Faith - Shane Willard

all right thank you very much you could be seated so good to be here with you if you're the type likes following actual bible philippians chapter one uh we're going to get there in a second as always it's an honor to be back here with family with justin and chrissy and the team and i just i love you guys i love your pastors and uh love what you stand for love what you do in terms of changing uh lives um so we're back and i'm so glad that we're gonna do this as always if you don't know me that's all i do for a living i travel around the world and speak i've had the amazing privilege of being mentored by a pastor who just happens to have his rabbi training as well so my stuff tends to come from that i also have a master's degree in clinical psychology so i am qualified to sort your head out so careful what you say to me i see through it all right now on your way out uh today we have our resource table now what is normal is we have a resource table what's not normal is it's not taking up half the room anymore all right because we want to be good citizens and we want to participate with the whole we only brought the titles that i did new this year so they'll be out there and i just ask that um that you honor the the rules and and give people time and patience um shona and robin will be out there helping you with two different points of of uh where you could pay so it's you know it'll go fast but let's just be patient with each other we have two titles to choose from so it makes it really easy right unless you know exactly what you want we can download anything but out there right now we have i did a new series on the book of revelation uh 12 parts i was frankly so embarrassed uh by what i was seeing christians put on the internet for the whole world to see about their opinion on the book of revelation right and i mean listen you've got to be qualified to talk about anything but particularly that book and just the nonsense the hermeneutical assassination of a certain book i've never seen anything like this i was so embarrassed i had three choices one i could judge them that's not helpful two i could criticize them also unhelpful or three i could do something horrendous which would be enter into internet arguing that is the worst right so i thought no no no i'm just gonna i'm gonna put out a 12-part study on it and you can get it listen and you just ask yourself which narrative makes more sense it's fine you can get those things out there also have a new series that i did on faith and uncertainty uh which i wrote in november preparing for this year um but it just turns out it was perfect so uh so you can pick those things up as always um we we give a hundred percent of that away we have three orphanages in china that look after children with mental disabilities two and hinyang one in chiang sha which i'm happy to report no one's got sick there uh no worker no kid none of them and they're only three hours from wuhan so that that's really good we also have a rescue in cape town that gets girls out of sex trafficking off drugs high school educated and job trained so we can break the cycle of poverty in the cape flats all right so you could uh you could see them um out there afterwards and they'll be able uh to help you so i want to talk to you about faith and what faith might look like um in the middle of a certain uncertainty season i get to open the bible today to do that which is really cool and and i take that very seriously so anytime you open the scripture you want to ask at least two questions one what happened and two and more importantly what's happening in me right now because of what happened so before we get to the scriptures i want to tell you two stories from history and i'm not just telling you history lessons to do it trust me it's going to come back and it'll make sense when we read the scripture it'll make the scripture bigger than it was before so first history lesson is there was a guy called the egyptian right now there was 24 different messianic figures in a 120 year period of time if you're new to that sort of language this is what that meant 24 people claimed to be the one anointed from god to free israel from the mighty oppressive roman empire and start their own kingdom okay and so there was menuhim there was simon benguara there was simon barcopa there was a lot of these guys and when rome figured out where they were they had one fate awaiting them they killed them horrendously so there was this one guy that was about 20 years after jesus so you're talking like 52 53 a.d something like that and he figured out that everyone claiming to be the messiah gets killed horrendously so what he did was in his messianic resistance movement to roman occupation he did it secretly what he did is he hired 4 000 assassins called the sycari if you've ever seen the movie sicario it's based on that kind of idea so the sycari were people who fit in during the day and at night they came out dressed in all black the word sakurai literally translates throat cutters right and so what they would do is they would high-ranking government officials if you ever thought the bible was boring hang on to something here right they would find high-ranking government officials corrupt high priests people who were empowering the roman occupation and they would slit their throat and then they would fall on the ground and then they'd put their little symbol next to them so the next morning when the sun come up people would find the body and because there's no such thing as csi jerusalem they would be like well that guy's dead and look the egyptian did it so the egyptian was the secret sort of clandestine leader of a jewish resistant movement against the roman occupation that's story number one story number two is there's a guy named paul this is the poll you're