Convocation with Rebekah Lyons

lord be strong and take heart and wait for the lord this past month god's been teaching me a whole lot and one of those things is in the midst of all my circumstances around me and the heartbreak and death and sickness and struggle and stress and fear i can still be eagerly expected that he's about to do something i can be expectant that he's going to move i can be expected of his blessings of his promises of his providence and as i wait and i lift my hands he's strengthening my arms and he's strengthening my mind and he's strengthening my heart and so we're going to sing about that expectancy and i want you to remember the hope that we have in jesus and that as you sing he's about to move he's about to speak and he's renewing your strength as you do that let's sing this with our hands lifted high and our hearts open wide [Music] as you do something new [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] we find ourselves waiting again to fill the winds stirred by heaven spirit of god to let your heart desire [Music] all of our wars come crashing down as we lean in to hear you now spirit of god speak as your heart desires [Music] come [Music] literal powerful [Music] your kingdom [Music] spirit of god [Music] i oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] we're expecting show us glimpses of you as you do something new we're expecting we're expected is [Music] respect is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] let the fullness of your presence come like fire oh consuming [Music] let your power fall on us [Music] [Music] i'll never be more loved than i am right now wasn't holding you up so there's nothing i can do to let you down it doesn't take a trophy to make you proud i'll never be more loved than i am right now [Music] into a storm but i won't go down i [Music] if [Music] i know i will be [Music] he's more than enough [Music] [Music] when the sun goes down [Music] [Music] so i will be [Music] i know what you've spoken more than i could imagine is [Music] i'm already [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] me [Music] come on just set your eyes on him right there you were the jesus [Music] how much more does he love you how much more does is [Music] is [Music] how much more will it go [Music] [Music] you are [Music] you are you [Music] [Music] and you're the god who fights for me lord of every victory [Music] new york [Music] is [Music] you're [Music] victory [Music] come on if you've experienced our freedom today let's rejoice and put our hands together tonight [Music] [Music] cause you stepped [Music] [Music] is [Music] and i will not forgive you [Music] [Music] lord of every victory hallelujah hallelujah [Music] and you have torn upon the sea you have laid me through the deep hallelujah [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] come on give [Music] jesus if he sets you free in any way give him praise tonight he's worthy come on let him know let freedom ring in his house tonight [Music] father we thank you that you have set us free by the life death burial and resurrection of your son jesus christ and we proclaim and we believe tonight that you whom the sons has set free is free in deed we proclaim it and we claim it for one purpose your praise your glory and your honor in jesus name amen give him praise one more time [Music] [Applause] high five somebody and have a seat thank you dr moffat thank you li you worship it's great to see you on our second night of convocation we are honored tonight to have our speaker she is a well-known national speaker and author she has written four books rhythms of renewal you are free and free fall to fly and her newest book i believe that might be coming out tomorrow is that correct yeah surrendered yes 52 devotions to let go and live free rebecca lyons reveals in these works her battle to overcome anxiety and depression and she invites all of her readers and all of her hearers to discover and boldly pursue their god-given purpose she has been featured on today program good morning america cnn fox siriusxm huffington post and many many more rebecca and her husband gabe find joy in raising their four children two of whom have down syndrome i met one of your children kennedy i believe right you're one of your daughter kennedy is my granddaughter's name so i love her all the more but rebecca's going to come and speak to us right after this video but will you go ahead and give rebecca lyons a warm lee university welcome for being a convocation what do you do when stress or anxiety hits when it tightens your chest or seals your breath what do you do when fatigue or discouragement hits when it becomes the norm of your everyday life in recent years i've been on a personal journey to find sustained emotional relational physical and spiritual health i've discovered four simple rhythms that have helped me replace stress and anxiety with life-giving peace and purpose rest restore connect create in my new book rhythms of renewal i've broken down each chapter into practical steps to help you live this out things like take a technology detox establish a morning routine open your doors and invite friends in or pursue a creative outlet by working with your hands this actionable guide will help you take charge of your emotional health and invite others to do the same you'll establish daily rhythms that keep you mentally and physically strong you'll find joy in restored relationships in your family and community and finally you'll walk in confidence with the unique gifts you have to offer the world [Music] hey lee such a joy to be with you guys um i think this is my fourth time being here i mean i feel like i'm officially a college student i'm gonna pretend is that okay um