Ephesians Week 2

Welcome to the North Iron Church Podcast.

Our mission is to take the gospel from the upper peninsula to the ends of the earth.

We pray this message will inspire and encourage you in your faith journey.

Enjoy our Ephesians series where we break down Paul's letter to Ephesus.

Good morning, my family.

Glad you're here with us all across the UP.

Would you guys welcome everyone who's with us online?

Lawrence, we love you, Aunt and Ogden.

We have so many people across uh northern Wisconsin and Wisconsin.

People are part of North Iron across the United States.

We're so glad that you're with us.

We're gonna dive right into our series.

This summer we're looking at the book of Ephesians.

We started last week talking about the maybe the theme or the idea of why Paul wrote the book of Ephesians.

Paul comes in to the city of Ephesians, or Ephesus, sorry, and starts a new movement, a young church, a surviving church that actually has to survive in a very hostile environment.

It's a very spiritual, mystical city.

And there's a lot going on there.

If you want to go back and watch kind of the over uh theme of what's going on in the city of Ephesus and what Paul is trying to do with this brand new group of believers, I think it would be very beneficial.

And I wanted to start that way because the context of a book as you're reading it is very important for you to understand.

And maybe you've been uh in a church service or maybe you've been even in your own study.

Well, you'll you'll open up God's word and you'll read one verse out of a chapter or out of a book, not really understanding what that means.

Uh, I think the greatest offense is Jeremiah uh 29, 11.

And and I I see people tattooing that on their body, and if I was gonna ask them what that what that meant, a lot of them wouldn't be able to interpret that that portion of scripture well.

I see that again and again.

And so I think it's important that you understand and under maybe know and understand is a better term, know and understand how to interpret God's word, because as Paul says, it's life and death for you.

Not just you as an individual, but you as a leader of your family or your community or business or even your peers, that you have a sure foundation of what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus.

And really that's what the book of Ephesians is it's a survival missionary manual for a group of believers who are for the very first time, and maybe that's true for your generation in your family.

I've just come to know who Jesus is, and this is important for you to understand.

I I think last week I mentioned when you come to a relationship with Jesus that you receive a new heart.

And the promise is if you dive into God's word and the presence of Jesus and his community, the church, you'll receive a new mind, your belief systems will change, your eyes will be open.

We'll even talk a little bit about that today.

And then what happens just kind of naturally, it's a byproduct, is that your culture changes.

Everyone has a culture.

You're all a part of the Jupiter culture.

If you're if you live up here in January just one season, everyone, I don't care what anyone says, if you survive a winter, just one winter, you are a youper and you've been baptized into the youper culture.

And I'm not saying the youper culture is all right.

I gotta be careful what I say here.

Maybe 99% of it's right, one percent's pretty crazy.

But Jesus gives you a new culture, and that happens as you begin to understand the gospel and have the sure foundation of what God's word says in your life.

And so this is important for us to walk through.

I I ask that you read chapter one, that's where we're going to be in Ephesians chapter one.

If you need a Bible, raise your hand.

We'll give you a great version.

You can take that free for you.

I again and again, you guys hear me.

Um, you're gonna you're gonna hear me say, Man, you need to have a physical Bible.

I want you to bring your Bible.

I just think it's so important in this digital age.

I think it's fantastic that we have the availability.

Of course, all my notes are online, uh, but I think it's important for you to be able to walk and look through your Bible, write in your Bible, highlight it, use it when it wears out, buy a new one, transfer it, all that information.

The Lord's gonna speak to you today in probably some of the most difficult teaching theological doctrine that I've ever taught.

And I say that because it's gonna be probably difficult for a lot of us to even grasp.

And maybe you don't even have the spiritual eyes and ears to see and understand, but it's important for you to be able to walk through this and wrestle with what I'm talking about today because it is life-giving and foundational.

And we're gonna we're gonna dive right into it in just a moment.

But let me start with this portion.

By the way, you'll find Ephesians in the latter part of your Bible.

Uh, it's four four uh books after Romans.