thinking of he wrote lots of the new testament right and he had this radical encounter with christ and he got so radically changed by it he thought the whole world needs to hear this so he goes to a place called corinth to start this jesus movement in the rest of the world and he works out that it's pretty cool but 30 year old men do not want to be circumcised to join the church so he has to fundamentally change some things right he's like okay listen that's going to be for jews but for us we're not going to make 30 year old men be circumcised before they could join the church it's a church growth killer okay can't do that so he was saying things like okay i know it says to circumcise but word is not going to do that right i know it says don't eat bacon but we love it so much just do it right so what happened was is the jesus movement exploded in the gentile world but the jesus movement in jerusalem was struggling because they were getting word that paul was saying moses doesn't matter the temple doesn't matter the law doesn't matter and so what was good for the jesus movement in europe was bad for the jesus movement of jerusalem so the leaders of the jesus movement jerusalem they send word to paul and they say come on now you've got to come back here and give account for your preaching right so paul does what was reasonable on his way back he stops by corinth because they have money and he takes up a love offering for the church of jerusalem because when you know there's going to be conflict one good way to ease that conflict is to show up with some cash right so he shows up with a love offering from corinth and this is what the church of jerusalem said they said bro listen we celebrate that anybody's saying yes to jesus no matter how that happens that's not our issue we celebrate what you're doing our issue is is that you're making life hard for us here because the zealous jews are reticent to join our movement because they think you're the leader of it and they're hearing that you're doing away with jews the jews don't matter law doesn't matter temple doesn't matter we need you to sort this out right so paul being a good citizen says oh i didn't think of that how can i help you and they said here's all we need you to do we need you to go through a temple cleansing if you go through a temple cleansing that'll give a testimony to everybody that you think we still matter paul says deal so he goes through the temple cleansing and it was seven days long at the end of the seven days the zealous jews weren't convinced so they kidnap him drag him out of the temple and commence beating him to death now when a mob of people are beating someone to death who do you call the police which is exactly what happened somebody runs to the roman soldiers and says there's a group of zealous jews beating some poor guy to death so the police show up and they stop beating paul which is exactly what you would expect when the police show up the people quit beating paul and they're like well you don't know we found him like this right that's exactly what happened so so that so the roman soldiers don't know what to do so what do they do they arrest the guy that was beaten that makes no sense it says they bind him in two chains and because of the severity of the beating they had to carry him back to the army barracks which would be like the police station that's where the jail was he's they're going to interrogate him now the question is is why are they binding a guy who can barely walk they must think something that isn't obvious right there must be something going on here there must be a story underneath the story that makes the story make more sense now that is my best ability to explain both those stories let's look at acts 21. if you could bring that first slide up for me as paul was about to be brought to the barracks he said to the tribune that's the chief of police may i say something to you and he said do you know greek now watch watch what the police officer says to paul are you not the egyptian then who recently stirred up a revolt and led the 4 000 men of assassins out into the wilderness so what do you do when you can't cope with someone's theological differences well in the uh now you just shame them on the internet back then what you did is you tipped off rome that the guy that's bothering you is this secret messiah the egyptian you've been looking for and they use rome to get paul out of their hair now this was not unprecedented they did that with jesus as well they accused him of being a rabble rouser who's stirring up people all over judea so that rome would kill jesus for them they're wanting rome to kill paul for them here's the problem paul's got an advantage that jesus didn't paul is a roman citizen which means you can't do a fake trial in the middle of the night and put him on a cross before everybody wakes up can't do that he is worthy of an actual roman trial so paul ends up in front of a governor named felix felix says in acts 24 i don't find any reason to charge this guy does that sound familiar but as a favor to the jews in jerusalem he kept him in prison for two years now that takes one sentence to read that's two years of a man's life paul's in prison for two years and felix gets replaced by a guy named festus highly unfortunate name festus essentially says what are you doing here you're obviously not the egyptian paul knew that the corruption between the zealous jewish leaders and the roman governor was not going to end so he appeals as was his right as a roman citizen to the highest court in the roman empire which would have been an audience in front of caesar that's how the book of acts ends is paul is in prison in rome and he's going to get the death penalty because he won't come off the idea that jesus is lord not caesar and if he doesn't come off that idea