how many of you are freshmen let me see a show of hands oh look at you eager beavers you're right here up front you're like i don't want to miss anything um how many of you are seniors yeah you're in the back as expected right you're like been there done that i can just listen from this is quite a table we're gonna have a meal together you ready um so yeah well it is hunger right so it's like they planned this um so how many of you are pumped about this theme for combo and for this semester hunger right i'm super pumped about it because um when we feast on his word and when we hunger and thirst for righteousness god has a lot in store for us and what a marvelous way to begin um the semester i see there's photos so i'm gonna just quickly i mean you saw them pretty much in the video but i'm quickly introduced my family that is joy yes she is every bit her name oh and we've moved on and that sorry that was three seconds of joy and then that's my husband gabe we smile like that in each other's eyes every single morning we've never fought once it's like a miracle marriage you can ask kennedy if any of this is true um okay we're moving on we have 24 years this oh yep there's kade he is our oldest he's 20 and he had two prom dates one year right one on each arm i feel like he's figured it out yes yeah see yeah it's quite the stud what other photos do we have i don't even know what's coming next okay yes this is this is right when joy came home that's kate's kind of more goofy smile we're not really sure if he's mocking us but i think that's what's happening we've got pierce over there who's just started his freshman year at liberty don't tell anybody it's fine um he really wishes he could be with us tonight um and i think that's it for photos i think that's it oh nope there's more um and yes this is us as of christmas so joy is now eight she's in second grade and kate is 20 in a job training program there are down syndrome bookends and i keep saying bookends like so that the lord will know that we are officially done so we'll see if he agrees with that um but it has been every bit of a whirlwind when you've got prom and pull-ups in the same home you are in every single season all at once and god is enough praise god for that but tonight i want to know who walked in killing it in in peace perfect peace anyone i was hoping you could teach tonight okay how many of you hashtag nailed it are walking in with stress okay good you win you win um so did you know that before covid the american institute of stress said that four out of five of you in this room have physical symptoms of stress racing heart anyone shallow breathing anyone a mind that won't quit sleepless nights am i four out of five oh i didn't i did not know that that would get cheers but yes you guys win you win again that was pre-global pandemic isn't that exciting right okay um well i love that there's some solidarity in this right because the first step to recovery is admitting that there's a problem and then finding a support group to journey with so i think you guys have accomplished the first two things just right now but it's good to know this because when we think about our mental health and we think about it in the space of the church we often feel isolated and alone because really honestly my journey started 10 years ago when we moved to new york in 2010 and four months in i had my first panic attack and it was on a flight and i just remember we hit turbulence we were landing in laguardia at midnight and while everyone's doubling down on their seat belts i'm wanting to run to the front of the plane while we're doing this in the in the sky so there's not really a rational thing happening and what began that day on planes continued in elevators trains subways and crowds has anyone ever been to new york city right so if you we had just moved there from atlanta and the suburbs of the south and our christian minivan in our christian neighborhood in our christian city and we go to new york where there's 8 million people in the span of 11 miles and all of a sudden i felt so small i felt so lost and i will never forget it kind of culminated where i would jump off the subway i don't recommend that i don't recommend that when the doors try to close you should let them be but no i'm the one trying to claw them back open or an elevator if there's two or three that's okay but when there's ten that get on i try to jump back off again and and what began was just this uh high high capacity firstborn type a anyone right like i was kind of an overachiever growing up and there wasn't a whole lot that i was afraid of and yet the city took it out of me within about a year i just started shrinking back from the things that i was comfortable with and i started to avoid a lot of things and i remember going to a tuesday morning group with four girls and we called it a bible study it was definitely a support group with some scripture thrown in you know what i'm talking about and they said how's the panic and i'm like it was fun like i don't want to talk about it right i just felt like debbie downer i did not want to be that person all the time bringing in you know the worst news of the day so i just started to avoid people and avoid things and avoid small spaces and they laid hands on me and they prayed for me that day and i honestly had no faith for anything i had cried out to god for a long time and that night in the middle of the night i wake up from a dream in a panic attack no longer conformed and confined to small spaces it was now in my bed in my room and i sat up and i couldn't find my words and i remember gripping my husband's arm and he began to pray because he knew the drill and he prayed in the dark and all of a sudden the spirit of