Get Out of Your Mind: I Can't Slow Down | Megan Marshman

family welcome do you know that Jesus is still alive and he's still moving if you believe that come on and praise Him with me Jesus [Music] [Music] come on [Music] No is not not Shawn Hey Gigi No [Music] you [Music] there is power in the name of Jesus power we believe it there is power in the name of Jesus its power to me shake it all with us there is power come on begin us in the name of Jesus I feel sound stand over the world of your family [Music] these chains [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] there was darkness when it started so you started filling in replacing darkness with stars then you'd be in God rewrite meant to dust see you you are God without you there's no us thus here we are and it will feel with calamity because humanity and our insanity yourself over huge whole self over truth yourself over fruit chose self over crew the vanity now we stand in need she's covered in blood children and mothers they can't stand and weep so they kneel in plea would you intervene do you still intercede see as it seems their prayers are not enough the person we weave life into dust but what have you done lately what's left but giving up the best eye leaving us the rest of feeling stuck and you stand silently enough you ask of me but I ask of thee what took you so long to return to me when the world hit rock bottom I said my only-begotten forgotten and when his work was through I created you to do and to be not gods but my hands and feet in the river is blinking and desperately but you decided to do it without him so no I never left you abandon yes I was right there standing but like Peter on the scene all you have to do is call out to me and at that moment you would have noticed the world from my focus no miss my hope is that you don't remember know this my hope is that you don't remain a bliss but in my name the church is in my name there's purpose in my name you worked it saved my name let the world know we need you show us your face fill up the space my world needs you right now my world needs you right now I can't escape being afraid follow me right now my world needs you right now powerful time [Music] bring with it a sound that points us to you right now a ray substitutes right now fix what I say and God please fix me my world needs you right now let us see you [Music] yeah you to ask you [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] start Oh Oh key [Music] Oh [Music] holds me [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] that's why we sing [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Oh yes Oh [Music] [Music] show me your face fill up his face my world needs you right now my world needs you right now [Music] and God's true that our world needs you that we need you and what I pray for a grace that would give us the ability to see our desperate need for who you are every hour we need you God every minute we need you God every moment we need you God and we thank you but you're not a god that built a need inside of us for you and walked away but you're a god that remains closed and says I built you to need me and I'm here right now for you we thank you for this and we love you in Jesus precious name that we pray and everyone said hi everybody once again welcome to Willow Creek however you're joining us we're so glad that you're spending some time with us you might be wondering why I'm holding such a large microphone and that's because I'm about to give you some very important announcements and I want to make sure that you hear them all first of all if you're watching our services live right now I'd like to invite you to join one of our zoom gatherings immediately following the service we have a number of small group leaders and facilitators who will be there to help you get connected so immediately when the service ends if you're watching live you can go to Willow Creek dot TV slash connect and join one of those zoom gatherings right now we may be a part but we are not alone and perhaps you've seen one of the Willow Creek yard signs popping up in neighborhoods around you we'd love to encourage you to pick up one and put in your yard just to be a reminder to those around you that they may be a part but they are not alone and we are in this together you can come to the church at your convenience and pick them up at the D entrance to find out more information you can go to Willow Creek org slash next steps there's a number of gatherings that are still happening at our church either online or in groups of 10 people or less there are watch parties that are going on and there are small group gatherings I just heard the story of two couples who are gathering together to watch the service and they invited a third couple to join them and now they have just begun their own small group as some of the restrictions in our area are beginning to change we're putting out up-to-date guidelines on how to help you do watch parties together and meet in your small groups and so you can go to Willow Creek org slash next steps to find out how to get connected into a small group or you can learn some of the most up-to-date guidelines for our church we're grateful for all of the ministry that God has been doing in and through Willow Creek and we're grateful for all of your generosity that has made it possible and we want to urge you to continue to support the ministry at Willow Creek if you're watching on Willow Creek that TV right now there's an easy way for you to give you can simply click the give button at the top of your screen and you'll be directed to a giving platform or you can go to the app or you can text WCS b27 seven nine seven seven to set up a one-time gift or a recurring gift and now without any further ado I want to hand it off to Megan Marshman who's going to continue our series get out of your mind how do you hear from God it's a question I have been asked a lot in my life in fact I think it's one of the reasons I even spent a number of years working for a curriculum company because I wanted to create resources to not just equip the church to know truth about God I wanted the church to learn how to engage with him to learn how to hear from him did you know you can hear from God we did this in the curriculum by emphasizing that each time we open up the Bible by the way if you have your turn to first Kings chapter 90 then each time we open up the Bible make sure you say it's time to hear from God we also did this practically by creating space at the end of the message we removed the three points of application at the end because we wanted people to hear