Oh Romans is kind of uh Acts, Romans, uh, first, second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians.

So let me say this: God has chosen you for all eternity to be his child, and that rich blessing and promise is meant to bring you life.

Now, this is this is important.

You're probably gonna have questions as we walk through.

Last week I told you uh chapters one through three are really an understanding and creed of uh of of salvation for you.

Chapters four through six is the practice of that, so it's important.

We're gonna walk through chapter by chapter uh this summer in in Ephesians, and you need to understand that you're probably gonna have questions that I really do not have the answers for.

You need to understand it, it's not because I'm not smart.

See, I thought I would get a response.

Lance is responding.

I'm not sure about you guys, but you're gonna ask questions like why did God choose me?

Why didn't He choose everyone?

And doesn't the Bible teach free will?

You may not even understand these sentences or phrases, uh, but as you walk through this, it's important for you to understand.

And this is rich, deep theological understanding.

And again, I'm giving this to you because it's going to it's it's going to bring something that that that maybe you haven't experienced.

You're wrestling with this idea if I'm saved or I'm not saved, and what is the sin and the consequences, and do I need to get resaved again kind of situation.

The the theology and the promise will bring, I promise this, God's word promises it to you.

It'll bring a freedom and it'll bring confidence in your life, and ultimately it will give you a license.

Listen to me.

It'll give you a license to live a fierce and bold life for Jesus.

And that's important for you.

And again, you're probably wondering what we're gonna dive into here, but it really is tied to your salvation.

And honestly, we don't, theologians, scholars, pastors, we've studied this for thousands of years, and we still don't really grasp, it's not that we don't have questions, and maybe you're like, well, can't I have some some objections to maybe what is being teached here?

And I I don't believe that that God is opposed to objections.

It's just that you need to understand that you may not understand everything because I don't understand everything.

And any pastor that comes to you, or theologian or scholar on YouTube or Instagram and acts like they got it going on and they can explain everything in God's word, they're lying to you.

They're lying to you.

We don't understand everything, and yet we have to have at least an understanding and trust of God's word.

That we believe that this is what God says, and so we're gonna live and we're going to be.

I I love what Deuteronomy 29, 29 says, that there are secret things of God that belong to God that we're we're not gonna understand.

We gotta trust him.

There might even seem like there's contradictions, they're not, we just don't understand it fully, and so we're gonna trust and obey him the things that are revealed to us and our children, and we're gonna be obedient to those things.

We're gonna be obedient to those things.

So let me give you a couple.

It seems like they're contrary, but they're they're not.

When it comes to your salvation, we really and we find this in the first part, and this is Paul is dealing with this subject because it's really important for these new Christians to understand uh the these things about their salvation.

And so these are these are the two things.

Here we go.

Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4.

Ephesians 1:4

God chooses me before the foundations of the world, which in the theological world this means divine election and sovereign love.

And yet in John 3.16 it says God loves the whole world, whosoever may come.

I think you're probably familiar with the latter, not so much with what Ephesians says, that God chooses you, that before you were created, God knew you and he loved you.

Nothing has ever dawned on God.

I don't know if you've ever thought of that before, but nothing has ever, nothing ever surprises God.

He knew you, he created you, and he loved you before the very foundations of the earth were created.

That's important for you to understand.

And yet, we call that election or predestination.

He chooses you to be saved, and he brings that about in your life.

And yet, in John 3.16, we see this all-encompassing that God loves the world and he wants to save anyone that will come towards him.

Whosoever will.

I may not understand the tension between these, but because I trust and love God and want to be obedient to his word, I kind of sit between both of these, and I allow the tension to be there.

And I'll say something pretty pastoral that you might hear me say.

I don't know if I've ever said this from the pulpit, it's very common across uh churches or pastors or theologians uh or scholars.

Living in that tension is much like, and you may not understand these terms, that's okay, but this is the basis for this whole message that I sleep like a Calvinist, but I preach like an Arminian.