god gave me words he gave me words and i believe the lord gives us words to pray and to cry out when he's ready to move and so i said rescue me deliver me i cannot do this without you and in that particular moment my body broke on the bed and all was still there might be a name for this in pentecostal circles but this baptist girl has no idea what is happening right i was just laying there i see those hands right i just laying there and nothing but my eyes in the dark and i was like did you see that you know i'm asking my husband and he's like you stopped i'm like i know so i'll never forget the next day leaving my apartment i'm just like tiptoeing out like did it take we're going rogue like i didn't really know i wouldn't have given it the word healing at the time i knew i had cried out for god for so many times and there was this dark night of the soul there was a walking through something but the healing my goodness i didn't have language for that when you're sick you only look inward and you see what's broken but when a healing journey begins you look up and you look out and you begin to see everyone else and that day i stepped out of my apartment i began to see see people want just like me one in four gripped in fear and i remember the lord told me that day um that my life first had been i've not given you a spirit of fear rebecca i've given you power love and a sound mind and anxiety had become my fancy word for fear and i said if that's true then why is the church so grift in fear i mean aren't we supposed to be the ones who are carrying a gospel of peace and then i realized that the perfect love is the only thing even in a believer's life that can cast out fear so there was a separation here there's a break from our ability to come to know the height the depth the breadth the width of god's love for us did you know that you can grow up in a church and do all the right things and not know that god loves you i will right say it again for the girl in the back right i mean you can grow up and be squeaky clean on the outside and the inside is full of shame condemnation secrecy addiction loneliness and as long as the outside looks good we're good i'm not saying every name denomination was like this and this is not even to attack my own upbringing but i was born on mother's day i was definitely in church by wednesday and i prayed the sinner's prayer because i didn't want to burn which i think is a very successful evangelistic i believe god was real and i believe that his message was true but i actually didn't come to know his love fully it was very much based on performance and all the bible verses i i did you know awanas anybody i don't know if this yep okay we're talking the same language okay so you get these like vests with patches on them and if you said enough bible verses you would get like cubbies and then sparks and then you would whittle cars out of wood and race them and then you did potlucks where everything was yellow and it was supposed to resemble a vegetable anyone right we also made culottes at home because we couldn't wear shorts and we couldn't wear pants so culottes is like shorts trying to be a skirt and it's not working has anybody heard of that no okay i'm too old for you it's fine it's not something you can buy in the store you can only make them at home with the sewing machine that's all you need to know about my upbringing but there was so much legalism attached to my faith that i didn't really know the perfect love that could cast out fear there was like god is love and i could say it and i can sing it and i can recite it in a verse but can i know it can i really come to know it in such a way that i've experienced the height and the depth and the breadth and the width of god's love when you think about it in ephesians right he's talking to us about power spiritual power and he says that you can't know the power of god until you know the love of god the love of god is what casts out fear and so we're all the time asking for god to heal us to heal us from our anxiety or to heal us from our depression but do we do we actually want his love do we just want the healing and not the healer do we want the gift and not the giver because god has always been about communion with him and reconciliation with him so if you're going to hunger for something hunger for him he's the prize and when you see that for what it is the goodness for what it is you know what it took for me to see the love of god for me i had literally accepted christ at five i believe i was probably 37 i was on a flight to speak and i remember reading hebrews or i was supposed to teach on hebrews 12 i'm like let's just start in hebrews 1. i learned that you know my old panic attacks i began on airplanes god thought it would be really funny now to put me on an airplane every week to talk about the rescue of god so this old place of panic becomes a sanctuary in the sky and so every time i get on a plane just to cover myself in the peace of christ i just said god jesus you are my peace i come under your covering of peace and i want to just meditate on your word again the hunger and the thirst for your word as my peace and so i was reading through hebrews and i got to hebrews 10 and he said he said that in the old covenant right there would be a priest who would come every year on behalf of the people and he would get pardoned he was pardoned for sin it was never forgiveness it was never um remission but it was pardon it was enough to kind of buy you another year of sinning and then the priest had to come on behalf of the people for penance but it said but finally jesus becomes the ultimate sacrifice and he takes that sin once and for all and then god says because jesus did this once and for all instead