Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] If you've got your Bibles, let's make your way to Ephesians, chapter three. And we're going to pick up in verse 14.
[00:00:16] Excited to share the word of God with you today.
[00:00:19] Let's start by reading.
[00:00:21] For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through a spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all fullness of. Of God.
[00:00:57] Now, wow. What a passage.
[00:00:59] Multiple times this week by multiple parties or last several weeks. I would say I've had people, you know, message me about this passage that I'm preaching and basically just asking me, or basically saying, don't mess it up, Brett. That's essentially what it means. Matt talked to me, and Matt was like, who's preaching this this couple weeks from now? And I'm like, I am. He goes, okay.
[00:01:21] And I was. And I was like, okay, you're gonna say anything else, like, what's coming next? And he's.
[00:01:25] I was like, what? You know, sometimes there's a passage coming up that's a little bit tricky to teach, and it's, you know, it's a little bit hard to digest what it means. And I was wondering if it was one of those passages because I hadn't dove into it yet. And I'm like, why are you asking Matt? He goes, I just don't want you to mess it up.
[00:01:39] I'm not paraphrasing him at all. Those are literally the words that came out of his mouth. I don't want you to mess it up. I'm like, thanks for the vote of confidence, Matt.
[00:01:47] With that being said, let's look at a little bit of what Martin Lloyd Jones said about this passage or one passage of this. He said on verse 3:19. He says, There is no more staggering statement in the whole world, whole range of Scripture than this.
[00:02:02] We are here face to face with the ultimate in experience with the highest doctrine of all. We must approach it with a sense of awe and of total inadequacy, and yet with a sense of keen anticipation.
[00:02:18] It's pretty important.
[00:02:20] I love Paul's prayers. If you've been in my LT or been in any of my teaching at some Point. I probably told you you should pray Paul's prayers. We did a whole exercise in LT on that a few months back. I love Paul's prayers. And John Piper said, this is probably the most beautiful of Paul's prayers. And so with that being said, it's a very important one and a very awesome one. So we'll go to the Lord in prayer and ask for his help.
[00:02:45] Father, I need your help. I need your help to display what you have for us today.
[00:02:52] I need your help to share your word because, Father, it is what you desire for us.
[00:02:59] It shows us how we can know you and connect with you and walk in your ways.
[00:03:05] It straightens out what we should be desiring of this life.
[00:03:14] Father, we need you to make sense of this for us.
[00:03:20] We need you to show us a truth when our hearts are lying to us, when our hearts would have us to believe one thing instead of believe what you have said to be true.
[00:03:32] So, Father, show us who you are tonight.
[00:03:36] Teach us to walk in your ways.
[00:03:38] Amen.
[00:03:41] So Paul mentions, this is one of Paul's prayers we said. And point number one, I would say Paul mentions his prayers for them to testify and excite them to pray in the same manner.
[00:03:54] Paul wants to excite them because he's been praying for them. But he also is teaching us how to pray a certain way.
[00:04:01] He's teaching us what we should be praying for, what we should be longing for. Several years ago, I was hanging out with Ben Duran and we had a group of kids at north elementary for our My Life Matters. And Ben was volunteering with us there. And we had a cast of characters. We had a group of kids at north that were.
[00:04:17] Man, they were crazy. I could say. I don't know any other way to say it. Them boys and girls were crazy.
[00:04:25] I would send four or five kids home a day during Club They. That's kind of the year we've been having there. And I met with Benzo. Let's pray for these kids, man.
[00:04:34] And we sit down to pray and I'm praying, God, don't let them die at club.
[00:04:42] Don't let any leaders kill anybody. Me specifically, I'm praying, you know, God, keep these kids alive.
[00:04:54] And I pray a prayer that I still pray and I love. And I'm like, I pray that they taste and see that you were good.
[00:05:01] I still love that prayer. That was my best one that I had that whole time.
[00:05:05] And then Ben starts praying for the kids. And he begins, man, he was praying these beautiful prayers. He was praying different prayers and passages of scripture for them. And Ben was praying for our next mayor from Roxboro to come from this group of boys and girls right here.
[00:05:19] And I was like, yeah, I don't see it.
[00:05:24] He's praying for the next police officers and other workers that come from this group.
[00:05:32] And he's praying all kinds of things for these kids. And I'm like, God, thank you for the faith that Ben has. Let me have some of that.
[00:05:42] But I was convicted of my prayers for them that.
[00:05:47] That I was praying for what I could see happen in their life.