from God for themselves based on what God's speaking through his word what's he saying to you to do in response we wanted to facilitate relationship we knew the Holy Spirit could teach but we also knew we had to give him space and time to teach I remember when we first started doing this even with little kids I remember we gave the message god is love and then the Varian instead of telling them how they should act because God is love we just created space and we asked them this how is the Holy Spirit leading you to respond what's God saying to you little boy raised his hand yes he said this I'm a hoarder okay okay did you say hoarder I didn't say did you say we don't know where he got the word go on and he continued well you talk about God is love God loved us so much that he he's so generous with his love I think God's trying to tell me that I'm not very generous with my toys God really does speak do you want to know how I know because he compelled a fourth grader to want to give away his toys the Holy Spirit does teach you can really hear from God in fact as we continue our series get out of your mind can I tell you my expectation that you would get out of your mind to make room for his words to dwell there and I pray that what he says would change you for the better so it's time to hear from God now first Kings chapter 19 says this now a hab who's the king of this room I told Jezebel his wife everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword so Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say may the gods deal with me be it ever so severely if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them whoa let's see how Elijah responds mind you Elijah that just just called down fire from heaven just gets this hate word from Jezebel let's see how he responds verse 3 Elijah was afraid and ran for his life today's topic is this I can't slow down verse three Elijah was afraid and he ran for his life and he was running on empty but how did he get here he was on one of the greatest winning streaks of all time and he was exhausted just a few chapters earlier he was started being on the run because for three years he himself went to the king of Israel and predicted a drought was going to happen and then he was on the run why because if he predicts a drought over a land an agrarian land that's their livelihood everyone's angry so God tells him thing you know thanks for being obedient makes her speak in the word to the king but go ahead run and hide because now he's going to be chased people's livelihood was vanishing God provided for him while he was on the run he I mean miraculously he fed him through Ravens or through a widow whose son eventually dies and Elijah gets to be a part of the miraculous healing then he gets to be a part of the greatest showdown Mount Carmel him verses 850 false prophets and he calls down fire from heaven and then runs 17 miles down a mountain he even beats a hab on his chariot so yeah he's exhausted from running how about you in February my littlest boy Jedediah started walking we even got his first steps on video [Music] [Music] now he's running his tips aren't exciting because running is dangerous just like it was for Elijah and just like it is for us are you running your mind always spinning racing constantly trying to serve do so much for all these different people I know life has slowed down for many of us yeah but how about our minds we're in the midst of living as the most caffeinated energy drink generation just pushing and driving and truth is our human bodies weren't made for it I mean we just even have only had electricity for less than a hundred years you know electricity that now we can keep our lights on we can stay up later we don't sleep says here in verse three Elijah ran for his life and the truth is we're running to have you heard that phrase if the devil can't make you bad he'll make you busy as life is starting to pick back up are you beginning to run again at your old pace are you running how about are you running to your phone would you say you're a little addicted to it I know sounds kind of harsh addicted but is it harsh or is it true here's the definition of addiction it's a relentless pull to a substance or activity that becomes so compulsive it interrupts everyday life with an average of two thousand six hundred and seventeen touches a day on our phone averaging 2.5 hours if you're less than if you're younger than 35 it's more like five hours a day we're running to our phones we just like Elijah are running for our life we find ourselves too distracted with our plans or even doing good works to our we're distracted by our phones or our comfort I wonder if were so fast-paced or too tired or too distracted with our plans that we could be missing God's voice that's the thing Elijah needed he needed to hear God's nudges and his plans but the truth was he was so in his head he was so tired and he was so focused I remember a season of my life where I was running from place to place person to person opportunity to opportunity flight to flight and I even got on one airplane flight and I had a lot of work to do and so I took out my earbuds and put them in my ear to let everyone around me know look how I'm planning on being very social and so you know I took out my my laptop and I started working here's the question I was typing for the pastors conference I was headed toward I was on my way to go speak to a group of pastors and this is the question I was typing have you missed out on ministering to people in the midst of doing ministry I'm not like that okay kind of like me asking you this in the midst of living for God have you forgotten at times to actually live for him or in the midst of loving God with all your heart soul mind and strength have you forgotten to love God with all your heart soul mind so that's what I was getting at right side you know type thing times having suddenly the guy to my right asks me he says are you a Christian and I thought to myself bless his heart he doesn't understand social cues that's okay that's good what was that he says oh are you a Christian when I said this it's your story sure em praise the Lord and I kept typing he kept interrupting back and forth it probably took me 10 minutes to read my own screen have you missed out on ministering to people in the midst of doing ministry see I was on my way to go do some ministry and I missed the person to my right and I've been on my way to go do good things and I've missed the person in my home I've been on my way to serving the people in my home and I've missed their eyes you see I'm grateful for each