of a high priest jesus was the priest who did this for us and he reconciled us to the father so we no longer have to have someone come and mediate between us and god he says jesus did this once and for all and then god said this in this in the new covenant he said i will write my laws on their hearts and i will bind them on their minds and i will never again remember their sins or their lawless acts when i read that growing up in the church i was like okay so he said then that no matter what i'm doing right now he is not keeping a record of wrongs if i fought with my husband if i stalked with someone on social media you know who you are kidding um if you know if i was harsh with my children if i had an unforgiving spirit god even said then already before i was even born i will hey rebecca because of christ crediting you with his righteousness i will never again keep a record of your wrongs even in the future even even the addiction even even the shame even the condemnation i i will never again remember your sins or your lawless acts when i realized the kindness of christ loved me that much to say hey it doesn't even matter there's not a single thing you can do that will separate me from your love there's not a single thing and guess what likewise there's not a single thing you can do to earn favor with god and so galatians was written basically by paul to say this is a book on freedom you've been set free so why do you keep running back to slavery why did you keep trying to earn favor with god the whole summary of galatians is three words don't run back so here here's this message for us today right when we think about hunger and we think about zeal i want to just talk to you for a few moments about like the rhythms for health because again the lord kind of pulled me out of a pit and then he had me you know i'm a chronic oversharer so he just gave me a story i could not shut up about and so all of a sudden i'm writing and i'm i'm teaching and i i just did not see that coming at all and i want to talk a little bit tonight about calling because you're here in college because you believe that there's a caller right that a caller who is whispering to you who's nudging you who's inviting you to join him in the renewal of all things and i want to tell you like from a big sister i'm not going to call myself your mom even though i absolutely could be your mom i i'm i want to call to you as a big sister to tell you that the calling begins in the womb that when god knit you he ordered you with such intention he gave you birthright gifts it says when he knit you his works were wonderful in psalm 139 and he knows that full well and he said that all your days were written and planned before one of them began so not only does he craft you with intention he has vision for how you will use those gifts now you can run from those things and you can you know deny those things parker palmer says in his book let your life speak anyone read this okay it's way before your time it's 2000. okay but if you want to read it it'll change your life and he said we all come into this world with birthright gifts from the womb from the master creator the father in heaven but early on we abandon them or we disabuse them or others shame us about those things they're not they're not a real job you've heard that right you said but if we're aware and awake and able to admit our loss we'll spend the second half of our lives recovering the gifts we've always possessed you're here because you're hungry for god's purpose to be fulfilled through your life and guess what god has you here because he's hungry to see you walk in the purpose he has for your life there's agreement that's being made by you just showing up on campus god is saying yes i've put these passions in them from the womb and i want to see them hunger for me so that i can launch them into the world when you think about this right what is calling it's where your talents and your burdens collide is where those birthright gifts that god gave you that god entrusted to you that he bestowed upon you that were so unique and beautiful for you that they're effortless for you there's some things people can do in this room that make my head spin you know like you put stuff in a bowl and it just tastes good and there's no ingredient like no recipe i don't know who you are i don't get you but it's like like this like five course dinner and it's just like whatever you had in the pantry i don't understand it now you guys are young you probably don't do that very much but at some point you're going to wake to that birthright gift and your family will thank you they will absolutely thank you right some of you with tech some of you with production like you just get you just get it some of you with science and engineering like you get really excited about lab in anatomy i do not i just don't some of you are going to birth babies i'm kind of like i'm going to the other room before i faint see the thing is every single one of you is wired for something that god has entrusted to you but there's one piece of the calling that we'd like to avoid and that's the burden we've got the talents the birthright gifts but the burden what is the burden if calling is where our talents and our burdens collide what is the burden the burden is the story you've been born into the family of origin the life you've lived it's usually attached to sorrow it's the thing that broke your heart when you can take what you do and do it for something that moves you there in life's calling so when i summarize this i i remember at 32 my my mom was pushing my son on a swing and she's like i always thought you'd write and i was like that would have been super helpful in college when i was picking a major okay 32 