[00:05:52] I wasn't praying for what God saw in their life, and I wasn't praying the value that God gave them through the blood of Christ on the cross.
[00:06:02] My prayers were very short for these kids, and I was convicted because I was accurate in my assessment of who they were.
[00:06:12] I still think that I'm right, but I wasn't right in what God could do in their lives.
[00:06:19] So I got very convicted as I prayed for that group of boys and girls.
[00:06:25] Let me ask you this question right now. What do you think was fueling Paul's prayers as he prayed for them? Back up to 3 and 12, chapter 3, verse 12. And Paul was saying that we have a boldness and we have access to God.
[00:06:41] I think that's one thing that shaped Paul's prayers right here. He came with great boldness, knowing he had access to God, and his prayers were bold for the people he was praying for.
[00:06:52] Do we realize the access that we have as believers to God? I have no special access to God that you don't have.
[00:07:02] Every believer has the same access.
[00:07:06] Every believer can come with the same boldness because it's not something in you that gives you that. It's something that God has given you through Christ, through the Spirit.
[00:07:18] So we should come to God with boldness, knowing that we have access. We don't come to him. God, God, if you can hear me, no believer, be confident that through the work Christ has done, you have that access. You never have to wonder about that.
[00:07:34] You never have to wonder about that.
[00:07:37] God has answered that.
[00:07:40] Stop asking the same questions over and over again that God has given us answers to.
[00:07:47] That gets annoying.
[00:07:49] My kids ask me the same question over and over again, and I'm like, I have answered that.
[00:07:57] God has answered that.
[00:07:59] Why don't we believe him?
[00:08:02] Let's have faith. Because he said he's doing it. He said he's given that. He's granted that.
[00:08:08] Next on that list is, what are you praying for those around you?
[00:08:14] What are your Desires for those around you.
[00:08:17] What are you praying for your kids?
[00:08:20] Are you praying more for their safety or more for their salvation?
[00:08:24] Are you praying more for their safety or more for their sanctification?
[00:08:32] Man, like me, like I was, you know, thankful for Ben. I had that lesson before I had my kids. And so it put me in the direction of praying deeper things for people before I had kids.
[00:08:43] So my prayers for my kids have been, man, I want them to grow up and be missionaries.
[00:08:48] Whether or not that's their trade, I want them to grow up believing they are missionaries.
[00:08:54] When that happens, it changes your response and behavior towards them. Today for the new service we had, we basically talking about evangelism. And so my younger kids went to the back, but I made Hayden and Mikey stay up here because I want them to be trained in evangelism. I want them to know how to share the gospel, how to articulate it.
[00:09:15] What are our desires for the people we are praying for?
[00:09:19] Did they live this life with no problems, that hard times would stop? Their health would be good?
[00:09:26] Why do we have so little faith to pray such low things for them?
[00:09:31] Look at what Paul is praying for them.
[00:09:34] They would have the fullness and experience the fullness of God.
[00:09:38] We'll get into more of his prayers in a little bit, but our prayers are often low and they show a lack of faith, a lack of understanding of what God desires to accomplish in the believer's life.
[00:09:54] What are you praying for the young people here in this church?
[00:09:58] What do you desire for them?
[00:10:02] What do you desire for your friends? Because I think those things show, based on our conversation.
[00:10:09] So I was hanging out with a guy years ago, and we're talking to a teacher and the teacher, who's a student of that teacher, and. And the teacher begins to say, like, you know, how are things going? You know, what have you been up to this summer? You begin to see that that teacher's desire for that kid, what they want to experience based on the conversation they're having with them as they go along and do life, right?
[00:10:30] If you desire spiritual things for someone, you will begin to engage in spiritual conversations with that person.
[00:10:39] I use an illustration that I use around Christmas time. If you go around Christmas time, you see every adult walk up to kids they know and don't know, what do you want for Christmas this year?
[00:10:49] Because that's the level that they are in around Christmas time.
[00:10:54] The question I've been beginning to ask is, how are you going to celebrate Christ this Christmas?
[00:11:00] Because that's what I want as a family. That's what I want for my kids, for the people around me, for the church, the congregation. And so I'm asking that question, how are you going to celebrate Christ this Christmas? Because my mind is not on some guy to bring presents for somebody. My mind is on the believers learning how to celebrate Christ.
[00:11:20] And I love doing that around Christmas time because it's a very intentional season.
[00:11:24] And I want us to learn how to celebrate Christ in that season so we learn how to do it year round.
[00:11:30] But what we long for people, what we desire for them, will our prayers show that? And then the conversations we allow ourselves to have reflect what we desire for them.