Now, what you don't understand, and I this is really deep, but if you want to look these up, this is John Calvin and this is Jacob Arminian.

And they both had different thoughts about how God gives salvation, how we receive salvation, can we lose our salvation?

Can we never lose our salvation?

And there's scriptures on both sides, and I'm here to tell you, I do know this, that to be a follower of Jesus, you gotta kind of sit in the tension of them both being right.

We don't understand that.

And yet we can't be so haughty or prideful or think we're smarter than everyone else when it comes to these things.

There are just some things you're just not going to understand.

And you just gotta trust the Lord that He loves you, He's leading you, and you should have a grateful heart.

Again, Psalms says it this way: Lord, my heart is not lifted up, I'm not so haughty or prideful, or or my eyes are not raised too high, don't think too highly of myself.

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

But listen, I I sit quietly in your presence for you to lead me and give me knowledge and understanding by the power of the Holy Spirit, mostly by your word.

And sometimes I don't understand everything, but I'm going not to be prideful, Lord.

I want all you have for me as I I follow you.

And some of you are thinking, well, Pastor Mark, is North Iron a Calvinist church?

Pastor Mark, are you a Calvinist?

And I'm not gonna answer that, but I think I already did, I'm not.

Okay.

Like this is gonna set some of you on fire.

Some of you are gonna put this in the 80% of I don't understand what Pastor Mark is talking about, and I'm gonna forget it because I'm going to culverse afterwards.

But this doctrine, even though it's important and foundational for us, and it should drive you, it doesn't drive north iron per se.

The three things that drive north iron, very important that you understand.

It's his mission that he gives us, it's his redemption that we receive at the cross, and it is the advancement of his kingdom and his kingdom alone, everyone.

These are the things that we grab a hold of and we're thinking about.

I'm thinking about the the mission that God has placed me on because my neighbors have not experienced Jesus and they're not going to be in the future, to the present and future kingdom.

This is what I'm consumed with.

Ultimately, this is what the church has been consumed with here for over a hundred years.

Ultimately, that's why we have rooms and campuses.

We keep on growing, not because we per se want to, but because people are coming in and experiencing these things from Jesus.

And so we have to make our tent larger, our room larger to be able to speak.

Thank the Lord for the internet, everyone.

Thank the Lord for microphones.

Whew.

I kind of thought I wasn't gonna get fired up today, but so you guys ready?

Here we go.

Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3.

Ephesians 1:3

And we're gonna hit this in in just a moment.

Um, and I'm gonna kind of give you a path, but I want to start here.

Blessed be the God, our Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ.

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, this would have blown the minds of the first century Ephesian Christian.

Because everything was connected to spiritualism, this demonic overtone that was going on within this city, where if you didn't, if if you did something wrong and the spirits were angry at you, you had to do some kind of ritual.

You had to go and sacrifice something, you had to crawl on your belly, you had to do these kind of penance or different rituals to get on the good side of the spirit world so that you could have some kind of good luck in your life, and you say, Well, that's really archaic, Pastor Mark, that's in the past, but have you ever heard of karma anyone?

And we do the same thing.

And some of you are questioning the favor of God in your life, and you think to yourself, man, I just don't know if I'm ever going to reach the level of Pastor Mark or some of the leaders of the church.

I've heard people say to me, Pastor Mark, I can't be a part of North Iron because I just don't know if I can do it.

It's too, it's too difficult to pick up the cross, to follow Jesus.

And when people kind of say those things, they're Am I in God's favor?

Does he love me?

Does he care for me?

Or am I always going to fall short in my pursuit of him and always be in this insecurity and not security?

I I hear this kind of things in the language people talk to me in conversations when they're dealing with this, and of course, the accuser, Satan, is always gonna come in and slam that brutally in your life.

You don't have what it takes.

And I want to give you a sure foundation.

So I want to walk from chapter three, I'm sorry, excuse me, verse three to verse 11.

These are the things that will give you confidence and understanding when it comes to your salvation.

You're gonna see these.

I'm gonna walk you through it.

The father planned your salvation.