but at age eight i was called becca book i read all 62 nancy drew books in fourth grade because i really wanted nancy and ned to get together it never quite happened the way i was hoping um so i settled for you know solving the mysteries but i my parents were school teachers we didn't have a tv until it was in eighth grade they thought that would be really great for my brain i wasn't really happy about that but because i was bored i read books and i've learned today that readers make writers i actually care about sentence structure that don't have emojis and i carry about like actual words that have you know i i care about vocabulary i just i get jazzed about it kind of nerd out about it i like books by dead people i can't explain it it's just they cut through the noise right but i wouldn't have thought that then and if somebody even told me in college like i think you should write i wouldn't know what i was writing about you know what it took crash and burn took a deep place of pain it took watching my dad have a first mental breakdown when i was a freshman in college go to a psychiatric hospital for a week it took my first born son 10 years later born six hours later we're told he has a diagnosis of down syndrome his iq is in the 40s they won't go below 42 so he's just given the iq of 42. he suffered trauma at birth i almost died on the table he still today is largely nonverbal and god says hey i'm going to sandwich you between two men that are struggling mentally their whole life and i'm gonna give you words to write about it i'm gonna give you words that give people who are suffering in their own prison of anxiety or depression i remember rocking in the fetal position of my closet in new york city saying will i always struggle with depression and yes death always precedes resurrection and yes god is the rescue that comes in in psalm 18. he he reaches down from on high and he pulls us out of pit and he rescues us because he delights in us but then it continues and with my god i can attack a barrier and i can leap a wall so this is calling is not about you this calling is about him giving glory about not your story of struggle but his story of rescue that's what calling's about it's about getting the gifts that he's entrusted you to redeem the things that break your heart buchner says it's where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need that is why you're here this is not about you fruit is not fame fruit is not followers fruit is a heart of reckless abandon to a god who is entrusted birthright gifts to you to redeem a broken world that is calling and you're here you're here because god has you here you're here because he has you on a journey and the sooner the sooner we say my life is not my own i've been bought with a price and i've been set free maybe you're here today and you're walking your own journey of pain right now maybe on the outside you're okay but inside you're dying maybe you are walking through that valley of the shadow of death guess what we will all have that in life and some of you have already had it mine didn't begin until i was watching my dad struggle and then continuing when i had my firstborn but whatever it is just know if you've not suffered it's coming exciting right great news rebecca boo get her off the stage right but here's what scripture says about suffering in james one count it all joy when you face trial because it makes you perfect and complete lacking nothing what i mean i am we are nowhere near that so i hope that doesn't mean a whole lot more trial but it does right then another thing romans 8 says this he says you are no longer fearful slaves you are sons and daughters of god which means you get the inheritance of god and bonus you also get to share in my suffering we kind of chop that part of the verse off who do you call in the middle of the night when you are in the middle of heartache and trauma do you call your social media followers do you call your acquaintances no you call your family what jesus is saying because you are mine we are gonna share in everything and when you are walking through that valley i will be with you i will not go anywhere i'll be here for as many wailing walks as you need we just want god to lift it we just want it to be done and as someone who has asked for a road less traveled i i can tell you this when you raise special needs kids for a couple decades and you just are met with your own frailty in your own mental space you realize oh you're not gonna lift this the the actual joy of communing with christ is the suffering and not only that in roman in revelation 12 11 it says the enemy is bound by two things it's christ's blood and our testimony and then it says because they did not love their lives more than death do you know what wages wore against your soul and this will directly impact your mental health it's it's the fleshly desires of the world the the need for fame the need for influence the need for wealth the need for security the need for all the things that won't last those are the things that will wage war against your soul because why because god in your soul gave you birthright gifts he gave you a burden and he gave you a destiny to live it out with him and anything in between that there will be this lack i love victor frankl anyone familiar man search for meaning it's okay okay he's a holocaust survivor he survived four concentration camps in three years and unlike adler who said we're made for power and freud who said we're made for pleasure adler was a psychiatrist that said we're made for meaning and in fact he borrowed from his hebrew faith and and his jewish tradition and he was the leading psychiatri uh school of psychiatry in vienna right before the holocaust and his goal