[00:11:42] I'm never saying don't talk about those things.
[00:11:45] What I'm saying is don't only talk about those things.
[00:11:52] I heard a believer not long ago say, I don't know what else to pray for. Everything is going good.
[00:11:58] And I was heartbroken because if you don't know what to pray for, begin to pray scripture for them.
[00:12:06] Look at scripture and it really tells me that if you don't want to pray for them, you're not looking in God's word and knowing what God desires for people.
[00:12:15] If you don't know what to pray for your kids, besides safety, read Paul's prayers.
[00:12:22] That'll tell us what to do, right? That'll tell us what we should desire for our kids and we should begin to pray for them.
[00:12:33] Several years ago, Kelly and I lost a child.
[00:12:40] We were at 16 weeks. That's the time, you know, that's the time when you think you're past, you know, after you pass 12 weeks, everything's good, everything's okay. So we had 16 weeks, and Kelly goes to the doctor and we find out that the child she's carrying no longer has a heartbeat.
[00:12:54] That's tough.
[00:12:56] It's not easy.
[00:12:59] And so we basically trying to figure out how to handle this as a family. And Kelly and I talked. We decided we wanted to have a service for this child.
[00:13:08] And I don't know if that's common or not, but I do know that we wanted to honor that life and we wanted to have some sort of closure. And so we did a little service. And it was our immediate family and Tim and his family. And that was the only ones we invited out to that. Just because we were desiring closure for us, essentially we were calling out to God in that season.
[00:13:33] So I wrote some stuff down for a service.
[00:13:39] That's hard.
[00:13:41] And when you lose a child like that, there's a lot of questions you have.
[00:13:46] What Would that child be like, look at my other kids. Mike and Will are very much alike, and Marcy and Ellie are very much alike. And then Hayden's an oddball who's not like me or her mama.
[00:13:59] That's not bad. Just odd that she's not like us.
[00:14:01] She's smarter than we are. She's more studious than we are. It's all good things not knocking her down.
[00:14:07] Mike and Will get on my nerves, and I ask them all the time, why are you like that?
[00:14:12] Because you're like me. That's why you're like that. I'm sorry. It's my fault.
[00:14:17] You begin to wonder, like, what would their personality be like?
[00:14:21] Who would they grow up to be?
[00:14:25] Would they have that same laugh the other girls had?
[00:14:30] You asked these questions, and I began to wonder and think, like, how would she grow up and honor God?
[00:14:40] What gifts would she have had?
[00:14:42] I had a list of questions, and I had written them down to save them and ended up, I guess, by the sovereignty God. I lost that list, that thing that I had written.
[00:14:52] But as I began to wonder about a life of a child that I have, it reflects basically the life that I would desire for my kids.
[00:14:59] And I realized, like, I can't stop it, what their personality would be like, what their sense of humor would be like.
[00:15:08] My desires were so much more for my child than that.
[00:15:13] How would they praise God?
[00:15:15] How would they serve God?
[00:15:18] These should be the desires that we have for our kids, and it should shape the way that we raise them and the questions we ask them and the activities that we choose to do.
[00:15:29] It should be the things that we desire for the people around us, not just our young kids, but our parents, our siblings. If you would desire for anybody around us, that's what God desires for us.
[00:15:42] And it should be shaped by God's word. And we shouldn't limit what those prayers are to worldly things.
[00:15:52] What should we desire?
[00:15:55] We should desire that they experience the fullness of God.
[00:15:59] We should desire that they experience the fullness of God. My point number two says if you want to be filled with the fullness of God, you must be reinforced into the inner man by the Holy Spirit.
[00:16:15] We have to be changed and transformed in our inner being. The thing that determines what happens when we act on other things.
[00:16:23] What we are on the inside is what comes out with our actions.
[00:16:28] From the fullness of the heart. The mouth speaks.
[00:16:31] What's in the whale comes up in the bucket. That's how Tim says it all the time, right?
[00:16:36] What's Inside is what comes out.
[00:16:39] I was hanging out with a kid at the warehouse a couple years ago and several years ago now, and he's playing dodgeball. He's very athletic, very competitive, and a whole bunch of other things. And he jumps to dodgeball. It catches his foot, and the first thing that comes down is his face to the cement.
[00:16:56] You know, he was okay. He wasn't bleeding or anything. It just. It just hurt. And immediately, a word pops out of his mouth.