You're like, what God knew you, and you're gonna see this.

He had a purpose, his will in your life, that you would come to him.

So he goes after you, he pursues you, he draws you.

You're gonna see that the father planned your salvation, and then the son accomplished it.

And the Holy Spirit then brings it about in your heart, and from start to finish, your salvation has been accomplished by God.

So let's walk through those.

First one is you need to understand that God has arranged this in your life, He's chosen you.

It's important.

Let's look at the scripture versory, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing.

We just read that, for he chooses us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless, to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Of course, we don't fully understand this, and again, I want you to take this not as I'm trying to defend anything, I'm just reading to you as I should and trying to explain it, and you have to make up your decision.

And there's room for all of us here in this room with with with maybe even our objectives or misunderstandings in this, but listen, everyone, he he chooses you.

You think about that.

Let that rattle in your brain a little bit.

He chooses you.

And maybe some of you are like, Well, yeah, look at me.

Obviously, he's chosen me because I'm a good dude, like I'm strong, I have great personality.

Man, you should see my bank account.

I think God needs me to help him advance his kingdom.

And I'm not opposed to you giving to this church.

But God's word says opposite.

Matter of fact, speaking of the Israelites, and why did God choose the Israelites?

You ever wonder about that?

They also wondered about that.

They looked at themselves and said, uh, you know, there's a few cousin Eddies in the room.

It was not because you were more in number, meaning it wasn't your strength.

It wasn't your strength, it wasn't your abilities or talents, for you were the fewest of all people.

Well, it's because I'm a good guy, Pastor Mark.

I'm a moral guy.

I'm a black and white person.

Maybe that's going through your mind.

Again, he says this is to the people of Israel.

It wasn't your morality in the in the in chapter 9.

He says, it's not your morality.

Not because of your righteousness, for you were a stubborn people.

I don't know if maybe you skipped ahead.

Head, but in in verse 5, the reason he chooses us is according to the purpose of his will.

He wants to do something in you.

He wants to do something through you.

He's positioned you.

He's postured you.

You wonder why you're in the UP.

Well, obviously it's God's country, but aside from that, aside from that, he has a plan, he has a purpose, and it's according to his will.

You're here for a reason.

You're walking into rooms for a reason.

You're getting out of your car and pumping gas at a spati uh a gas.

You thought you were just going for cheap gas?

God's got a plan in that.

And listen, it's nothing about who you are.

We'll see in a moment that He chooses the weak over the strong.

But it was all grace.

Grace and grace alone.

Well, listen, it seems like God is violating like free will.

Or don't I have a choice in the matter?

Is God violating my choice?

It's like some of you, no one likes a Calvinist dater out there.

You know what I'm talking about?

This happens every once in a while in my church where a young man will go to a woman and say, honey, you have been predestined to be my wife.

God has ordained this, right?

That's not of God.

He's not more spiritual.

And you need to come to me.

We have restraining orders in the church office for you.

And yet, listen, if that's true with the Calvinist dater, that those foolish people are out there, right?

But that's that's not true about God.

He's chosen you, he pursues you, and listen, all of this is from start to finish, is his his idea.

His idea.

And he draws you to himself.

We find this in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

And that word draw there is a it's like a starving man who has this deep hunger that he can't satisfy.

And God uses that, that drawing, that that that hunger for something more than your experience here in this backwards, flipped upside down, crazy, broken, twisted world.

And so your heart begins to wonder and seek, and God takes that and he draws you, and you you you get connected to maybe a believer in some way.

Maybe someone crosses the aisles at St.

Vincent de Paul, and and you're just trying to buy a used belt, and someone lays down the gospel in your life, and it does something in your spirit.

You've heard me say, if the spirit of God resides in you, like the temple of God, wherever you walk, wherever you tread, wherever you take territory, whatever store and family, whatever room you walk into, the spirit of God walks in with you.

We don't understand it, but it does something to your mind and your heart.

And your your spirit starts to change, and and and your your this longing kind of drops into you.

Scripture says your your eyes have scales on them because of sin.

