a group of people, hopefully, you guys are a part of those, that would say he's no longer the pastor, it's here at Bible church.

He's done.

That level of influence is done because he out wronged the position.

I looked up on the internet what are like the hardest uh kind of careers when it comes to this sort of admittance that you're wrong.

You with me?

And and here are a few of the top five.

First one, according to the internet, politicians by far.

So if you're a politician in here, you're gonna have to fight against it.

A close, maybe second, pastors, teachers made the top five.

It's awesome that I married a teacher.

It would have been good information to know 30 years ago.

That they're going that way, only one of us would need to be right in the house, right?

I was walking out after first service.

Somebody said, Hey, did real estate agents make the list?

And then he said, What about the wife of real estate agents?

Did they make the list?

And he's looking at her like, it would be nice if one of us at some point in the history of our marriage said, I am wrong.

But that's our stalemate.

One of the doctors is like, uh, I know I was on the list.

I'm like, Yeah, you were, but I saw you guys sitting here, and you know, thought you could live in the delusion of the reality that you're always right.

These are good friends of mine.

If you're a doctor and you're not a friend of mine, please don't take that personally.

You're probably right.

It threatens my mental health.

Threatens my mental health.

The scientists call this cognitive dissonance.

It's it's the sense of like, we as long as I live in the bubble that I'm always right, it's a lonely bubble, it's a sad bubble, it's a lie, but it's a bit of stable ground to live on.

And when the reality comes, the shaking that can happen, this is why, according to the author of Hebrews, anchor your life before you confront the reality of your wrongness in the cross of Jesus.

Because it's gonna mess with you, it's gonna be tough.

Lastly, on this list, I wasn't meant to be wrong.

I wasn't.

Never think about it.

Before sin entered the world, you were always right all the time.

That was then.

This is now.

There's a whole knowledge of tree and evil, Genesis 3.

Just look it up.

It's in the story.

You and I weren't meant to be wrong.

I think in many ways, this sort of explains why we fight it, why even our kids are like they cover it up with lies, they do all this crazy stuff.

It's like none of us knows how to be wrong naturally.

We were meant to, we were wired to be right all the time.

The problem is you're not right all the time.

And part of what God wants you to do is invite you into his rightness and to learn to lay down yours.

Another thing after I kind of looked over this list, and and this one kind of hit me personally because this has been a part of this journey in my own life, is that I remember hearing a mentor at one point say this.

He said, You could probably correlate the amount of times you say, I am wrong, I am sorry, please forgive me.

I blew it with your understanding of the grace of God.

That if you understand the grace of God, that God pulled you out of a pit.

Like Tana said, you know, Jesus, when he found me, I was dead as a doornail.

And then he raised me to life.

That person that understands the fullness of God's grace understands that.

At the core of that is someone that was just wrong to the point of death.

And so there's a correlation there.

Sometimes we just miss the grace of God in the midst of our story.

What I want to do for the next few minutes together, then, is one of the two things I said would be so incredibly awkward.

So you're going to have about 15 seconds to do this.

Here's what I want you to do.

Because if you're like me, you just need to practice, right?

Like I encourage you, you should model this whole I am wrong thing in your marriages, in your workplaces as a parent, but we're going to practice it this morning.

Some people are already leaving.

I can't blame them.

Here's what I want you to do.

For all of you, just practice.

I get it might not be true, but do it because I said it.

Three words.

I am what?

Sorry.

Sorry, would work too.

I am wrong.

I am wrong.

Okay, you just need to find three people, look them in the eyes, and just get those words out of your mouth.

It's just practice, maybe practice for later.

Maybe it's practice for the other people.

Go.

You got 15 seconds.

Try and find three people around you.

Okay.

Here we go.

Did anybody say, like, I'm wrong, but I'm wrong, but like, hey, if we're honest, you're a little more wrong.

Okay, let's do this.

Shh.

Settle down.

Oh, we got some kissing going on in the back.

She's like, yeah, come on.

As you're gonna see, this is fascinating.

So I'm hopefully not gonna, you know, make too much of this like public display of affection back there in the second to the last row.