[00:17:03] And he looks up, and I'm as close to him as I am to Clay right here. And he's like. Puts his hand before he sees me, puts his hands over his mouth. Then he looks up, and his eyes got really, really big, and he's like, Mr. Brett. Mr. Brett. Mr. BrettT. Mr. Brett. Mr. Brett. I didn't mean to say it. And I'm like, I believe you. I didn't mean to. I said, I believe you. But it was a wait. What? Like it stopped him for a second because he didn't. I said, I believe you that you didn't.
[00:17:28] And he didn't know how to respond to that because he's used to not being believed.
[00:17:33] I said, come sit down by me for a second.
[00:17:35] I said, I believe that. It slipped out.
[00:17:37] Let me ask you a better question. Why did it slip out?
[00:17:43] It slipped out because you've given that idea, that thought, that word, a home in your heart. You say it all the time. And so when pressure was applied, that's what came out.
[00:17:52] So you didn't mean to say it, but you intentionally put it there over and over again.
[00:17:59] It was a holy spirit conversation. I never put this kid in time out. For this instance, we sat and talked for 45 minutes.
[00:18:06] I had put him in timeout a bunch of other times, made him sit out. But that day I didn't. And for 45 minutes, we sat and talked, and multiple times. I said, you know, you're not in trouble. You can get up and go play now. He goes, yeah, I'll go in a minute. This kid never did that.
[00:18:26] What are we filled with?
[00:18:29] What do we desire to be filled with?
[00:18:32] What do your actions say? You want to be filled with?
[00:18:37] Facebook memes or reels?
[00:18:41] Guilty.
[00:18:46] What topics are we picking? You pick which ones you want. There's a bunch of them, right? I don't need to call all of them out. We know, based on what we're consuming over and over and over again, what we desire to be filled with. Our actions show who we desire to be filled with.
[00:18:59] But Paul is telling us to Be filled with the fullness of God.
[00:19:04] So if that's going to be the case, we need to be.
[00:19:06] The inner man has to change. How has the inner man changed? Romans 12 tells us we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
[00:19:15] And Philippians. I've been saying that lately. If you want a blessing, come to church the next four Wednesdays. Casey's going to teach through Philippians. I challenge you to do it. It's going to be fantastic.
[00:19:26] I'm not coming, at least not this week. Monday, Wednesday I am going to be speaking at a different church, but I'll try to be there the rest of those Wednesdays. Philippians is fantastic. Over and over again. What does it say? Have this mind among you. Think in this way.
[00:19:41] When you begin to think a certain way, then actions change.
[00:19:47] The outside actions will change when the inner things change.
[00:19:54] But too many people are looking for that easy button the staples offer seems to have it all of a sudden.
[00:20:00] Make it easy, God.
[00:20:02] You know what they say, one of the most dangerous prayer is you pray for patience.
[00:20:09] One of the interns prayed that last week. Which one was it?
[00:20:12] Carter. I'm like, carter, if it's a hard day tomorrow, I'm gonna hurt you, man.
[00:20:19] And we know who to blame. That's what I said. We know who to blame. Mikayla, I'm not praying for patience right now.
[00:20:30] We have to be changed. That inner man has a change, right? How we think, how we process. I believe I've been talking about it over and over again about biblical medit is such an important part of a believer.
[00:20:42] What is biblical meditation? We're not going hum and like just trying to clear our mind, right? We're processing God's word over and over again. And Tim uses the illustration of the Puritans trying to ring every truth out of it. I think that's what it looks like.
[00:20:56] We're trying to just absorb it so much that we understand how it applies to this area of life. How it applies to this area of life.
[00:21:03] The illustration of love is that and I think I used it in a Wednesday a couple weeks ago. But basically we have these ideas in our mind. Like so I preach and I say something. Let me use a better example. Somebody like Tim preaches, they say something good and you're like hey, I like that. And then you put it kind of, you file it away in your brain and then you go out to work and somebody says something dumb and then you respond and also a dumb way. And then as you finish doing something dumb, you Walk away. And you're. And then that. That thing pops back into your mind. You're like, oh, I should have remembered that and responded differently to that.
[00:21:34] Oh, man, I should have. Because you've got it in your head, right?
[00:21:37] And it lives in your head, but it doesn't live as a foundational truth in your heart so that you're ready to respond to it at all times.
[00:21:46] Biblical meditation is taking that idea that you have in your head and chewing it up, processing it, dwelling on it till it dives deep down into your heart. And it's a truth that you act on when you are. When pressure is applied, I make a joke that I love.