caesar is going to kill him so paul's in death row in rome and what do you do when you're on death row you start writing your last words to people who matter to you and paul had started all of these churches and he's writing letters theologically they're called the prison epistles that's the letters he wrote while waiting to be killed and he's writing these letters back to the philippians to say look i'm going to die but here's the what i want to leave with you now keeping in mind paul's in prison because of a false accusation from a group of people that he brought money to so lesson number one have you ever had somebody stab you in the back and you were trying to do nothing but help them that's what's going on here and in that light paul says some of the most inspirational things you can imagine like if god started it he'll complete it everything is possible god keep your mind on true trustworthy praiseworthy things what might look like your destruction will actually turn out to be your salvation this guy is inspiring and if i could add one more thing to this and i can paul died having never known if what he gave his life to worked paul died in 57 a.d the gospels weren't written until 70. right paul died but without ever knowing if the christian movement was going to go forward paul died before constantine ever made it legal paul died not knowing if they were going to stuff the whole thing out right and he's like oh if god started it he'll complete it i did it for god i'll leave all the results in his hand i'll be okay like this guy is inspiring and it's in that that i want to examine one phrase he says which is so moving once we know what he's talking about this is philippians chapter one so this is like one of those prison epistle things he was writing yes and i will rejoice interesting choice of response to his circumstance let me remind you he's being tortured on a systemic basis under the authority of god named nero and he's definitely going to die yes and i will rejoice for i know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of jesus christ this will turn out for my deliverance as it is my eager expectation and hope that i'll not at all be ashamed but that with full courage now as always christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by death for me to live as christ and to die is gain this will turn out for my deliverance here's the problem it doesn't paul gets tortured until they kill him so if paul is being prophetic here like i have enough faith to get out of this he missed it if paul's saying he's going to escape jail he missed it if paul's saying he's going to get out of the situation hey pray hard enough and i'll get out of this thing he missed it entirely and this is so confrontational if you listen if you're here right now i want you to tune back in if you've tuned out right and i want to speak to you if you've ever been told by a well-meaning christian if you just had enough faith this problem would leave you right if you just had enough faith your kid wouldn't have been sick the other night you know if you if you prayed hard enough he'd have been able he'd been able to get through that a lot better than what he got through it with with your with your lack of faith if if you just had enough faith your wife wouldn't have left you what's your problem you should have been able to pray her into a different character right oh if you just had no faith your husband wouldn't have wouldn't wouldn't have stepped out no oh if you just had enough faith that that adult child would it would not be off the rails if you just had enough faith your business wouldn't have been upside down if you just had enough faith that client wouldn't have left you you know if you had any faith you could pray this thing and if you just had a faith you wouldn't have any problems you can get out of everything and listen that is an old theology the problem is it's not based in greek or hebrew which is the language of the bible it's based in latin and the latin for that theology is bolomous krapomos okay like that that makes no sense right but by those standards jesus had no faith paul had no faith peter had no faith james had no faith philip edna are you kidding me right now that great faith is not evinced in enough confidence to get out of everything great faith is something about our countenance within that thing so the question then is is what is paul talking about this will turn out for my deliverance and then he goes on nothing in his language here seems to indicate that he's going to get out of anything he's talking about whatever they do to me i don't want to be ashamed i want christ to be honored all the way to the end and i've already come to the conclusion to die is going to be better anyway than what they're doing to me um so what's he talking about this will turn out for my deliverance now if you tuned out in any of that eight-minute history lesson right i did something for you i put a summary on two slides in bullet point next slide so paul's in prison in rome and he's seen as an enemy of the state due to one false accusation and one true one the false accusation is that he was the egyptian that stirred up a secret revolt of four thousand secret assassins have you ever heard somebody tell a lie about you that's a pretty outlandish one the other one is is that he is claiming that jesus is lord not caesar now that's true and if he doesn't come off that he's going to die right the philippians were the only church to reach out and send someone to feed and resource paul paul is awaiting a trial that would bring execution he definitely dies next slide paul lived in the day where the world believes caesar is lord they didn't think they thought caesar was not just a man they thought he was god in flesh and that created all kinds of problems and they ruled this way