But listen, this is important.

This is like a little gem for you marriage people.

If you've never walked through confession with your spouse, like I'm talking about the deep stuff, where it's like this is this is broken.

There is, and this is gonna be, you're gonna see this so true in your relationship with God.

But if you can get to that place where you're empty and you can confess, and those three words become part of this, like honest confession, not a but, not an if, not as I'm gonna hold, but just part of I'm wrong.

There's such deep intimacy after that.

Look out, right?

Look out, it will take your marriage into new places.

So just encouragement.

And it's the same in our walk with God as He disciples and trains us.

Okay, here's what I want us to do.

I um we're gonna look at this text in Hebrews, and I'm gonna kind of walk us through this little piece that came just after I thought I was well and done with reading through the book of Hebrews.

Jesus paid it all.

Hang in there.

Chapter 11.

Look at these giants of faith, beginning of chapter 12.

Keep your eyes focused on Jesus as you run the race, marked before you with perseverance.

Verse 4, he says this in your struggle against sin.

I'm gonna stop a couple times as we walk through this.

Sin here, the word used, is not kind of mega sin, but it's actually an archery term that means like missing the mark, like missing the target.

And so he says, in your life that God's created for you to live, in those places where you miss it, in those places where you get it wrong, when struggle comes as a result of you missing the mark, he says this two words of encouragement, both are pretty strong.

First one, have you not resisted, or excuse me, you have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood?

Like I know you think it's tough, I know you think it's hard, it is.

He's very honest about our pain, but he also says there's still room in here, there's still life in the story, verse five, and and he kind of comes over the top with this one a bit.

He says, This have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son?

He leans in.

It's in the word.

Did you miss that part?

That God is a loving father will discipline.

This is part of the story.

Have you forgotten?

Then he goes on here in um in verse five.

And this part's, I think, brilliant as we try and understand our own response to the challenge of our wrongness.

First thing he says, this my son, and with this is the text we already read from Proverbs 3.

My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline.

Any of you have one of those glorious young children that when you went to spank them, they laughed in your face.

Any of you were the children that when your parents went to spank them, you laughed in their face?

This is what he's addressing.

He's saying the Lord comes to some of us laugh, make light of the Lord's discipline.

Here's the other side of that coin.

He says this, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you.

Do not laugh at his instruction.

But this part's important for some of us.

Don't be crushed by it.

Bear up on it, don't be crushed by it.

I don't care if you're coaching peewee soccer or working through the tough times of marriage.

Oftentimes these two capture the two big responses all of us have.

We either think, hey, it's at least 51% your fault, whereby I'm innocent of 100%.

How the math works, I haven't figured it out yet, but does when you're excited about it.

The other side is this, though, and some of you are these people.

The shoulders sag, and all of a sudden you're a horrible person.

All of a sudden you're outside of God's love because you, yeah, you are wrong again, again.

And he says, Don't be crushed by it.

Remember where this comes from.

Verse 6, because the Lord disciplines the one He what?

He loves.

And He chastises everyone.

He accepts as his son or his daughter.

This is what it means to be a part of God's family.

It's what it means to be a disciple.

Endure hardship as discipline.

This word kind of endure hardship is this idea of bearing under the weight.

Endure hardship as discipline.

It's important to kind of consider this word discipline.

This is not God sort of punishing you, it's not God paying you back.

In fact, some translations say right here, it says, you know, endure hardship as education.

Because the word can kind of mean both.

This isn't God saying you're bad, slapping you on the wrist and putting you in the corner with a dunce hat on.

We laugh, but we feel that way sometimes.

This is God training you up.

And sometimes you might say, I'm this whole discipline thing, I am wrong.

Sometimes it's not because you're like off in a negative way, it's because God is inviting you to live in ways you had no idea you were wired.

He wants to take you to a new place in your relationship, a new level of intimacy.

And so part of growing as his disciple, confronting these places where we're just not doing it right.

And Jesus has a new way, a new path.

Isn't like a punishment, it's a way of education.

God is bringing us to new areas where he can reveal, where he can bless, where he can use crazy people like you and me.

