The Four Great Invitations: Abide in Me | Part 3

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

We're in a series called The Four Great Invitations.

Jesus makes invitations to whosoever has ears to hear.

I was with a uh, I call him a young guy, in in between that 35 to 45.

We were friends.

Uh he had uh come to Jesus.

Uh he was seeking to follow Jesus.

Uh he had a good job, a beautiful family, uh couple kids, and he called and said, You know, I'm really, really, really struggling.

Could could we get together?

And uh I said, sure.

He says, How about, you know, some time?

So we we decided we'd play nine holes of golf.

And as we're walking along and playing golf, we get to about the third or fourth hole, and I've heard about the frustrations in his marriage, and in weak moments, I know I'm drinking too much, and you know, my kids, there's pressures over here, and I'm over here, work is just so demanding.

And if I get up and I spend time with God and read the Bible, then I don't work out.

But if I work out, I don't spend time with God.

And then he just looked at me and goes, it's just not supposed to be this hard.

It's just not supposed to be this hard.

This whole Christian thing is so hard.

And I happen to know his background, and he uh he played college football and then he uh spent some time in the arena league.

Uh he was a really, really good athlete.

And I just was listening most of the time, and just casually I said, um, could I just ask you a question?

He said, Yeah, sure.

I said, he happened to be a tight end.

I said, when you when you go and you run, you know, a slant and you come across and you catch the ball, and a linebacker comes and levels you, do you get up and say, Boy, that's not fair.

That's really hard.

You shouldn't hit me like that.

I said, uh, do you remember doing two-day practices?

Do you remember all that you did growing up to get at the level that you are?

And he said, Well, yeah.

I said, Was it hard?

And then I said, You know something?

We live in a really fallen world.

And basically, as you listened, he had struggles, and he had in a moment of time, honestly, deeply, authentically, come to Jesus.

He found rest for his soul, and he was a part of God's family.

And then he was on a journey to seek to follow him, but he was following him kind of out of his willpower.

I'm gonna do what's right, I'm gonna behave in the right way, I'm going to try and quote, be a good Christian.

So as I start, I want you to listen very, very carefully.

The Christian life is not a matter of doing more or behaving better.

It's a matter of going deeper.

Let me say that again.

The Christian life is not a matter of doing more or behaving better, but of going deeper.

What my friend didn't have was any power in his life.

He didn't have the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit allowing the life of Christ, connecting him to his power so he could live it out.

And there's few things more frustrating than trying to live the Christian life in the power of your own energy.

If you were here in our last time together, I kind of ended it with the Christian life is not hard, it's impossible.

And the only one to live it is Jesus.

And so here's his invitation.

Invitation number one, come to me, and the promise is peace.

Invitation number two was follow me, and the promise was purpose, direction, meaning, fulfillment.

And now you'll notice in your notes at the very top the blank is abide in me.

The promise is freedom, the promise is joy, the promise is power.

It's to abide literally means to stay connected to Jesus.

Now I kind of looked at the notes and um I'm gonna give an overview of those notes.

Think of them as a skeleton.

And as we get to this time, what I recognize is a lot of people don't know what this actually looks like.

I mean, in real life, because some of you are married and have marriage demands, and some of you are single and you've got single demands, and we've all got work demands.

And some people drink a little too much, some people play videos a little too much, some people do other things.

In other words, it's so hard because there's three distractions, you might jot these down.

Number one, the first one why it's hard to abide is just write the word distractions.

You're bombarded, I'm bombarded.

In fact, we carry distraction in our back pocket most of the time, don't we?

Buzz, buzz, blink, blink, blink, blink, right?

The second thing is distorted desires.

In a fallen world, in other words, if you are riding in the Tour de France as they're doing right now, as they're going up the steep, steep hills, they're not saying, I wonder why this is hard.

It's very, very steep.

I want you to know as you live your faith and following Jesus, it's uphill.

This world isn't how God designed it to be since the fall.

And so the distorted desires are the desires to take the gifts that God gives in place of the giver.

So the desire for sex, for power, for popularity, for fame, for acceptance, for security, there's a world that offers that in ways that promise to satisfy, but it doesn't.

All those are good gifts in the right time in the right way as from God where the focus is the giver.

And then the third one is discouragement.

The enemy's number one goal is to get you to say, I can't do this.

I'm worth nothing.

I'm a failure.

No one knows the thoughts I have inside.

I can't, I don't think I can handle this anymore.

Or, you know, I don't want to quit, so I'll just fake it, kind of.

And we've all lived there.

And so in your notes, what we have is Jesus teaching his disciples, where do you get the power?

How do you actually live this?

Because he's about to leave.