with military might this was caesar's evangelism program he showed up in your town with a platoon of soldiers and you converted or they killed you it was incredibly effective the christians were the social justice juggernauts who were standing against that going that's not the way to rule the world if god was actually a man he wouldn't be oppressing raping and pillaging 99 of the world to enrich the one percent he would be lifting the lowly to the level of the elite he'd be ending the class systems this is not how a god would work if it was actually god in flesh so paul is writing this and he says this will turn out for my deliverance the question is what did he mean now paul is a first century rabbi who's memorized all of the scriptures up to that point and paul is directly quoting a famous poem from the poetry section in the old testament and in this poem it's a play or a poem about a guy named job and here's what we know about job job had a lot he lost a lot and then he got a lot back that's a basic caricature of job and 42 chapters of this book is trying to explain why bad things are happening to a basically good dude right and it's at its most elemental level the play job or the poem job is standing against transactional theology transactional theology says if something bad's happened to you it's because you did something bad and god's making it happen to you right the book of job basically says that's nonsense by the way so does jesus jesus is like the building fell on those people do you think you're more righteous than them right transactional theology has no place in our world it just it's primitive it's old it has no place and it frankly makes no sense and it's observably and critically not true that's what job is talking about but of course the play has to work this out and he's got these three friends and these three friends are the experts on why bad things happen do you know anybody like that like when somebody when some if you're going through something do you have that person in your life that always can tell you why something's happening right job's got three of those people right and they're annoying one's annoying three unbearable and then a fourth one shows up it's a problem and this is this is the basic way the book of job goes over and over and over again job it's something you did no it's not job it's something you did no it's not job it's something you did no it's not over and over and over again right and here's what happens job finally arcs up and he essentially says if god kills me or lets me live that's in god's pay grade not mine but it won't be because of something i did i'm standing firm on that if god kills me i'll stand in front of him and say you had your reasons love you anyway but i'll argue my ways to his face right let me show you this quote this is from job 13. though he slay me i'll hope in him yet i'll argue my ways to his face this will be my deliverance that the godless shall not come before him so the phrase this will turn out for my deliverance and jewish consciousness was a commitment to keep our hands clean and our heart pure in the middle of the struggle not having enough confidence to get out of everything but rather it's a demeanor a disposition a countenance of clean hands and pure heart in the middle of that something so when paul says to the philippians this will turn out for my deliverance what if we read it this way i'm making a commitment to you to keep my head up my shoulders back my hands clean and my heart pure so that no matter what they do to me i will in no way be ashamed that christ will be honored all the way to the end and i've reconciled that me to live for christ that's fine but to die that'll be better doesn't that make a whole lot more sense in terms of than trying to reconcile how paul lacked faith actually the greatest faith is not events in someone not struggling the greatest faith is events in people who have the greatest countenance within the struggle think about the people who inspire you the most they're never the people not going through anything like if i introduced you to a friend of mine and said tell them your testimony and they're like hell everybody let me tell you about my life it's awesome my marriage awesome my children awesome my business booming and when i think about my past i got to tell you folks i pretty much nailed that too we don't want to know that person we don't like them right that's not inspiring the the most inspiring people are the ones that in the middle of the struggle you didn't even know they were struggling because their great faith was evinced in hands clean and heart pure this happens again with a guy named david so god let me caricature this story shepard boy brings cheese to his brothers sees a giant philistine warrior says bring it on kills the guy right becomes a national hero because very popular to everybody except the king and what we find out in this story is that david is very good at hand-to-hand combat like like he is jack bauer on speed man he's he's liam neeson's character in taken right that's that's that's david david's like lion bring it on bear come on giant philistine warriors come get you some right he is a he is a bad man he's a bad man but what we also find in the story is that as good as he is the hand-to-hand combat when it comes to hiding frankly he's terrible right he goes he goes to a cave to hide and 400 people were meeting him there already knowing where he was going which leads to this observation bro you are awesome at fighting but when it comes to hiding frankly you suck right it's that so in his journeys and fleeing from saul he runs into this guy named akish the king of gath who's an ally of saul and he gets scared for his life and watch watch how he handles this next slide and the servants of akush the king of guests said is