[00:22:05] First Peter 2. 9 says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
[00:22:17] That's a mouthful. I worked for three months to memorize that passage and. And be able to roll it off my tongue really, really well so I can sit around while I'm thinking, while I'm in the drive through, while I'm in the grocery line, while I'm sitting around, I think about that and roll it around in my head. I don't have to try to think about the verse. It just comes out.
[00:22:38] So I worked for three months on that. Like, literally three months to memorize that one verse. That way it's where I can just say it super fast, like a tongue twister.
[00:22:47] And then Andrew Liggett teaches an entire group of third, fourth, fifth graders that song, that verse by song, and he does it in like 45 seconds.
[00:22:56] And I'm like, andrew, you jerk, man, where were you three months ago? Literally as soon as I got it down. He does it on a Saturday at the warehouse or whatever day at the warehouse, and the entire group can walk out singing it.
[00:23:08] And I joke, I'm like, man, you punk, you could have made my life so much easier.
[00:23:13] But in reality, I don't really desire that, right, because the process of me memorizing it and dwelling on it over and over again, it was confirming my identity of who I was in Christ.
[00:23:25] Those first four things I dwell on to know this is who I am.
[00:23:30] And so the labor of dwelling on it and meditating on it concreted those ideas deep down into my heart.
[00:23:38] And it tells me what my purpose is. Not just my identity, my purpose and my purpose for these things is to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. I know who I am and. And what I'm called to do.
[00:23:53] And I act on those things because I've meditated on this passage so that it changes how I live my life.
[00:24:01] It's not a secondary thought.
[00:24:04] It's on the foundation of who I am because I've allowed those words to sink deep down into my heart. Now, I don't have that perfected by any stretch of the imagination. Don't believe that part.
[00:24:16] But when I do make a decision around those things, it does pop up all the time. Now, whether or not I choose to believe and act on it is a different thing, but it's coming up as I'm in the process, if you will.
[00:24:28] That's what biblical meditation will do for us.
[00:24:34] We should press into it. If you haven't looked in the Bulletin and read the words of Joe, he talks about that based on this passage, our identity is very much a big deal.
[00:24:44] And that's what this passage is talking about or what it gets into for this reason. For this reason, as he tells us who we are all of Ephesians 1 through 3, it's not saying anything but your identity in Christ. Essentially, that's what we can sum it up as. Who are you in Christ? Go read Ephesians 1:3, or the beginning of that stuff.
[00:25:05] And then it goes on to give us the mystery in the section before that. And the mystery is telling us this is for the Jews and the Gentiles. It's been brought together. We are now one with Christ, and we're pressing this together. We're no longer divided.
[00:25:19] For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family.
[00:25:24] And if you believe what John Piper says, and if you go back to the Greek, it would probably better be translated, from whom the whole family.
[00:25:32] The whole family in heaven, on earth is named. So it's basically the whole family in the context, it makes perfect sense, right? Because before it was Jews and Gentiles, and now they are brought together as they whole with the same goal and purpose.
[00:25:46] So I believe that translation would be better as the whole family. And the context makes it still feel that way for me.
[00:25:54] The whole family in heaven and earth has been named. You've been given a name. Act on that name.
[00:26:01] Act on that name.
[00:26:03] You are now no longer identified as who you once were, but you find your identity in Christ and all of your actions from that are now changed.
[00:26:21] Who we are.
[00:26:23] Knowing who we are in Christ is of the utmost importance.
[00:26:30] That's one of the things I've been praying for. My children lately, specifically my older three, praise God.
[00:26:40] All five of my children have made a profession of faith. I praise God for that.
[00:26:46] My older three can read well.
[00:26:49] The other two are obviously, you know, young and are learning to read and learn to read deeper things. But as my older ones are able to read, I want them to read better things and deeper things that are telling them who they are in Christ.
[00:27:04] I want them to dig into God's Word and learn that for themselves. If they learn that right now at this age, what, how many problems this world is going to throw at them, will it keep them from diving into?
[00:27:16] Right.
[00:27:18] How many things now looking back at you like, man, I was so dumb as that teenager.
[00:27:23] If you knew your identity in Christ as that teenager, would that have changed? So many things, the lies that people around them will begin to tell them and the way they want them to act will change. So I've been praying that my older three, specifically right now, would learn their identity in Christ that would be concreted in their minds and in their hearts, that what they do would be responses to that.
[00:27:52] How you respond to each other would be responses to that.
[00:27:57] That I don't choke you when you fight with each other, right?
[00:28:01] Making sure they're paying attention right here.