You'll notice in your note it says the context.

Put a circle around the word context.

Anytime you get a passage, you want to know what came before it, what came after it, and why is it here.

And the context is the chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 before what's right here.

In chapter 13, listen carefully, because we always think about the Lord's Supper and him washing their feet.

But the very first line is I deeply desired to spend this time with you.

Jesus wanted to be with them.

He washes their feet.

Chapter 14, he desperately wants to be with them.

So he says, I'm going to leave, but I'm going to prepare a place for you because where I am, I want you to be with me, and I promise you will be.

Chapter 15, now they've taken a walk, and as they've taken a walk, and there's a number of things, and there's vineyards, he pauses.

And what we're going to look at quickly is he's going to use a metaphor, a picture to say, I'm leaving physically, but I want you to stay connected to me.

And he's going to say, My Father's the vine dresser, I am the true vine, the hope of Israel.

And if you stay connected to me, in fact, everything that you've shared with me when I was here physically, it's going to be better.

Chapter 16 says, How does it get better?

Is the Holy Spirit is actually going to dwell in you and manifest not only my presence, but the Father's presence.

And then in chapter 17, Jesus is praying for them, and Jesus is praying for us even right now.

So let's imagine walking.

We've sung a hymn, he's washed our feet.

We don't quite understand, we're a bit confused about this death that's coming.

And he says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.

You are already clean because the word which I've spoken to you, abide in me.

Here's the invitation, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me, and I in him result bears much fruit.

Why?

For apart from me you can do nothing.

That was where my friend was.

He couldn't be more sincere, but he wasn't connected.

He was just trying really hard.

If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away and then put a box around the next phrase as a branch.

I'll explain why in a minute.

And dries up.

And they gather them and they cast them into the fire and they are burned.

The promise: if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

When you're connected to him and he's connected to you, your desires will align with God's desires, and you'll start asking him things, and you will see him like they did in Mexico, answer vividly and powerfully.

He goes on to say, My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.

Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you.

Now notice the shift.

It's abide in me.

Now it's abide in my love.

Well, how do you do that?

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.

So he divines this abiding, not as just some ooey-goooey emotional feeling, but there's this connection, and there's a connection that as we obey his word by the power of his spirit, we abide in his love.

And then there's a purpose clause.

Why?

What's all this?

What's the purpose of this abiding?

These things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full.

I don't know about many of you, but I don't at times meet a lot of Christians that are really joyful.

I meet a lot of Christians that talk about all their problems, all their struggles, how terrible the world is.

This group of followers is going to go into the most hostile environment.

Eleven of them will sacrifice their life.

And the greeting card of the early church in the midst of suffering and injustice and all kinds of difficulty was this unquenchable, supernatural, non-understandable joy that they had.

And it wasn't because circumstances were good.

They had this connection.

They had this the life of Jesus flowing through him, his presence, his personality, his comfort, his encouragement, even in the midst of what was happening there.

And it doesn't mean it was easy for them anymore that's easy for us.

But what's happened in our world is a subtle shift happened.

And the shift that happened, especially in America, and then it spread all over the place, is that actually the real joy in life is if your life works out, you find the right person, and you're healthy, and you're upwardly mobile, and things go your way, and you have these expectations that it'll be wonderful.

And Jesus is sort of like your health self-help genie that Jesus helped me get what I want.

And a lot of people are deeply discouraged with God because He hasn't come through.

I prayed about this and I wanted that, and I'm still single.

I prayed about this and I wanted that, but the company didn't go public.

I prayed about this and I wanted that, but my kid didn't make the traveling team.

In fact, the coach was a jerk.

I prayed it, right?

And kind of our hands are on our hips and saying, Hey God, what's wrong?

And we've missed what it means to abide.

In the worship time, Ryan quoted a portion of Psalm 16.

It says, In your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forever.

And don't get me wrong, the gifts of God that he wants to give, he wants us to enjoy a good meal.

He wants us to enjoy sex with our marital partner.

He wants us, did you all get that little parenthesis there?

He wants us to be accepted in love and find security.

He wants us to have a job that we were made for and we're passionate about and brings great fulfillment.

But all those things are gifts.

And he says where it starts is abiding in me, in me, and you.

I don't want to exposit this passage.

If you're interested, uh we've done some other work where if you, you know, want to kind of hear teaching through all the book of John here at Living on the Edge, where I work.

But here's what I want you to get: the true vine, the great access to the Father is Jesus.

And then this one line I do want you to get.

Every branch in mead that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

Your translation is a little bit different, but about 85% of the time that this word is translated in the New Testament, it means to take away, it means to lift up.

It's not a negative.