this not david the king of the land did they not sing to one another and dances saul struck down his thousands but david ten thousands and david took these words to heart and was much afraid of akush the king of gath so he changed his behavior if you're a note taker which a lot of you i could see are right change his behavior that's the key phrase we'll talk about that in a second before them and he pretended to be insane in their hands and he made marks in the door that's a great survival technique if you think someone's fixing to mess with you act like you've lost your mind start scratching at the door frothing at the mouth let spit run down your beard come on they'll leave you alone because they think you're insane but he changed his baby now what's interesting about this is the hebrew so in the hebrew language the phrase changed his behavior is this word let me show it to you next slide it's tamal which is taste or flavor you could say he changed his flavor or he changed his taste now this is a metaphor for behavior we still use it today like if i did something that wasn't wrong but it was inappropriate for context you might say shane that wasn't wrong per se but it surely was in poor taste so it's the same metaphor now the translator rightly looks at it and goes this is talking about behavior so it says he changed his behavior but if they translated it literally it would be he changed his taste or he acted in poor taste like he he he lost himself for a second he went and he acted to be insane he had spit frothing out of his mouth he's scratching the door now david gets out of the situation and he fears for his life so he runs to a cave because that's what you do because where can you hide from a powerful man in a cave here's the problem he gets to a cave and 400 people beat him there knowing that's where he was going right now this is stress this isn't just stress this is distress now how do you handle that level of stress the most powerful king in the region is after you with his army and his allies what do you do evidently you write a poem right because that helps everything so david sits down and writes a poem how do we know that because he wrote it down how do we know what he wrote because we still have it this is the poem he wrote while running from saul and akish next slide i will bless the lord at all times his praise shall continually be in my mouth that my soul makes its boast in the lord let the humble hear and be glad oh magnify the lord with me let us exalt his name together i sought the lord and he answered me and he delivered me from my in other words i didn't get out of the situation but my fear of it is waning that god is not that which lets us get out of everything god is that which is present within the thing that removes some of the sting of it and that is more profound that is a that's more to what our observation is about how the world actually works those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed this poor man cried and the lord heard him and saved him out of his trouble the angel of the lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them now watch the last line of this great poem oh taste and see that the lord is good the word is tamal you could easily translate that oh behave and see that the lord in other words let let the world even in great stress never see your taste shift in other words if the world sees you in great struggle may they never see you as insane they may they they never look at you like you're crazy in other words if the world sees us in conversation may the christ that holds us all together be glorified more than we need to be right about some point of view write write o taste and see that the so in jewish consciousness the phrase this will turn out for my deliverance is not about getting out of something it's about a commitment to keep clean hands pure heart and sweet taste in the middle of that something now i've worked hard to put language around this because otherwise it's a platitude i hate platitudes right platitudes is when you say something that's obviously true but you have no language to define what that looks like all right so let's put some language around this next slide so he's not saying he's going to get out of prison because he doesn't get out of prison he's not saying his suffering is going to end it doesn't end he's not saying he'll avoid death he absolutely does not avoid death what he is doing is he's making a commitment to the philippian people that no matter how this turns out my heart my hands and my taste will be clean my hands will be clean my heart will be pure my taste will be sweet this will turn out for my deliverance this will turn that hey that whatever they do to me i won't be ashamed christ is gonna be honored all the way through i'm making that commitment hands clean heart pure taste sweet that's what faith looks like in uncertainty that if you've ever gone through something you didn't get your way it didn't go how you thought it should go and you're thinking where is my faith do i have a faith problem no faith is not events and you getting everything we want faith is events in our countenance and our disposition in the middle of things we don't get what we want it's clean hands pure heart sweet taste this will turn out for my deliverance let's say it another way no matter how difficult this gets i won't intern today if they get all regret like if this gets bad i don't want my compass to spin so bad that i look back social scientists did a study about people who wouldn't go through divorces and what they found was was that the nine months after a divorce your compass been so bad that when they they interviewed people five years about their behavior nine months out of a divorce and what they found was was that the response was so like people almost unanimously look