God is, he says, treating you as his children.

And then he kind of reasons it out.

Verse 7 for what children are not disciplined by their father?

If you are not disciplined, and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

Moreover, we all had a human father, and we didn't, but he's making that reference here.

We've all had a human father who disciplined us and we respected them for it.

How much more should we submit to the father of spirits and live?

They disciplined us for a little while while they thought best, but God disciplines us for our what?

For our good.

And then it gets really good in order that we may share in his holiness, in order that we might step into the life that he has for us.

He's made us holy.

Part of his discipline trains us into his holiness.

No discipline, just gonna state the obvious, seems pleasant at the time, but painful.

Later on, however, later on, however.

Later on, not now, right now you've got to endure under it.

Later on, however, what does he say?

It produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who've been trained by it.

For those who've been trained, God's goal, God's desire in our discipline is that we would be trained under it so that then we could experience this harvest of his righteousness and his peace.

I want to give you four things that this points out, and then a couple of illustrations from my own life.

What does the author here invite us to do?

The first thing is just to recognize that when we're hitting these hardships, when we hit these challenges, maybe it's a sin challenge, maybe something around us, maybe something we're frustrated, maybe it's, you know, a sense of loneliness or sadness, but we hit one of these barriers or boundaries or roadblocks on this sort of narrow path.

The question is, what is God in his love showing me?

If I'm not going to make light of it, I'm not going to be crushed under it, I begin to ask, okay, God, what are you showing me?

Second thing, we receive.

What do I need to accept?

And we receive this as a as a from as from a father.

He uses a lot of language here.

We don't receive this as a God who's sitting up in heaven desiring to punish us, but to train us up so that we can become the people he wants us to.

And so we ask the question: what do I need to accept?

How do I accept that from you as a loving father?

We probably all have people that if they were to step into our lives, we would give no credibility whatsoever to their instruction for us.

They've lost the credibility, they've lost our trust.

God is saying, give me a chance as a loving father who sent his own son to save you, that I indeed love you.

And even those things that seem hard, they maybe seem ridiculous, they seem challenging.

Pay attention, receive those as if they're given from a loving father.

Third, then we've got to repent.

We've got to ask the question what needs to change?

How do I need a shift?

Repent is just a turn.

What perspective do I need?

What attitude needs to change?

What do I need to stop saying?

What do I need to start saying?

How do I hit the mark that is walking as a disciple with Jesus?

What does that look like?

How do I step into this righteousness and peace that He's created for me?

And of course, that goes lastly with this invitation to respond.

What practices?

What do I need to do?

What needs to change as a result of my wrongness?

Let me give you three examples.

And and and hopefully you probably have yours, but these were places where I felt like I hit the wall of like I am wrong in the in our life.

And if you have questions about these, I can answer them.

I'm just gonna give you a little tidbit.

We we talk about this idea in categories of time, talent, and treasure.

Time, talent, and treasure.

Time.

There was a season in our life where I spent a lot of Saturdays racing my bicycle.

We had a couple little girls, there was a couple things that happened, and God sort of stepped into my life and said, the way you've orchestrated your life is wrong.

The way you're spending your time very specifically is wrong.

And I said, Okay, I need to repent then.

Okay, I need to not use my time the way I was.

Well that opened up some other options.

And what we sensed God saying to us was, I want you one Saturday a month for as long as I want you to to load up kids right here at seven o'clock in the morning, drive them down to the inner city, Tinderloin district, and serve me.

We took thousands of kids.

Every week we woke our kids up early, we loaded them on the bus and we took them to the tinderloin.

Because for us, it was a time when God said, That's not how I want you to use your time.

This might not be forever, but right now, this is how I want you to use your time.

So repent, respond, step into how I created you.

Time, talents.

And there is a I don't really like doing all the higher education stuff.

I don't like staying up late at night reading books and writing papers and all this stuff, but it's it's part of the learning journey, right?

So I'm in school a number of years back, and in pastor world, there are a couple of like advanced degrees.

One of them is a master's of arts, it's about 50 units or so.

The other one's a master's of divinity, and I'm like going for my average low-achieving self, the master's of arts.