It's like it's like a vine and there's a branch on the ground.

And so he lifts it up and positions it so it can bear fruit.

And the ones that are already bearing fruit, he does something that feels very painful.

He prunes it and he cuts off some of the extraneous things so that it'll bear fruit.

And then remember, you put a box around, if any branch in me that doesn't bear fruit, he's talking to followers.

He says they're burned and cast into the fire.

This is not a picture of a believer going to hell.

Jot on the side of your notes, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and you can go study it a bit later.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

And what he says is that we all, once we have come to know Christ and his spirit lives in us, and our sins are forgiven, and he lives in us, there is a judgment, not for our salvation, but there's a judgment coming where we give an account for what did we do with the life that God gave us?

The time, the energy, the money, the spiritual gifts.

And he says, at that judgment, the things that were done for him with the right motive, there's rewards, gold, silver, and precious stones.

But those things where he gave us things and we didn't do anything with them, or we did things in order to impress people with the wrong motive, he says they're wood, hay, and stubble, and there's this judgment that those things burn, and he's very quick to say, but you will be saved as through fire.

There's a refining process.

So Jesus is saying to them, There's a lot on the line.

The only one that can live this life is me.

And the only one that can live it is when the Holy Spirit dwelling in you produces this life.

And then you'll notice I just did a little study for you.

I'm hoping that you'll kind of dig in on your own and take it deeper.

But it says, What did Jesus teach Peter to follow?

And it really ought to be, what did Jesus teach Peter and the disciples about abiding?

And you notice I went through that process where the metaphor of the vine, uh, life-giving power, the warning about the branch and judgment, the promise of intimacy and access.

And did you notice that if my, if you abide in me and my, what's it say, my words abide in you, ask.

So there's some level of this intimacy that gets developed between Jesus showing up in his word, and then we talk to him.

There's this vertical relationship like breathing, and we inhale God's word.

And as we inhale God's word through teaching, through time alone with him, by kind of reading the scriptures slowly and quietly, not to get my three chapters done and put a check mark, but to say, what do you want to say to me?

Here's the one thing I want you to get.

The Christian life is about Jesus wanting to be with you.

He wants to be with you.

It's a relationship, it's not a duty.

It's not just reading the Bible or praying so long or talking.

And then, did you notice after there's this vertical relationship of him manifesting his presence, he says, abide in my love, just as I abide in my father's love.

And he talks about loving one another.

So there's this connection.

What I want you to know is that everything we're going to talk about is impossible to do alone.

You can't do it, and I can't do it.

Every command in the New Testament is in the second person plural.

You all love one another, you all honor one another, you all encourage one another.

No one can live this life apart from God's word, the inhaling of the scriptures, and the exhaling of talking to God in honesty and intimacy and authenticity.

God is never impressed with our words.

He's always looking at our heart, and he longs to be close to us.

In fact, he longs to be close to us in the times when we want to run away from him.

Your failure, your mistake, your difficulty, you blowing it for the 33rd time, and you don't really want to pray.

The moment you come honestly, oh God, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

And you mean it?

The Lord is near the brokenhearted, he saves those that are crushed in spirit.

That's what David could say after he committed murder and adultery.

And so on the right side, I just put, you know, Peter's and the disciples, what did they do?

Early on, they heard all of this and they were confused, they were anxious, then they failed, right?

They abandoned him, then they got hopeful, you know, and then his death, and they were don't think anything's gonna happen.

They were defeated.

Then they went to his word after the resurrection, and they looked at some of those Old Testament promises and things Jesus told him, and then they prayed.

And as they waited, they received power, and the Holy Spirit indwelt them.

And if you want to jot down Acts 2, 42 to 47, you'll find that there is a life-giving, powerful community where on a regular, rhythmic way, they gave their attention to the apostles' teaching and to the prayers and to meeting from house to house and sharing a meal and loving one another and meeting the needs of the poor.

And it said the Lord added to their number daily.

That that's the picture of abiding and how it's manifested.

If you uh turn to the back page, I put a little picture that I introduced last time.

Uh all of that is true.

And what I discovered was uh I didn't grow up reading the Bible.

Uh, I didn't know didn't grow up in a church that taught the Bible.

Uh I, as I shared earlier, I came to Christ just before I went away to college.

There was a bricklayer that began to help me grow.

Uh I tried, I was the reason I could help that uh former football player, I I tried really hard in my effort and my energy to uh to live the Christian life.

And as I shared in our last time together, once I found out I couldn't do it, I quit.

At least I tried to quit.

But Jesus wouldn't quit.

And so uh in the midst of that, I began to learn, okay, how do you abide?

And those things that came out of John 15, notice there's the word and prayer in this vertical relationship.