back and go what was i thinking i argued in front of a stranger for fifty dollars like what what i did what with who what the heck and what they did is they they named it crazy time and what they that's creative i know but they call it crazy time which is which is when you're in great stress and your compass spins and then you're on the other side of it you look back on it and go what nothing about that was me like what was going on there this will turn out for my deliverance is a commitment to avoid that it's it's no matter how this turns out i'll keep my waist clean before god they're torturing me but i'm not gonna be ashamed i'm not gonna do that or or no matter how big the stress gets i'll stay focused on god and keep my life straight or i'm gonna keep his praise on my mouth now this sounds like an awesome way to live right like like you're listening to me describe a person like this and how many of us are sort of inspired like i'd love to be that guy minus the torture i i i i would not specifically being tortured by the government i'm just talking about i wish i could have that kind of countenance in great stress or how many of us know someone that they inspire us and the reason they inspire us is not because they don't go through anything it's because we see how they go through things and you're going wow i don't think i'm that strong i don't think i could do that so so if it's so inspiring how do we miss it then i think we miss it three ways next slide i think we generalize the particular when we generalize the particular we can miss my deliverance what do i mean by that hands clean heart pure taste sweet what does generalizing the particular mean it means we take one instance and we make it true of everybody right let me give you a couple examples i'm a public speaker this is my 18th year doing this occasionally someone doesn't like me it's rare i mean look at all this but it's rare but occasionally and to be fair it's not that many i mean if i get 10 000 emails 995 of them or thank you you help me you encourage me thank you five of them think i'm a jerk right and they're normally nameless faceless cowards sitting behind a computer screen right they don't even identify themselves in the email right but but you know how humans are wired do we go to bed thinking about the 9009 or 95 or do you go to bed thinking about the five you're always gonna be thinking about what could i have said different he didn't hear me he didn't understand she didn't hear me she didn't understand and then that's one step away from nobody hears me nobody understands i'm not making any difference in anybody's life i'm wasting my day that that's what generalizing in the particular looks like right or you invite someone to church would you like to have a church no no hate church why church hurts people church hurts people well the church down the road is feeding 1500 people a week they would have food what do you mean no no i went to this one church one time this lady on the third row yeah yeah okay yeah one lady at one moment or or like when i was counseling you you you you see some people said i was like it's it's it's i'm not i'm not ever i'm never trusting a man again never never trusting a man ever again why all men cheat all of us all of us i know lots of men who have it i do but all all of i know lots of women who have lots of women who haven't but you can't generalize the particular you can't say all men or something no no okay obviously the person you had an experience with yes but let's call that what it is he did it right or you see this with people who don't like christianity they'll go oh christianity's all crap and then but when you hone them down you're like which part the part where we build hospitals in poor rural villages in india that part no no that's lovely the part where we feed the poor is that no no that part's lovely so what part are you exactly talking about right so when we generalize the particular or secondly is when we freeze the present to freeze the present is the idea that this pain we're in we'll never leave and look it's just in us to freeze the present it is like heck if we get a bad enough cold we're thinking i'll never breathe again that's me done you know or heartbreak you know somebody breaks up with you like we all remember our first breakup remember take a second remember that first break i remember the first girl that broke up with me of course i do and it was mutual and don't you think anything less of that right we were together we got together we got we decided together that it wasn't working it was mutual breakup the problem was she was doing fine i was broke up about it i was horrible and when you want to reattract somebody what do you do obviously you act desperate right and pout it's really attractive right but but think about this like i'm 14 right and i'm like oh god oh god i love her so much i'll never find anybody oh right i'm 14 years old you know my dad comes to get me from school my dad's like hey what's the matter with you if you've ever parented a teenager what did i say nothing nothing's the matter my dad was like nothing really then tell your face that because here's the problem i can't see your heart i can see your face and if your face is any indication what's going on in your heart then there's a problem so if there's really no problem that means your face is broken so it flicks your flipping face about an hour later we're at home you know dad's had enough dad's like hey you gonna tell me or not i was like dad she broke up with me it was mutual i hurt so bad my dad looked at me and said boy are you crying over a girl yeah dad this hurts the pain will never leave anyway my dad said i'll be right back he comes back with the smallest potted plant like i'm talking i could easily hold it like this little green sprig you know i've