was to go an entire year without one suicide in the entire city of vienna before the war it happened and they were so impressed with him the germans are like let's give you a visa to the state so you don't have to go to a concentration camp but frankel is a man of honor and nobility and he's like well i'm not leaving my family and you're going to send my mother and father to a camp so why i'm not i'm not skipping out on this and so he he is arrested with his family and they go to auschwitz and i remember he if you read this account i mean it will wake you up but basically he he even offered his his father morphine in those final days before he went to the gas chamber but what compelled him to survive there's three things that define meaning it's work love and bravery and suffering the work was the work he was about all the all the work he had done until then on all that he experienced on the trauma and the torture in those walls and he said hey if we can get people to not take their lives before this war i'm going to need to stick around to help people recover after this war that was mission and work that kept him going love he was separated from his family and he said i want to stay alive so i can see my wife and my children again wherever they are if there's a chance that's possible and so he fought for meaning and he fought for survival in that way and finally he was brave in the suffering and he knew that that the root of anxiety was unfulfilled responsibility which means we know we're made for something and we're not doing it we're not stretching toward it and instead what comes in is this fear of purposelessness this lack this angst this inner ache that says my my heart you've made us for yourself oh lord and our hearts are restless augustine says until it's found in you and so my prayer for you my commission for you is that you would come to know the height the depth the breadth the width the love of god so you can walk in power and anointing in your calling that fear won't take you out that that kind of perfect love will cast out that fear that you will walk in authority and said no that might be my history that might be in my family but if christ is my peace i come under that covering of peace and i submit to him and that's what it looks like it looks like before we go up um the last decade has really just been me on a healing journey of just going god what are the spiritual practices in the spiritual disciplines that will help keep anxiety at bay keep stress at bay keep worry and panic disorder and depression at bay and so it's four rhythms rest restore connect create we're not going to go into it all tonight if you're interested you can go there's a slide i think it's rebeccalions.com quiz and anyways i think there's a slide okay yeah what's your healthiest rhythm there you go um if you go there so there's four rhythms rest restore connect decorate rest is about your inner life your spiritual life your slowing down your tech detox your sabbath have you heard of that right you know slowing margin quiet examining the heart the restore rhythm is about your body movement embodiment you know releasing serotonin in a natural way there are medications for this but god actually made our bodies to release serotonin naturally raise your heart rate for 10 or 15 minutes you get that happy hormone in your brain um so i'm kind of a science junkie i think science and faith need to come together around mental health and that's been my life's work for the last decade and the two output rhythms are connect and create connect is about relational health apologizing first bearing one another's burden extending hospitality thinking about other people over yourself basically but you can't do it until you've got the input rhythms and then it's the piece of christ that gives you the energy to pour out and that last rhythm is create it's the create rhythm and so everyone in this room has one of those four rhythms that comes most naturally for them like you're killing it maybe you're like awesome at the gym or you're eating the right things and you have a lot of energy but your time with god is like uh i don't know or you're very you know social and you're all about your friends but your life you're kind of confused on vocation you're not really sure that you're stepping into the things that god has entrusted to you here at school not taking seizing the day or taking making the most of the opportunity perhaps you're really zoned in on your grades but you kind of like to do the the midnight you know donut runs that's me you know like when they opened a krispy kreme on campus when i started at liberty it was like not a good thing but whatever the point is is that that your inner life is good that your body is strong that your relationships are flourishing and that you are on mission for a king right and so the book is full of practices and applications to do that but so i want to give you that as a tool and a resource because if i did not have these rhythms in my life i'd be back in the fetal position on the floor of my closet not because christ isn't good and he is our peace but he also he made our bodies and he knows what we need and he uses all means necessary for our healing you can get rescued but you can jump back in a pit right jesus said i'm going to pull you out of a pit i'm going to set you on a wide open space but then i need you to not only walk free i need you to run free i need you to run on mission and that's going to mean every single day there will be just tangible practical application of discipleship we take discipleship seriously then we should take our physical strength seriously we should take our relationship health seriously and obviously you're here at college because you're