[00:28:03] I want all of things to be based on their identity in Christ, their purpose in glorifying God and all that they do. The way they talk to each other, the way they talk to their parents, when they talk to their peers would be based on their identity in Christ for God's glory.
[00:28:22] Point number three, we act on the truth that we hold closest.
[00:28:33] Verse 17 goes on to tell us the prayer for it is that we be rooted and grounded, that we hold the words of God close to our heart so we're not blown to and fro by every doctrine that comes around and by every lie that comes around from somebody. We want to be rooted and grounded.
[00:29:03] We need to have a biblical mindset, a biblical framework that we can then look and see what God is doing and it will make sense.
[00:29:18] Some things don't make sense. Some things do make sense. When we know what's happening, things make a lot more sense.
[00:29:25] I bribed Hayden today to get Ellie to sleep. When I was trying to go over my notes and Ellie, Ellie was in meltdown mode, just tired. We've been running life a lot, running hard, and she's tired and she's crying and she's upset and she wouldn't lay down, take a nap because she wouldn't be still. And I'm like, Hayden, if you go sit with her, I'll give you a treat. Just get her sleep, and I'll give you a treat later on. I need a little bit of time to do this. If you go sit with her. And she's like, okay. She goes and she gets her sleep. You know, once somebody calmed Ellie. Ellie's spoiled. She won't sleep unless somebody's there patting her head and calming her down. And Marcy's usually the one that does that. They sleep in the same bed every night. They don't. They have separate beds.
[00:30:02] And some nights Marcy tells Ellie she can't sleep in bed with her. And Ellie gets in her own bed. Marcy gets in her bed. Then Marcy gets up and goes and gets in bed with Ellie. Then they both love it. Don't let any of them tell you any different now.
[00:30:16] So Hayden gets her to sleep for me, I'm like, thank you, Hayden, so much. And we got these Italian ice pops, and I'm go get you one of those. And she's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Because they're delicious. They're my favorite. And I also bought them just for me and told them. Hayden's like, hay was the one. I got them. She's like, oh, we get some. I was like, no, you don't get any of these. They're mine.
[00:30:34] But I told her she could have one today. And she goes in and she sees ice cream, and she comes back and she's like, can I have ice cream instead?
[00:30:41] And I said, no.
[00:30:43] And she gave me that teenager eye roll, and I thought she rolled him so back hard. They were just going to keep spinning.
[00:30:50] And I said, hayden, when we leave church now, Will's going to be upset. I said, hayden, when we leave church tonight, the little three are going with Nana and Poppy to spend the night. And you two are staying with me because we got camp in the morning. And Nana and Poppy are going to take the big little three and me, you, and Mike are going to get ice cream at cookout.
[00:31:08] Yeah, exactly.
[00:31:11] It's not fair. But guess what? You're not getting it.
[00:31:14] Like, Poppy's not gonna spoil you for the record. Just, you know. And I said, so I'm gonna take you to get ice cream.
[00:31:21] She's like. And then she eyes lit up, and she goes, oh, can I still get the ice? The. The titan ice? I'm like, yes, we know. The full picture was happening.
[00:31:31] You can process things differently. At first, Hayden saw I'm getting. I don't get ice cream.
[00:31:38] Right. And what was the real picture? You get Italian ice and ice cream later, right? A lot of us sit around and we wonder, God, what are you doing? And we're not reading His Word to understand what he's doing.
[00:31:51] We think that God is hiding so many things from us, and he's not.
[00:32:02] It's abundantly clear if we would just dive into His Word and see the way he operates.
[00:32:11] But we're not diving into that, are we?
[00:32:13] We don't know what he wants, we don't know what he desires.
[00:32:17] And we're keeping these. And we're basically messing ourselves up from receiving what God has and pushing it against it.
[00:32:26] This past week, went through Psalm 119.
[00:32:31] Let me find the verse real quick.
[00:32:37] Oh, man, how am I going to lose it so fast?
[00:32:40] I'm using a different Bible and don't have a highlight. Like I had it highlighted Bible.
[00:32:48] But it says that. I know I have it memorized. I just didn't want to mess it up.
[00:32:52] But basically, God is using our afflictions to draw us closer to Him.
[00:32:59] What a different mindset that would give us if we believed God in His Word. Right there, right?
[00:33:03] We look around these afflictions and we pray God stop these things from happening.
[00:33:08] And if we read what God's Word said, he's using these afflictions to draw us close to Him.
[00:33:16] Why are we praying these things away?
[00:33:19] I have a period of my life that I call my country and Western period of my life.