The deep-rooted problem in our life is this the sin that we want to be a part of.

And yet we get connected to someone, or we hear some preaching.

Maybe this is the first time you've been in something like this.

And something's going on, people don't know how to even express.

I've gone out to the parking lot to shake people's hands because that's where everyone's running away.

I go out there like I'm a marathoner.

And I catch people and they break down because they don't want to break down in here, and they'll say things like, I don't even know why I'm crying.

I say, Man, that's the Holy Spirit.

Opening up your heart of stone, as scripture says, and make it a heart of flesh.

And you need to understand in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1, that you were dead in your sins.

Ephesians 2:1

You're dead, as Charles Dickens says, dead as a doornail.

That's what sin does to you.

You're not participating in this in any way.

He draws you and he starts to reform your heart, and the spirit begins to deal with you.

You are you are dead in your transgressions and sin.

It's like you wake up in the ambulance.

You don't even know how you got there.

And they got all these wires hooked up to you, they got something on your nose, pumping whatever.

And you've been in a you were you were unconscious, you were dead.

And the EMS guy, paramedic, I excuse me, I don't, I should know those, but I don't.

I've never really been in this situation, but I watch TV.

And you wake up, and the paramedic says, Hey, this is what has happened to you, and we need to do these things.

None of you get out of the gurney and say, No, I'm good, man.

I'm good.

This is what goes on when the Spirit of God starts to come into your life as he draws you, he's coming after you, and you just kind of sit back and allow him to do the work in your life.

And when that happens, again, you're we know that by scripture that sin makes you stupid.

It makes you believe different things.

And of course, the world is preaching like I'm preaching, but they're preaching the opposite of what God's word says and how you should live.

And if you dive into that culture, it'll drift you to an insane place in your life where you'll do insane things.

The healthiest you can ever be is in the presence of Jesus.

I've shown you this before, but you need to understand that this is you.

And if you move towards Jesus, you just have better mental health.

You move towards sin, listen, it just makes you crazy, it makes you insane.

This is why we have problems in our culture.

A majority of our culture is moving towards their own ideas and not moving towards the redemption and the wisdom of Jesus.

And so they wonder why they're having mental health issues.

Now I get it, I understand some of you have chemical imbalances in your life, but I promise you, even with the doctor's help and Jesus, you can have wisdom and health in your life.

I love how it says it in Acts chapter 16, speaking of Lydia.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

It says that the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying.

The Lord arranges it.

And Ephesians goes on in chapter 5.

It says, and in love, he predestines us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in his beloved presence, man.

I'm just telling you that Jesus walks in.

It's like a spiritual orphanage, and he walks in and he sees you and he says, Man, I want that one.

And I'll pay whatever you want.

That's the kind of adoption he does in your life.

He says, I want you, and whatever the cost, I don't care what it is.

Maybe it's even my own life, it doesn't matter, but I want that one.

Then he takes you into his family and he begins to teach you his family culture.

Well, I don't know if I like, man, he adopted you out of an orphanage.

You better dance in the culture.

The culture is life.

And you hear me say that oftentimes in this way, man, you gotta love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates.

In Ephesians, it goes on when it talks about what Jesus brings.

It says, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavishes on us.

This is what this is how Jesus gets involved, and he accomplishes, he lavishes this grace upon us in all wisdom and insight.

This is how the Son accomplishes it in our life.

God draws us, the Son accomplishes it.

And what he does on the cross, and I won't dive into this deeply, but when he when what what he does in the cross is he accomplishes it once and forever.

What we don't understand oftentimes is we think that we think that our salvation is all about forgiveness.

Jesus, I need you to forgive me.

He says, Yes, I forgive you, and then we're good until 15 seconds later when we sin again.

And then what do we do?

We go back and say, Jesus, I need you, listen, it's about redemption.

Redemption is different.

Redemption is he paid it all.

All.

And you can have that kind of confidence in your life.

I'm not pushing you away from the idea of forgiveness, but you need not to wonder again and again.