always been a pretty good communicator i could see where this was going you know fresh starts second chances life from death new life bursting forth out of the ground i can see it there's all these lessons in this plant you know my dad said here's the lesson if you're going to cry over a girl at least cry in the plant so your tears will do something god you're embarrassing and you know he was right two weeks later new girl forget her right right like we lose our deliverance when we generalize the particular or we freeze the present because when we generalize the particular or freeze the present there's only one choice and that's to lose the plot like if everybody is against me and it's never going to end well we may as well but there's a better way to live there's my deliverance clean hands pure heart sweet taste question is how paul says it this way for him hopefully we'll be inspired by him next slide is through your prayers and the provision of the spirit of jesus christ so evidently to paul when you're going through something there's an extra grace of the spirit of jesus around if you can pay attention enough to see it but then he doesn't let the church off the hook he says but it's also through your prayers and this is where it gets very convicting right because sometimes we absolve ourself from being present in someone else's pain because we can't solve the problem and here's the thing we go well there's nothing i could do about it so since i can't fix it i'll be seen as someone who lacks faith if i try to engage it so what i'll do is i'll just absolve myself from being present in it and this is how we do that i'm so sorry we'll remember you in our prayers what keep that tennessee read next what are you talking about i'll remember you in my prayer what is that no no no what you've just done is you took you've absolved yourself of being present with that person in their pain because we can't fix it what if we what if we relieved ourself from the pressure of having to fix everybody's problem and just committed to bringing hope and be present in it what if prayer is more i'm aware that the same spirit that holds me together is holding you together because in christ all things are held together and you look low on hope and i've got a bit more hopes i'm going to share my hope with you now that doesn't mean i can fix it but that does mean i'm committed to you not going through it alone i have a vested interest in your deliverance what does that mean it means clean hands pure heart sweet taste now when you open scripture you want to ask two questions one what happened that's my best effort in explaining what happened but secondly you want to ask what's happening in me right now because of what happened so let's put some language around that next slide so what does this teach us about togetherness i identifying with the suffering and pain of others maybe i could inspire us with a third story there's the egyptian there's paul and then there's a guy i met in my lifetime the man's name was richard wormbrand now if you're over 50 you probably go oh yeah richard warren brand if you're under 50 you might go who's richard warren brand right richard wormbrand was the father of the church in romania um the church in romania exists because of richard worman and some other brave people but but richard warmbrand was the guy that really paid the price um richard warmbrand um was tortured him and his wife were tortured together by the communist military in romania for standing up for religious freedom and when i say tortured real like government-sanctioned torture and i got to meet him um when i met him he was very old he was in a wheelchair and his feet were had to be propped up his feet were like size 22 even though they were only meant to be size eight i mean sorry size 10. and the reason is because part of his um part of his torture was they would they would stock his legs and then a an army soldier would take a bamboo rod and beat the bottoms of his feet um that was part of his torture they would regularly um they would regularly strip his wife naked and throw her in buckets of ice water um and then let her stand out shivering and they would ask him to deny christ and she was telling him please don't and it's just a and you thought sally from accounting was a pain this guy see stress stress and struggle is subjective and the weight of it is subjective when paul said my light momentary struggles well he was being tortured by nero what's your problem what's my problem is sally from accounting really that annoying right so so richard warmbrand is being beaten tortured his wife's being beaten and tortured um all for religious freedom and so i won this drawing that allowed me to sit with like a group of 12 of us with him and i remember we asked him there's two things that stuck from that conversation and i'll never forget my whole life but one is we asked him how did you handle the torturers like so this guy's coming in and he's trained to inflict pain on you and he's going to inflict pain on you how did you how did you deal with him and he said oh we always handled that the same way he said when they were done beating us um when he was leaving we would say whether it was me or my wife we would say we love you god loves you we forgive you god forgives you go home tonight knowing there's nothing between you and god we love you god loves you we forgive you god forgive you go home tonight knowing there's nothing between you and god which is far more profound than i'm going to call down fire from heaven and destroy you now no no no no love love love conquers this stuff oh we love you god loves you we forgive you god forgive you go home tonight no one there's nothing to god he said what would happen is is every now and then a soldier would say can you connect me to this unbelievable