[00:33:27] My dog got hit by a car and died. It was sad. It was a great dog.
[00:33:32] And Tim fired me for my life matters, as he likes to say. So I lost my job. It was my fault. But he says he likes to fire me, so I'm gonna blame him right now because I can. And so I lost my dog, I lost my job. And I was dating this girl, she was very cute, and she dumped me over a text message. I'm like, I'm 25 years old. Why are we. Why does it have a text message, man? Come on.
[00:33:55] And then she wouldn't respond back to me, anything that I said. I'm like, geez, man, I feel like I'm in middle school again.
[00:34:01] And then I was in South Carolina working for a couple buddies, and I was on the way back from South Carolina, and my car breaks down on the side of the road.
[00:34:09] I'm like, junk, man. This is terrible, right?
[00:34:12] Anybody ever heard the joke? This is. What do you get when you play a country song backwards?
[00:34:16] Get your house back, your car back, your wife back. Your dog back.
[00:34:20] That's the season that I was in. It was tough. So I'm sitting in South Carolina.
[00:34:24] I'm in South Carolina.
[00:34:26] I'm hanging out there at a rest stop because that's where I pulled the car into. And it won't crank back up. It won't provide heat. And it's a week and a half after Christmas. It was freezing where we were. It was so cold, but I didn't have any heat. And so I would literally go into the rest stop and warm up in the bathroom, then go back in the car because it's really creepy to hang out in the bathroom. And there was no other building around to hang out. So I would go to the bathroom and get warm and go back and get cold again. And I'd stay there in the car until I couldn't stand anymore. I go back to the bathroom, I warm up, and I come back. I did it over and over again for five and a half hours because that's how long it took for the guys that were down there I was working with to finish working overtime that I cut out on to cash their paychecks and then ride through and pick me up on the way back home.
[00:35:12] I did this process for five and a half hours.
[00:35:17] Yeah, I'm gonna leave you outside in the cold five and a half hours.
[00:35:23] It might be more tortured, leaving out in the heat for five and a half hours.
[00:35:27] So I'm sitting there, right?
[00:35:30] All those things were gone. That brought me comfort.
[00:35:34] That's a good dog.
[00:35:36] His name was Blue.
[00:35:37] He was my boy.
[00:35:40] Lose a car, a girlfriend. I was desperate for companionship.
[00:35:48] I love my job. I took a lot of pride in my job, that I could do it well and was being successful in it. And all the things that comforted me were gone.
[00:36:00] And it was a terribly, terribly tough season for me.
[00:36:05] I was hurting.
[00:36:10] If I could play that song backwards now, you know the joke. Get everything back.
[00:36:15] I'd take the dog back, but the rest of it can go. It was a good dog, man. I told you I liked that dog.
[00:36:24] It was one of the hardest seasons of my life.
[00:36:27] I look back at it now and say, it was probably one of the best seasons of my life.
[00:36:33] As I walked back and forth from the bathroom to the car, trying to make sense of everything that was going on.
[00:36:41] One question that I had from the Lord, am I enough for you?
[00:36:51] Am I enough for you?
[00:36:55] The rest of these things that you want to bring you comfort are gone right now. And I'm being faced with this truth. If he's all that I have. Is he enough?
[00:37:04] It was the hardest season when I struggled through it.
[00:37:08] And in hindsight, I praise God. It was the best season because of the work he accomplished in my life through it.
[00:37:20] If I'd have had that mindset that God is using affliction to draw me closer to him, it might have been a shorter season.
[00:37:27] I might not have fought it so much and cried out and blamed God for some of the things that I was going through because of my own stupidity.
[00:37:39] We need a biblical mindset that we think scripturally that we achieve these things in the end. What is this trying to achieve?
[00:37:51] Let's go back and read that last verse as we wrap up Ephesians 3.
[00:37:57] And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that's what Paul wants for us.
[00:38:05] That's what God wants. Wants for us.
[00:38:09] Not that we suffer.
[00:38:15] Not that we grit our teeth and bear it and keep going. I was so confused for the longest time. It says that when God says, my burden is light, my yoke is light, my burden is easy.
[00:38:27] It ain't feeling like it right now. I got blisters on my neck from dragging this thing. It don't feel so light right now, God.
[00:38:35] Because I was pulling a different direction, I wasn't embracing what he had for me. I was upset because I was losing the things of this world and I cherished them. And so letting them go was difficult.
[00:38:50] But when I focused on what I was gaining and what I was receiving, when I focused on receiving him as the prize, letting go of the things of the world became so much easier.