Listen, this is how it plays out.

Some of you ask forgiveness for the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over.

God maybe didn't hear me.

Here I am again.

God, maybe I what you're saying is he's not powerful enough to forgive you.

He's here to redeem you.

And just think about it, if it was all about forgiveness, I'd be asking forgiveness.

Mark Broberg would be asking forgiveness every 10 seconds, everyone.

But because of his redemption, like the the the score has had how many, maybe no one has DVRs.

Do you remember the big DVR craze, right?

And all of you uh people at church would immediately go buy a DVR because you're missing some kind of football game at church, especially when we had Sunday night, and you didn't want anyone to tell you the score, right?

If someone told you the score, you'd lose your mind, but every once in a while it would happen, and you would go home and ignore your wife and just hammer that that four hours of a football game.

You guys remember that?

And even though you knew the score, if there was a fumble or the other team got another score, you wouldn't lose your mind, right?

Because you knew the end score.

Because someone at church told you they were jerks.

That's how it works.

He's paid for it all, once and for all.

That's what redemption is in your life.

Jesus, the score is Jesus 100, sin zero.

And you need to trust and understand that he's big enough.

We don't fully understand that.

But we know what God's word says, so we're going to be obedient, and we we love that idea that's foundational for you.

Some of you are still dealing with the same issues in your life because you've not moved beyond this idea of acceptance of what Jesus did on the cross for you.

Ephesians, again.

Making known to us the mystery, listen, it's a mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

That no matter what we experience here on earth, by someone else, or we trip up, the consequences come in, and we're just wondering, Lord, do you still love me?

But scripture says that even though we make mistakes, and some of you are pretty discouraged and wondering, can I even be saved?

And yet scripture says the opposite that he works all things to the purpose of his will, and he creates, you hear me say it all the time, he'll take your ashes, and he'll create a beautiful crown to place on your head.

So you just need to get up.

Get up.

Every time you fail, every time that you think you're far from God, you need to run to the cross, run to Jesus.

Lord, I know you paid.

I'm gonna stand, I'm gonna stand in your presence, Lord.

I need you to heal these circumstances, I need you to heal my mind, I need you to heal my heart, but I'm moving forward with you.

That's what following is.

It's not sitting back, discouraged, but getting up.

Proverbs says, a righteous man gets up seven times.

And sometimes we just don't think that God orders our footsteps.

How would God allow me to be divorced?

How would God allow me to lose my job?

I don't have answers for all that.

But I do know that he's in charge of everything.

It might feel like the dice is being rolled, but ultimately God is in charge.

Pastor Mark, I've made stupid and bad mistakes.

Yep, I'm right with you.

And sometimes he allows those consequences of those mistakes to again draw us.

You remember the stubborn people, guys?

You remember that?

Lance, Antonogan?

You have to be stubborn to live up there.

He allows the consequences to open our hearts, to bring healing.

That's powerful.

You should be thankful for the things that you've gone through.

You should be thankful for the hard things in your life, not the comfortable things.

Because it brings you to a place of the acceptance of the will of his purpose in your life.

And let's look at what the Holy Spirit does.

In him also, when you heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, it was sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

The Holy Spirit, oh, the Holy Spirit brings it about in our hearts.

He is, as Pastor Patty says, the CEO of all of us.

He's here this morning.

He's working in your spirit right now, he's working in your heart, he's working in your mind, he's working in your relationships.

Though you you recognize it or not, let me just show you a few ways that what he brings to us as the Holy Spirit, he brings us assurance.

Because salvation begins in God and is accomplished by God, you can be sure that what God starts, he will finish.

And that changes how you view sin.

I gotta get it together, I gotta get together, I gotta get together.

I'm not completely opposed of that, but it's not by your will.

It's not by your smarts or your discipleship or your wisdom.

Those are all important things.

I'm not minimizing them.

But you have to be assured that God has you on a path.

He's placed you amongst people who love you and want to help you and correct you so that he can accomplish what he set out to accomplish in your life, which is not only moving his kingdom forward, but spending eternity inside that kingdom with him.