You notice there's witnessing and fellowship in the horizontal relationship, and it's all about having Christ as the center.

And then just as you learn and as I learn, obeying what you know, uh, I put a few uh observations about this wheel.

It serves as a guide in our personal growth, as a basis for abiding.

Notice a wheel's dynamic, it's always moving.

When it's moving, you don't see the spokes.

It's not about how much you pray or this or that.

What happens is you begin to see Christ.

The emphasis is on relationship.

The Christian life is not about sort of some self-help, like, how am I growing and how am I doing and am I praying enough?

Am I reading enough?

Am I doing this?

Here's the Christian life.

My focus is on Jesus.

All those things are merely means.

When you're really struggling, and when I'm really struggling, don't start focusing more and more in.

Start setting your eyes and your focus on Him.

And I want to talk about how to do that practically, because I've heard people say that, you know, fix your eyes on Jesus.

And I thought, great.

I mean, what's that really mean?

How do you really do that?

And then where obedience meets the rubber of the road.

And I'll share how that little picture, uh, there's a couple verses that go with each of those.

Uh by the way, if you want the full wheel illustration with verses and how it all works out, just Google the wheel illustration and a fuller explanation of that.

It was developed by another high school educated person named Dawson Trotman, who started a ministry called the Navigators, the Discipleship Ministry, and that bricklayer was a part of the Navigators.

And I had a uh, we're gonna now, are you ready?

You know what it means to abide, right?

Nod your head or something.

Okay?

It means to stay connected to Jesus.

How do you abide?

It has something to do with the word and prayer and being connected to other believers.

And responding in love and obedience to what we know.

Right?

It's really, really hard to abide because we all get distracted, right?

We all have distorted desires.

Satan is always offering, and the world is always offering really, really good things in the wrong way or the wrong time.

And so we fall in love with the gift.

If, you know, if if so many people knew my name, or if we went public, or if I had a house, or I had a second house, or, you know, if I have, well, you know, if my body looked better, and you know, we have all these things that if went, if went, if went, if went, and then if you ever do get them, it's like, ooh, they didn't deliver.

And God says, those are all gifts.

Those are all things I want to give when you understand every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights with whom there's no variation.

I want you to enjoy these things as gifts and give me the credit and cause it to spur on our relationship.

Well, back to this wheel.

Uh I was uh pretty much uh after I had quit the Christian life and realized I couldn't because Jesus wouldn't leave me alone.

I thought, well, somehow, some way I gotta figure it out.

And I was in a Bible study and they had this wheel illustration.

And what I realized in my life, it was like, okay, I wonder what's wrong.

Okay, number one, Christ isn't the center.

Ask, you know, if if I replace a circle, uh basketball was the center and my girlfriend was the center.

And then the word was like, well, you know, I'm reading my Bible, you know, maybe a couple, three times on good mornings.

And I go to church maybe once or twice a month.

I sort of.

Prayer is sort of like mostly running to class.

And fellowship, I do go to that Thursday thing.

That's really good.

And there's a lot of cute girls, so that was part of the motivation.

And as far as witnessing, telling others, uh, yeah, actually a little bit, not too much.

And then as far as obedience, I I I've I'm coming a long way except in a couple areas.

My thought, life, and lust.

And I was stuck.

And uh there's two verses that go with each of those, and uh, I accidentally learned how to abide.

Are you ready for this?

It was a pure accident, and my motivation was carnal.

That's how kind God is.

So I'm uh I'm deciding I can't quit the Christian life, and um my roommate was uh a wrestler, and we were very competitive.

He was a heavyweight wrestler, and I was the skinny point guard.

And so uh he was gonna go to this training program put on by this group that does the wheel, and he had these 60 verses he had to memorize.

And there were two verses, you know, two verses on God's word, two on prayer, two on obedience, and then there was another 60 total.

And he left the room and he had these little cards, and I was too cheap to buy the cards because back then they were five dollars for a box of them.

And so I got three by five cards, I cut them up and I wrote all the verses down, and I had one motivation.

Uh, he was gonna memorize a couple a week because he had to have these done by the summer, and this is like, I don't know, December or January.

And so I thought, I'm gonna do one a day, I'm gonna have a master, I'm just gonna walk in and go, hey Bob, how are you coming with the uh, you know, you know, wrestlers are and then I said some semi-unkind joking things.

And uh, how are you coming with that?

And then I was gonna go, uh, oh yeah, Christ the center, Galatians 2.20.

For I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.

Yet not I, but Christ lives within me.

And this life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and died for me.

You got that one down yet, Bob?

Or Bob, how about the word?