[00:39:04] His burden became light because he was the one carrying it.
[00:39:13] It's a big thing. As he describes in 18, we need the strength to comprehend with all the saints, the breadth, length, height, depth, it's massive. He's got to find some way to describe this thing. It's huge.
[00:39:26] He wants us to know the love of Christ. Can we comprehend that? What is the love of Christ? That while we were his enemies, he died for us.
[00:39:36] That while we didn't care for him or cherish for him, he sacrificed Himself for us.
[00:39:43] We don't know that love.
[00:39:53] I'm often more impressed by the sanctification process that God endures me over and over again as I mess things up, right? I'm blown away by that, man. I would die for my kids. I think most of you as parents would, no questions asked. I'll die for you, man. But living with them is hard sometimes, all the time.
[00:40:20] The patience that Christ has For us through this.
[00:40:25] I don't know that love until I understand and receive that love. I'm not in a position to love my kids the right way.
[00:40:34] I love them, but I'm struggling myself, right?
[00:40:44] I'm not perfect.
[00:40:52] Man, what a blessing that would be right that we all knew that and walked in that truth. I'm going to keep saying it over and over again. That we would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. We don't want just the head knowledge.
[00:41:06] We want an experience.
[00:41:09] Taste and see that the Lord is good.
[00:41:12] That we may be filled with all the fullness of God.
[00:41:20] Man, what a beautiful picture that we wouldn't have part of him. That we would have all of Him.
[00:41:29] That we would know the peace that surpasses understanding.
[00:41:35] Not the peace that makes sense based on our circumstances, but that we would have peace in hard times because it's something that God has given us as we walk through this world hand in hand with Him.
[00:41:48] What a blessing we could have there.
[00:41:54] When I first became a believer when I was in high school, I viewed Christianity as these list of rules that I had to follow.
[00:42:01] So I had to be a certain way and I knew that I couldn't do certain things because that's not what Christians do. And it set me apart from some of the people that I was around, but also was somewhat miserable because I was focused on what I shouldn't be doing and not focused on what I was receiving.
[00:42:16] I was literally following a law, not pressing into the Lord.
[00:42:25] Man, when I talk about sin, I don't want you to just stop doing bad things.
[00:42:32] I want you to be free of worldliness so you can pursue Christ.
[00:42:38] Talk about a renewed mind.
[00:42:41] I don't want you to just talk better and stop saying bad words.
[00:42:46] I want you to understand what God has in store for you for not just eternity, but life with him right now.
[00:42:56] To walk in the joy that he offers.
[00:42:59] How many believers have no joy walking around because they don't know the ways of God? They don't know the person of God.
[00:43:09] How many of us walk around with our peace being robbed? And we get upset at every little thing that happens to us. And any little thing just shakes us and our world comes tumbling down because we're not walking the fullness of God.
[00:43:24] Wow.
[00:43:25] What a beautiful prayer to pray for somebody in application tonight. Go home and pray these things for me.
[00:43:33] Nobody else. Just me. It's all about me.
[00:43:37] I've not arrived here.
[00:43:39] I've not achieved this yet.
[00:43:42] I make no false claims that I'M here, and you should come here.
[00:43:48] And I'm saying let's go here together.
[00:43:53] Let's desire these things for each other.
[00:43:58] Let's slow down on texting each other's crazy reels and send some of these prayers for each other.
[00:44:04] You can still send me funny reels. I still like them.
[00:44:10] But let's not that be all of our relationships together. Let's pursue this together. Let's pray this for each other like Paul prayed for us so that we can walk in the way God designed us to walk.
[00:44:25] What a beautiful thing that would be.
[00:44:29] Let's pray.
[00:44:37] Father. I desire these things for myself. I desire these things for my family. I desire these things for my friends. I desire these things for this body.
[00:44:50] Father, we need a lot of help to get there.
[00:44:53] We need your strength, your power. We need this mindset. We need this understanding. We need to be rooted. We need to be grounded. We need this strength.
[00:45:04] We need better comprehension.
[00:45:07] We need to know our identity.
[00:45:09] We know that we are united with you and united together.
[00:45:13] We know that we're on the same journey together.
[00:45:16] Father, help us to hold each other's arms up in this process of pursuing you so that we may have all that you offer us.
[00:45:26] That we wouldn't desire what this world has to offer because those things are fleeting, temporary vapor and ashes.
[00:45:35] But, Father, we desire these things.
[00:45:40] But we need you, Father. Renew our minds, strengthen our spirits and help us pursue these things together.
[00:45:48] Amen.