50 something units, and I'm right there.

And I went to this meeting with the dean, uh, and it was the get ready for graduation.

I finally done it.

I can now call Kathy and say, Hey, thank you for paying for my education, and I'm coming home, and you're gonna have a husband again, the kids will have a father.

I'm done.

And I remember sitting down with this gal, and she said, That's pretty cool that you almost got your masters of arts.

But you're not a master's of arts person.

She said, You got 35 more units.

So I'm just gonna check this box that says Masters of Divinity, and you're gonna go home and figure out what you're created for.

Because you need to invest in new ways and the gifts that God's given you that I can see, you've missed them maybe, but I want to use them to bless others.

So figure it out, fund it, make it happen.

This is how I created you.

Shape it, make the very, very, very best of it for my glory and others' good.

And then lastly, and that was a time example, and then there's this talent example.

You know, lastly, our treasure.

It's our it's our finances, it's our money, it's the stuff God's given us.

And for the longest time, I gave a little bit here and there.

Uh, I the way I like to phrase it, I gave a little bit inconsistently, just enough so that at the end of the year I could say, I gave some.

God, look.

And I really felt like there was a season where God said, Nate, you're doing it wrong.

My instruction was clear.

Start at the beginning of the week when you get the when you get the paycheck.

Carve off what I've asked you to carve off, and then trust me.

You're not trusting me.

This really is a trust issue for you.

And maybe it is for some and it isn't for others, but that it was my story.

And at that point, we said, okay, I'm gonna repent of the way we were doing it, and I'm gonna change our habits.

I'm gonna do this different to honor you.

There are probably places where God's shaping the way you use your time.

There are probably places where God's giving you talents and gifts, and he's saying, Hey, I want you to maybe make some sacrifices.

I want you to maybe stop and start.

There may be some areas in the area area of finance where God's just saying, I you trust me on this.

I laid a pattern out.

I'm inviting you into experiencing my righteousness and my peace in new ways.

Will you change?

Now, just before the worship team leads us one more time, I want to focus your hearts on one last verse.

Here it is.

You've heard the first part.

Remember, this is Romans, or excuse me, Revelation chapter 3.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline.

So be earnest.

Repent when he gives you the opportunity.

What does he say right after this?

You probably heard this phrase before.

This is Jesus speaking.

Here I am.

I am not a God who kicks you out of the house because you got it wrong and says, Come back when you get it right.

Until then, the door's locked.

Hang out in the doghouse, figure it out.

That is not our God.

That is not the heart of Jesus.

Here I am, Jesus says, I stand at the door, I knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens my and opens the door, sort of we've talked about this, the door of our hearts.

I, Jesus says, will come in and eat with that person.

It's this incredible picture of feasting with Jesus and intimacy with him and they with me.

Gets even better.

To the one who is victorious.

I will give the right to to I just see it this way, to crawl up on my throne with me.

Man, when we get to that place, we can say, you know, God, there are ways as a disciple of yours where I'm wrong.

Help me lay those things down.

Help me be quick to repent.

Jesus says that's a little bit like opening the door of your heart to let me come be with you there.

To experience righteousness and peace in new ways with me, the one who loves you, the one that will keep helping in this journey of walking out what it looks like to be given new hearts as a result of what Jesus alone has done.

Let's pray.

God, we come to you in worship.

And as the team plays and as we have a chance to sing, and I just pray, God, that you would just speak into our hearts.

That if there are those places where we have not turned.

God's salvation starts with an admittance that we are wrong and we need your salvation.

And so if that's our place this morning, I pray that we would be quick to repent.

We would be those that sort of hear you knocking at the door of our hearts.

Others of us, maybe before you, maybe before the people around us, it's been a while since those three words have come out of our mouths.

I am, I am wrong.

That God, you'd reveal those places where you desire for us to make real change and step into the life you have for us.

God, thank you for a God that came and sacrificed all.

That we might experience you and your love and your goodness.

Help us to trust you in the journey.

We love you.

Pray these things in your amazing name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for joining us, church.

We hope that you enjoyed this message.

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