All scriptures inspired by God is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness that the man of God might be fully equipped for every good word.

You got that one, Bob?

Or hey, Bob, how about prayer?

How are you coming on prayer?

John 15, 7.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it'll be done for you.

Hey, Bob.

And I mean I went through all of them.

But to go through all of them, you know, I'm a very over-the-top, zealous, nutty person.

I've actually mellowed some.

Um but but the only way I did it was I took those cards and I did one a day, and then I kept them with me.

I remember running to, we had fall baseball, and I would do them there.

I remember in psychology class, because it was very boring, I would, and I I reviewed them, I reviewed them, I reviewed them, I reviewed them, I kept reviewing them all the time because I wanted all 60 in 60 days, and I wanted to show him that basketball players were better than wrestlers.

And on day 21, uh, by the way, I did not know about the power of the mind.

I did not know about abiding.

I basically had only read through the New Testament, like maybe once or not all the way through.

Um and I didn't realize that I was renewing my mind multiple times every day.

And all these verses were getting put into my mind and my subconscious.

And I remember uh meeting a very beautiful co-ed who I really struggled with because she was very godly.

And I remember having a conversation where I did not lust at all.

And then I no one told me to start doing this or start doing that.

My my desires changed.

Uh getting up and reading the Bible was all these Christians here.

Did you read the Bible this morning?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it was just like duty, duty, duty, right?

If you're supposed to be a good Christian, you're supposed to read the Bible.

I don't read the Bible, I feel guilty a lot.

Did you go to church?

No, I didn't really go to church because I was out until two in the morning with the basketball guys, and it was really hard to get up, and I still love God, and I'd really feel bad.

Or if I did some things I knew were really wrong, then I remember doing this.

I'd get next to my bed and, you know, oh God, oh God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.

Please, please, please, please, please.

And I'm going to feel really bad about myself for about two days, and then I'll catch you later.

It was sort of like, you know, whip myself.

And I remember in this journey praying like that about a behavior that I was struggling with.

And uh I remember, I didn't know much about the Holy Spirit, but I heard literally a voice inside my head, why are you saying you're sorry?

You like this sin.

So why don't you just get honest?

Why don't you just tell me, I really like this sin.

I feel really bad afterwards, but I I like this sin.

And ask me to help you not to like the sin.

And I didn't know how that would work.

But I remember getting up and thinking, I've been telling God how sorry I am and not changing over and over and over again, because I didn't know how to abide.

See, at the heart of abiding is honesty.

God's desires are very high, God's expectations are very reasonable.

But like in every relationship with a real person, if you're real and you're honest, you know, most of us, when people blow it, friends, marriage partner, one of our kids, one of our parents, I mean, when they're really real and authentic, you know, we can pretty much always get reconnected.

And so uh what happened was I just told him.

And I had no idea these two sort of in my mind random things happened as as I kept reviewing these verses and memorizing these verses, my desires changed.

Instead of willpower, willpower, it was like I remember just walking and and a thought came to me and it was a verse.

And then I remember I went over here and and a verse came to my mind, and it was like, who loved me and gave himself for me.

See, I spent most of my early Christian life living to gain God's approval.

And the scripture teaches I already have it.

And the paradigm completely changes when you live instead of for God's approval, you live from God's approval.

I'm his son, I have an inheritance, I'm loved.

While I was yet a sinner, Christ died in my place.

He loves me for me.

And then I started, you know, then it was like, hey, you know what?

There's other verses in here other than these 60, you know, and then I then I discovered the Psalms, and I thought, man, these people are as messed up as me.

They really struggle.

And I started praying these psalms back to God.

And then I didn't, you know, I didn't know how to live life, and some guy said, there's a lot of wisdom, you ought to read some of those proverbs.

And so, you know, there's like 30 or 31, and so so every day I would read just a proverb.

But it went from duty, got to, ought to, feel guilty if it don't, to a discipline to a delight to the point, and and it took a while.

Uh I don't I don't want to make it sound like there's just some magic, but I I remember realizing the greatest part of my day was getting up and not performing.

Did you read your Bible?

Did you pray?

It was Jesus wants to meet with me.

It's not that he loved me, he's not a force.

This this isn't some religion of principles.

This this isn't like read the Bible, get in a small group, go to church, take communion.

This is a real person with emotions.

I I remember when I would miss my time in the morning, I realized I think the Lord's a little sad today.

See, I grew up thinking that if you ever messed up, he was always mad.

But I realized it's I remember one day thinking, I really love my wife.

Happens to be her birthday, and today I was thinking of the 43 years we've had, and just despite all the ups and downs, just how good, how rich, how amazing she is.