That insurance is a sure foundation for you.

John 6 says this that all the Father gives me, as Jesus speaking, will come to me, and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing.

He's the good shepherd.

When he starts with a hundred sheep, he's not gonna halfway through the day count through and like, uh, I lost two, it's okay, I can get more.

No, Jesus starts with a hundred sheep, he ends with a hundred sheep, everyone.

That's an assurance in your life.

There's also this power, and I've I I've I've already kind of spoken about this, but the power again to get up and to get up and to give up.

This truth gives us the power to get up again and again and again after failure after failure after failure that I'm still dealing with, even as your pastor.

I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have done that.

It gives you the power to accomplish those things again.

For good works would God prepares beforehand, predestined, that we should walk in them.

Also, this humility.

Again, you are dead in your sins, and you need to understand that it is only the grace of God, the merit of the grace of God, that allows these things in your life.

First Corinthians chapter one.

God chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong, chooses the weak.

It's the opposite of what the world does, to shame the strong, and it brings this incredible confidence in your life, this confidence to be able to accomplish what God has asked you to do, even in the face of your trials or sickness or discouragement.

Then, Lord, I think I've told you this, where I've started to end my prayers to God with not so much amen, but I'll say, Lord, this is going on, and Jesus, I just I trust you right now.

God, I know you're smarter than me, you're more powerful than me.

And so, Lord, all that's going on around me, I I've used what's in my hands, and I I need your will, not Broberg's will, your will, not Lynnholm's will, not Bell Isle's will, not Philzetti's will or Palomacky's will, but God, what is your will?

And so I I trust you in this, and yet the world's a messed up place, and we go through trials, we go through hardships.

Some of you are in the room right now where you can barely exist where you're at, because of something that came into your life, just maybe even this week.

The promise is that when we walk through this world of pain and suffering, that he'll walk with us, he'll grieve with us, with understanding.

I love how C.S.

Lewis says it, because I think sometimes we think when we get to heaven, we'll look back and say, Oh, that's why I went through that.

C.

S.

Lewis says, No, it's probably not gonna be that way.

It's more like when we get to heaven, it's not that we look back and see the reason bad things happen and say, Oh, that was why it happened.

Rather, we say, what bad things?

We are so consumed with God's finished product we don't even remember the process.

Or what what what Romans 8 says, that the the suffering of his life, the the suffering of this life is not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us when we're with him.

And then lastly, you need to understand this kind of confidence when it comes to your salvation, it creates a fierce boldness.

And sharing the gospel.

If the Lord ordered my steps, I can live this reckless, abandoned life in pursuit of him.

I love that idea.

That's always been my goal.

Lord, I wanna, I'm wanna, I'm wanna bring 110.

Let's go.

I can live my life as reckless abandonment, or I don't have to care about the world because ultimate Jesus, you're in control.

And so I'm gonna I'm gonna jump off that cliff.

I'm gonna walk into that room.

I'm gonna open my mouth and display your glory and salvation and the gospel.

Father, I wanna live in a reckless way.

And the way I can is because I can be fierce in what God has placed in my heart.

I can be fierce in what He has accomplished through me.

And because of that, the gospel goes forward.

He's chosen you.

Not sure how I'm gonna end.

Maybe I should just walk off the stage.

I'm sweating up a storm.

In the eleventh and twelfth century, all the way up into the fifteenth century.

In medieval Europe, there were knights who were not stationed in a castle or under a kingdom.

They had received this position either through inheritance or strength of their arm, meaning military battle.

And they were called knights errant.

They were nomadic.

They would walk into a city, walk into a village, and look for people who needed help.

Either by might of hand or compassion or through wealth, they would try to make a difference wherever they walked.

They believed in the their wandering that God would bring them to the place that they need to be to accomplish what God had positioned them for, and ultimately to move the kingdom of God into people's lives.

They were called knights errant.