love that must be it just must be unbelievable to be that connected to love like that and he would lead them to christ he said that was the best he said because the soldiers when they got led to christ every night they didn't take them off the beating schedule so when the soldiers that were led to christ were the tortures for the day that was the best because what they do is they'd come in and beat the wall and we'd scream as a big play it was just it was amazing right he said but the second thing he the second thing we asked was we said how'd you get through it and he said what i expected he said when you're in the middle of something like that there's a special grace of the spirit of jesus that has given to you i expected that but he said exactly what paul said but it's not just that it's knowing that whatever you're going through you're not alone even if they can't solve it there's people sharing hope with you he said what would happen is is the soldiers would torture us by saying we found everybody there's no reason to stand for this anymore uh the church is dead you may as well give up and and he said he said that was torturous so what they would do though is the soldiers that had converted they would smuggle in notes at great risk to their own life and the notes would say stuff like richard you're in there we're out here but we're in this together it's working keep going keep going you're not alone so it wasn't just the presence of the spirit of jesus it was knowing that i wasn't alone and so may we identify with the suffering of others not to solve everything but to give people the gift of the presence of our hope in it let's say it a couple ways next slide once we've experienced grace we never let other people suffer alone because god isn't just putting you back together he's putting the whole world back together and we're just a part of it now great sermons are not meant to be agreed with nor disagreed with they're meant to be wrestled with like what do i do with this so let's wrestle next slide what has happened to us that we need to resolve will turn out for our deliverance so let's take a second let's be quiet and cancel the white noise of our week and let's name the thing don't name it out loud just name it in your heart this is the thing that i've done everything i could do i can no longer control it this is the thing it's a medical test i'm nervous about it it's my 26 year old son he's off the rails it's it's uh my six-year-old has this illness that they're trying to work out what it is um it's it's my neighbor it's it's my biggest client is threatening to leave it's sally in accounting what whatever it is let's name it and just make a commitment this will turn out for my deliverance what's that mean it means no matter how this hurt works out my hands will be clean my heart will be pure my taste will be sweet head up shoulders back hand clean heart pure taste sweet can we commit to having clean hands pure heart and great taste is there any place we're tempted to lose the plot right now throw it in you know let's say this way is there any place we froze in the present don't freeze the present that's not how the world works pain ends see the western world sees time linearly it's a relatively new thing ancient world saw time as a circle going around a line and you have winter seasons but every winter season is followed by a spring season you don't freeze the present time doesn't stand still it moves maybe the most obvious application for today is do you need prayer is there anyone here who this is not an altar call can't do that right now but is there anyone here who would say i'm running low on hope and if someone will be willing to pray for me i'd love to borrow some hope maybe you could be brave enough to find someone you know and go you know what i i'm actually running a little low on hope today can i borrow some of yours you know you look like you're doing pretty good um and they'll let you and if they won't steal it i don't know it'll be okay um hey just not a oh we'll pray for you no no no more profound than that um i'm so aware that the same spirit's holding me together as holding you together i'm going to share some of my hope um well maybe we stay this way excited this will turn out for my deliverance where do we need to say that till we feel it maybe we need to name the thing confess you know what this will turn out for my deliverance what do i mean by that hands clean heart pure taste sweet so lord i pray that you give us the courage to see things different the ears are spurs to act upon what we see this will turn out for my deliverance why don't you just take a second and name the thing and then with some gusto let's confess this together it just says this this will turn out for my deliverance ready go this will turn out for my deliverance all together with way more gusto ready go this will turn out for my deliverance let's try that again ready go this will turn out for my so lord give us the courage to have clean hands pure heart sweet taste clean hands pure heart sweet taste this will turn out for my deliverance would you look this way i hope jesus got bigger for you today the cross work better and the resurrection central scriptures got bigger not smaller may we have the courage and be given the grace to show the world what faith looks like what does faith look like oh we can command anything no faith is clean hands pure heart sweet taste may we go through the struggle with our head up our shoulders back our hands clean our heart pure our taste sweet for this will turn out for my deliverance till i see you next time grace and peace everybody

Channel: Presence Church AU

Views: 4,524

Rating: 4.942029 out of 5

Keywords: Presence, Church

Id: tSXuW5Z5YPA

Length: 46min 14sec (2774 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 18 2020