And and um, you know, there's been times where my schedule, we had something planned, like a like a you know, a great dinner out and a romantic evening, and and something happened and I missed it.

Well, she wasn't mad.

It was like, oh man, we missed out.

And and I I and when I finally realized, you know, when Jesus was talking to those disciples, I eagerly wanted to spend this time with you.

In his humanity, he needed them as much as they needed him.

In his humanity, could you guys pray with me?

I'm gonna I'm gonna go to the cross.

I want you to be with me.

You're my bros.

And and then, and then, you know, with that last night he knew they were afraid.

He goes, I'm gonna co-prepare a place.

By the way, that place is real.

There is a heaven, and there's a new heaven and a new earth and a reality that's coming, and it's as real as that.

It's that concrete.

It's not floating around and sipping iced tea, and you know, it's not like an eternal worship service.

And he wanted him to know, I want, I want you to be with me.

Abiding is about a relationship.

And as I begin to uh memorize those verses, then my desires changed.

And did I still mess up?

Of course.

But you know, it's really different messing up when you hurt a friend's feelings than when you violate some principle and you just try and cover for it.

Uh I I wanted to kind of wrap up my time by kind of my lessons.

I have a head, a heart, and a hands.

I think a lot about what do you need to know, what do you need to feel or grasp, and then what do you need to do in order to abide.

And um, so in terms of if you really want to abide, uh, you need a theology of your salvation and your identity in Christ.

In other words, you'll never really abide unless you learn who am I and whose am I?

And um, and so you need to understand the Father ordained my salvation, the Son accomplished my salvation, and the Holy Spirit applies my salvation.

And some of that is kind of heady stuff.

For those of you that have been around for a long time, uh let me encourage you to read a book called Deeper by Dane Ortland.

Uh, he's got another one called What Gentle and Lowy, Lowly, um, where he takes theology and gets it to where what's it look like?

Um I I wrote a book called Yes, You Can Really Change.

You know, when you have as many struggles as I've had, um, I really value super smart, super spiritual people.

And I'm like just smart enough and just to be able to translate that for us everyday people.

And um, if if what I'm talking about is a bit of a challenge, I don't have a bunch of them, but when I write a book, they send me a couple boxes.

And this morning I was praying for us, and I thought, um, these boxes are not doing anything, you know, for me.

They're in my closet.

And so, you know, I just got a handful for each service.

If if something like this would be helpful, uh grab it.

But there's a there's some things you do need to know.

And just, I mean, if you take calculus, right, there's some things you need to know.

If if you're gonna learn to do software, there's some things you need to know.

If you want to be a follower of Jesus, there's some things you need to know.

Uh the second is there's some things in heart, that's your head.

And um in the heart, I think you need to feel and sense and reorient yourself in your Christian life around this is a real person and a relationship.

God is not the force.

The goal is not to improve my behavior.

Jesus is not my self-help genie.

This is about a real person who has revealed what the Father is like, who is the second person of the Trinity, that the Holy Spirit's job is to manifest his presence and his personality.

And if you have trusted Christ, he lives in you and he wants to speak to you personally from his word.

He loves the delight of the Lord or the prayers of his people.

He wants you to be loved and connected with others and his presence inside you.

He wants you to shape the lives of others and be shaped by them, and then he wants you to be his hands and his instruments to care and to love, especially the least of these.

And that's something that needs to be a reorientation.

If you consider the Christian life a bit like this is my job, or how am I performing, you will find yourself like my my football friend, pretty frustrated, trying hard.

Uh joy is the byproduct of relationship.

Uh the second thing that I think that you need to uh terms is is understand that the what what connects the head to the heart is your thinking.

And so you have to renew your mind.

I it was an accident that I started memorizing these cards.

Well, after I did this, it was like, wow, if if 60 verses do this, anytime I found a verse that really spoke to me, then I would memorize it.

And then for some of you, you've been in the faith for a while, you need to pick out what are some core chapters that you know when you're sitting at a light, you can go over in your mind.

Maybe Romans chapter 12, or maybe the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

By the way, you can do this.

Or maybe it's Ephesians 4, or maybe it's a great psalm like Psalm 27 or Psalm 46 or Psalm 37, and and and pretty soon you just you start thinking and renewing your mind.

Here's what will happen: your desires will change.

And the final thing in terms of the to-do is renewing my mind.

The reason I meet with God in the morning is that if I don't start my day with a focus and a connection and relationship, what I know is I'm going to get distracted later, right?

I have distorted desires.

I've been a Christian 50 years, and I still have issues with all the things that you do that I need to battle, and left to myself, I'm going to get discouraged because the enemy wants me to think I never measure up.

When I get really depressed, it goes like this You're a terrible person.