There were some reports, knights written about, who spent 40 years doing this, traveling from nation to nation to nation, allowing God to use them in powerful ways that oftentimes were not even written about.

We get small glimpses of them showing up, but they they were dotted all over Europe trying to do the will of God and advancing his kingdom wherever God would lead them.

I love that idea.

Every morning, I get up and I have an agenda.

There's certain things I gotta do.

I have to get dressed, I have to eat, and I definitely am a list guy.

These are all the things that I need to do today.

I get to about three of them.

Because in the morning I get up, and the first conscious thought that I have when I open my eyes is Lord, how are you going to use me to change someone's life today?

This day, this Monday, this Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday is not going to be about me.

I do have to pay the water bill.

But Lord, I want you to interrupt my day so that the Holy Spirit that resides inside of me can reside in someone else.

And your gospel will go forward and your kingdom will go forward.

I do not want to live a life of mundane existence.

I don't want to live a life of comfort.

You've positioned me and given me this incredible foundation.

I don't have to worry about all these things.

I could just advance and advance your kingdom and advance your gospel.

I can live life like reckless abandonment.

Because I've experienced something that the rest of the world has to experience.

That's my prayer for you this morning.

That you would leave with confidence, assurance, humility, that God's doing something special in your life.

And listen, we don't take advantage of that.

Well, I'm in, Pastor Mark.

I can sit back in my lazy boy and do nothing.

That's not what's being said here.

You have been positioned, you've been postured.

And the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of you.

Can you imagine the power?

But oftentimes we don't we don't pull that trigger.

You are called in his purpose, in his will, he's drawed you, he's forgiven you.

Redemption has come in your life.

He's changed your heart.

He's taken the scales off your eyes.

You believe different, you see different.

And some of you are here this morning, maybe for the very first time you're experiencing that.

You need to understand that salvation is the easiest thing in the world because he's drawing you, he's opening your heart right now.

He's taking the scales off your eyes.

You're never going to be the same.

And it happens when we yield ourselves to his will.

Father, I surrender my life to you.

Jesus, I need your redemption, I need your forgiveness.

Lord, your word says I have your grace and mercy.

So I'm not going to take that for advantage, Father, but I'm going to tell as many people around me as possible.

Listen, that that can be you today.

You believe, you confess, and you surrender.

And his promise is he'll come in and change your spirit.

He'll change your mind.

He'll change your culture.

So let me leave you with this last scripture.

To as many have received him, to them he gave the power to become the children of God.

He's chosen you.

He's going to do something powerful in your life.

That's the assurance you have.

Why don't you stand with me?

I'm going to pray over you.

Some of you are wrestling with this idea.

And again, I don't always have the knowledge to give you or explanation to give you.

But I say, Lord, I'm going to quietly sit at your feet.

Lord, I'm going to move when you want me to move, and some of you just need to make a movement this morning.

We have prayer partners down here.

Maybe you're going through something you don't understand, and you just need God's anointing in your life.

You need Him to come in, maybe take an obstacle out, transform maybe part of your culture, your marriage, your finances, all these different things.

We're all affected by it.

We have people, but the most important thing is that you just move.

You're all going to move.

Some of you are going to move outside and you're going to leave like you came in.

I promise you, if you'll take a step towards Jesus, he's going to show up in your life.

Things are going to start to change.

So I want to pray that over you, Father, as we move towards you this morning, Father, and come up front to spend some time of worship.

Lord, we know that your spirit is here.

You promise that your spirit, he's already working, he's already correcting, he's already speaking.

And so it is important for us to act on that, Father.

And so, Lord, we drop all of our ideas, our misunderstandings, Father.

Even our sin, we move towards you, Father.

We're not gonna stay where we're at.

We lift our hands, Father, we sing out your praises, Lord.

We ask for forgiveness, we ask for your redemption, we ask for your healing, we ask for your correction, Father, and Lord, our ultimate goal is one day to be with you until you promised us that.

So, Lord, we position ourselves in our hearts, Father, this morning, and we ask this all in the mighty name of Jesus.

Thank you for joining us for this message.