taking your vocation seriously it might sound like a lot but according to frankel you were made for this you were made to live on mission you were made to live on purpose god is not going to begin something in you that he won't complete so stand up and i'm going to read this commission over you and then we're gonna pray because i am so pumped about you guys i just i i'm excited for what god is gonna do in your generation i get jazzed when i'm invited to speak to people half my age because god's glory rests on your head take heart in this world you will have trouble take heart christ has overcome the world i don't care what covert is throwing at you what kind of isolation and alienation that the enemy is trying to use to take you out in your head christ has overcome covet christ has overcome whatever fear despair and destiny is trying to separate the church christ is king christ is king he reigns he is not ringing his hands about this moment he is not wringing his hands about the political divide christ is king we are strangers and aliens in a foreign land and the kingdom of god dwelling in the kingdom of man why so that we can be royal ambassadors for christ himself okay so this is the last thing um and kovit gave me several things and it also gave me readers very exciting all right this is about doing great things for god ready pretend like this is a bedtime story for it is not you that will do anything great for god but god laboring in you and through you who will greatly accomplish his good purposes according to the workings of his sovereignty and love be free be liberated from the burden of believing that anything depends on you and so be liberated at last to give yourself to the joyful service and grateful response for the grace he lavishes on you be invested child in simple obedience to your king and in long faithfulness to his call shepherding daily the gifts and tasks and relationships he's entrusted to you regardless of outcome or appearance be content in the station he has appointed you in this particular season and yet be ever ready to move at the impulse of his love tend well those things that are before you however humble they may be and he will lead you in time to other good works he's appointed for you whether big or small it is of no matter he attaches no numbers to your service it is your heart and faithfulness he praises amen seek not your own glory seek god and his glory will be seen in you radiant in humility and in the strength of his might made manifest in your brokenness evident even in the smallest of services rendered to him or offered in his name and even though they be seen by none but you and him your reward is secure in heaven amen it's not about outcome it's not about public god is he delights in a broken and contrite heart he delights in a heart who's completely his amos says my eyes from the earth looking for whose hearts are completely mine may may he look at lee university and see a city on a hill that cannot be hidden jesus we praise you and we come to you not tonight with a heart of reckless abandon and i look at these beautiful sons and daughters of god and your light is on them your light is carried in them god they are these fragile clay jars and they're pressed and they're crushed but they're not destroyed and they're not given to despair because they carry your light and this is why they will never give up so i pray right now just a holy covering over them a sacred imagination that you would ignite in them god would you propel them lord to a destiny that you have unfurled from for them from the womb may they come to know the height and the depth and the breath and the width of your love for them so that anxiety will not have roots in them in jesus name depression will not win in jesus name because they will come to know the passion that you have entrusted to them and they will carry a burden for the lost the freedom won't be for themselves it will be to serve one another in love because that's how freedom grows so we praise you in advance for the work you're going to do on this campus in this year and we give you all glory and all honor in jesus mighty name for when we do we believe it has already been given a men and all god's people said amen amen most definitely let's show our appreciation to rebecca lyons thank you so much for your honesty your transparency and your inspiration i hope you do take advantage of the resources that she's offered us again we'll flash that screen up on the up on the big screens to make sure you have that information to log in particularly as you leave once you've entered your code i want to remind you that in the morning we have a regular chapel in here it will be live stream in the other venues as well it will be glorious scott richmond our director of racial our director of racial and ethnic relations you definitely don't want to miss that tomorrow night josh rice will be speaking at 7 30 in here and then on wednesday night the evening services will wrap up with campus pastor rob foltz so we look forward to hearing from all of them again join us in the morning for the regular time at 10 and if you would please join me in the college benediction and the screen will show the code and then also we'll try to flash the information up there to download the resources pray with me now let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight o lord my strength and my redeemer have a great evening thanks so much i see those clear skies you

Channel: Lee University

Views: 139

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: lee university, paul conn, college, university, christian, liberal arts, cleveland tn

Id: BdfSvRfbt0g

Length: 65min 39sec (3939 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021