You're a bad dad.

You're a terrible pastor.

You never amount to anything.

Your life is a waste.

You're a bad husband.

Gosh, you're looking at me.

Does no one ever have those thoughts?

Lord, I guess it's just you and me.

I think we all have dark times like that.

But when I when I start, when I start my day and I'm reminded, this is who you are.

You're my son.

I don't care what anybody else thinks.

I love you, Chip.

Hey, by the way, I know everything's gonna happen today, so I'll prepare you, Chip.

Hey, what you know what?

You got this meeting you're uptight about, and you know, I just I just did a message at a place with a group of people that were so intimidating.

I was so anxious all afternoon before I spoke.

And finally it was just, oh Jesus, you know, I'm so insecure around these people, and they're just blah, blah, blah, and for all these reasons.

Oh, and I just heard him whisper, Wow, just be yourself.

We got this together.

And boy, when I got done, it was like, oh, the relief.

Because I said really, really hard things to people uh that have uh everything this world says will make you happy, but being very close to them, I see they're really struggling.

And then in terms of the do, uh, this is something is uh that's been so helpful.

There were times at least in in my early, and by the way, this is a journey, right?

In my in my early Christian life, um, that I would when I finally got to where I could ever discipline myself to get up, that was hard for me, you know, right?

You know, getting to church is like, you know, pulling teeth, and little by little by little my desires changed.

But then I I might spend, you know, like for me, 15 minutes was like a really long time.

Uh so again, someone asked me, well, how long should you pray?

And I used to, well, what do you is that how you is that how you do your other relationships?

Like, hey, we're really close friends.

Let's have coffee.

And then you sit down with them and we're really close.

Could you set the timer?

I mean, we want to have we won't have a really great conversation, but right?

You know, like, well, uh, well, if if if we uh if we have coffee for for 13 minutes, then I guess we're really close friends, or if we, right?

Some well, what's on your heart?

How long you got, hey, you know what?

I gotta run in 45 minutes.

Hey, tell me what's going on.

Tell me your biggest challenges, tell me what's happening in your life.

What what are you really excited about?

And they blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then they turn around and say, Oh, chip, what about you?

And I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Man, I wish we could stay longer, but I'll see you later.

Right?

Isn't that how we do?

But but it's not like, well, no, we can't talk.

No, okay, here's the rules.

We can't text, we can't talk, or do anything until we have coffee again.

Is that is that what you do with your friends?

I mean, you know, during the day, it's like, oh man, you can't believe what I saw.

Someone sent me this, blah, blah, blah.

Or, oh, I just, I gotta tell you, I was up in Colorado, and I just I was thinking of you because we talk about how God speaks his nature.

These mountains were, I mean, it was, it blew my mind.

Right?

And so one of the things I started doing is called practicing the presence of God.

And what I have sought to do very, very imperfectly, uh, the most I learned a lot from books.

There was a guy named Brother Lawrence, and it was, you know, hundreds of years ago, and he was a cook.

And as he cooked, he just decided he would try to have a consciousness and talk to God all the time.

So I started practicing that.

So when I'm not talking to you, I'm I'm in my mind, I'm talking to the Lord.

You know, when when they were leading worship up here, I was in the back and I didn't want to go behind and come out.

I didn't want to miss it.

And with tears in my eyes, I, Jesus and I, Lord, man, my dad was an alcoholic.

It was so hard to be a dad.

I I know I messed up a lot as a dad.

I've had so many struggles.

Thank you.

I mean, Ryan's far from perfect, and I'm sure my grandkids aren't perfect, although my wife thinks they are.

But but but do you understand?

Just practicing the presence of God where, you know, just turn off the radio.

Not all the time.

You know, if you want to listen to music, again, get out of illegal.

It's a relationship.

You turn off in the car, and just as you're driving, you know, someone cuts you off.

Lord help him, because my finger is ready to go up, and and um and that would not be honoring to you.

I'm serious.

Talk to him like that.

He's a person, he's not a force out there or some bar you live up to.

And then I'll I'll close with this.

Um realized was these distorted desires, um, I kept having the same ones.

And so I read this verse in Psalm 374.

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

And so uh this was about 1982, so it's only about 40 years ago.

I uh I start I decided I would write down desires that I'm sure are God's will, and I'd write them on these little cards, and I started out calling them a desire or a goal, and it says life goals, and then I have one for God, one for wife, one for kids.

I'll share a few later.

But, and then it says, these are to be instead of to do.

And then the question before I, every time I review them, is are these goals or desires designed for me to perfect myself or to express my love for God?

And then so it was like, my desire is to have a clear understanding of every book in the Bible.

And then I have a passage.

My desire, intercession, is to prayerfully intercede for those I love, those I'm responsible for, and those in need daily.

And then I have a passage.

This is a desire for purity.

My desire is to walk with God in the integrity of my heart until the day I die.

This is one for confession.

My goal is to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's convicting ministry and to confess any known sin before I sleep.

Don't let it slide.

And then I have a passage, Psalm 139.

My desire is to apply the truth of Scripture to my life every single day in a specific way.

Good works.

My desire is to secretly do good and be kind to others and to uplift their day as a regular part of each and every day and worship.

My desire is to worship God for who He is in praise and adoration at least once a day.

And all those are because I struggle with all those things.

And I didn't want to make them goals like I got to do this, I got to do this, I got to do this.

I just read them over.

I just read them over.

I just read them over.

And as I read them over in the mornings and put them near my bed and just read them over with no pressure.

I'm just saying, hey, Lord, you know me.

I got all these struggles.

Here's my background.

I got this family of origin issues, and I married this wonderful girl and her dad's an alcoholic.

We have big marriage issues, we got all this junk.

You said if I would delight in you, would you give me the desires of my heart?

You said if I abide in your word and your words abide in me.

I'm trying to do that, but I struggle.

So I'm telling you, these are my desires.

What would happen if you just took five three by five cards or on your phone, in your notes, and you wrote down, these are three or four desires of your relationship with God.

Three or four desires with one important relationship.

Um my desire is to fill my mind with good things and guard my mind from evil things because I really struggled with what I put in my mind.

And then, in terms of those enemies that I talked about, I have unique ones, and I think you do.

And so I wrote uh I wrote some that I that I wanted to be a part of my future that weren't.

I want to become a worshiper.

I want to enjoy God more, sing of his greatness, and ascribe worth and praise to him.

Uh when when I prayed and I still struggle, I want to get something done.

I'm an achiever, former workaholic.

Some would say it's not as former as you think.

And you know, I'm performance-oriented, no matter how much I want to review.

Jesus wants to enjoy me.

That still blows my mind.

And when I sit quietly, when I I I, unlike most of my family, I can't sing, I have none of those gifts.

I I put on some worship music and I sing to God not very well.

And that that connection from truth to emotion to his presence.

And I don't, I mean, to me, it's a really special moment to emote, like, I mean, when you're with a really close friend, don't you kind of laugh sometimes or cry sometimes?

Worship does that in my life.

Um, I desire to hunger and thirst for God's word, to memorize and meditate on it at a renewed level of consistency.

And then here's my line: in order to know him better.

And then I wrote Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Um I'm running out of time, so I will go to this.

This is one.

When you grow up in an alcoholic family, you become a pleaser because when you're not, someone gets exploded and they get mad and it gets scary.

So what happens is you take that into your life and you end up wanting to please everyone that creates tremendous tension.

And so this is one, this is my issue in security.

I write, I've read, I read this over for years every day.

I'd like to become more authentic in every aspect of my life.

Just God, what whatever it means for the real me to show up and not to pose, and by the way, I still pose.

Um, I'd like to be more generous this year uh with all the time and all the money that you've given me.

Why?

Because left to myself, I want to be in control.

I want to control my time, I want to control my money.

And as I've done that and created that desire, God has given me desires that I can't understand where I found myself to be more generous.

Uh the final one uh is this one.

Uh it's from Proverbs 423.

But it's I long to cultivate a heart of integrity and purity before God, allowing the Holy Spirit freedom daily to correct, convict, and restore me in matters of accuracy, privilege, power, perceived prestige, and moral purity, knowing my heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked.

Who can understand it?

Are you getting the picture?

It's just staying connected to Jesus.

Knowing that you have issues, I have issues, knowing that you're gonna be distracted, knowing you're gonna get discouraged, and knowing that the enemy is all the time working and taking good things and give you distorted desires.

But as you abide in Christ, the Lord will change your life because the focus is Jesus.

The whole goal is Jesus.

The whole goal is He wants to be with you.

It's removing anything, anyone, any so that the connection with you and Jesus.

And when you're connected to Him, you will have joy when things are going great.

And when you're connected to Him, you will have joy when things aren't.

Would you bow your head with me?

Oh God, I thank you how patient you are.

I thank you for how understanding you are.

I thank you that you you love to share and extend mercy, giving us what we don't deserve after we've really blown it.

Lord, I thank you for how good you are, that you want the best for us.

Would you help us to remember that so that we would lean in and not buy the lies?

We as a group and individually say, it's true, if we abide in you and your word abides in us, we will bring you great glory and will bear much fruit.

And so we thank you.

Amen.

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