moment God has slowed me down because for me running leads me to an inability to focus on what and who matters most and I find myself living distracted filling my calendar with without considering the cost and finding myself to be honest burned out and consistently I'm so grateful for the moments like the moment the pastor walks up to me and he says right before I have kids and he says this hey hey hey before you have kids mm-hm every no is a yes and every yes is a no I was confused he said you'll figure it out and I have every yes I say and my calendar is likely a note to someone else that or whatever else I could be doing with my time friends are your yes is aligned with your values who fills your calendars first is it the people you value the most recently God had been nudging me into a new lifestyle of slowing down and I actually laughed when I when I got the invitation in this series to teach on slowing down because God had already begun nudging me so I get to share as someone who's gotten to experience the beauty of committing to things like Sabbath again turning off the phone giving my phone a bedtime and putting it in another room so it's not the first thing I look at when I wake up or even having the courage to turn off Netflix to sit in silence embrace solitude allow God into the places that my mind naturally wanders instead of allowed to be there and then just distract myself with something else he's been shifting my lifestyle why lifestyle john mark comer in his book the ruthless elimination of hurry put it this way your life is the byproduct of your lifestyle there's a saying in business literature it goes like this every system is perfectly - designed to get the results it gets usually it's applied to widgets but how about life as a whole he writes if the results you're getting are lousy anxiety and mild depression high levels of stress chronic emotional burnout little to no sense of the presence of God an inability to focus your mind on the things that make for life then odds are very good that's something about the system that is your life is off kilter the way you organize your morning or evening routine your budget relationship to your phone how to manage resources of time money attention no wonder they call it paying attention it's costly something's out of whack would you agree does something need to change in fact good today could this be the moment of awareness for you because you can slow down don't hear this message is condemnation here it is an invitation from your loving Heavenly Father because when we become aware of where we're running for life we can slow down God will provide for our needs I know this because it's precisely what God did with Elijah Elijah prays to died he was exhausted you remember the message from last week from Albert but God meets his needs and slows him down verse 5 then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep all at once an angel touched him and said get up and eat he looked around and there by his head with some bread baked over hot coals in a jar of water he ate and drank and then laid down again the angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said get up and eat the journey is too much for you I'm sure the angel would have probably loved to have a conversation about faith prayer trust but do you want to know what Elijah needed he needed food and rest he needed to be slowed down first why because when you're tired you're tired there's not a sermon service or program that can fix tiredness do you want to know what fixes tiredness sleep does for some of you the most spiritual thing you can do you is sleep more you want to know how good I'll get specific turn off your phone and Netflix you see God can't do anything with Elijah until he eats and rests and God may not do anything with you until you get what you need to some of you need more rest others need clinical help what do you need sometimes it's not a spiritual issue its chemical in fact visit the website here on the screen to take a step to get help find resources or connect with someone if you're feeling isolated and lonely don't do it alone here's the invitation that you need you don't have to do this alone in fact God modeled that for us do you know who was the first one to rest in the Bible I heard he gave it away God was and it wasn't because he needed it but he wanted to show us what to do after work the creation narrative day 7 God rested rest came before the fall it was not a result of it rest therefore as part of God's good perfect creation God wasn't tired but he knew that you will be and if he didn't show us how to do life how do we would just work seven days a week and look where it's gotten us God says rest is good burnout is not a badge of honor but a lack of discipline God meets Elijah's needs and slows him down verse eight so he got up and ate and drank a second time strengthened by that food he travelled 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horeb the mountain of God other translations don't use the word travel that says this journeyed or even another one said this walked and I did the math the walk of a journey from bear Sheba to Horeb Elisha had a new travelling pace he wasn't running 17 miles down a hill this time he was walking at a speed of 6.3 miles per day and back then they would walk around 12 hours a day which at that time was pretty normal which comes out half a mile per hour one commentator said this that's painfully slow yes God slowed Elijah down slow in Galatians 5 Paul uses the phrase is walk by the spirit and be led by the spirit interchangeably you see the concept of slowing down or walking is really helpful for us because here it is it's pretty simple it's putting one foot in front of the other it's a pace for a life that's in step with God's Spirit and in the midst of this walking analogy in Galatians 5 is the fruit of the Spirit why because can you love well quickly can you have peace when you feel hurried rushed or distracted can you be kind when you're rushed it's hard to have contact eye contact it's hard to look people and be present with them when you're running past them you see God provided for Elijah by slowing him down and he's making the same invitation for you plus there's good news about walking if you stop walking in step with God's Spirit maybe you've stopped walking at that pace all you have to do is take a single step to get going again what's the next single step God is asking of you you it's personal I see cuz I don't want to prescribe God's nudges for Elijah God asks him a question but he does it after he slows him down it's only when Elijah slowed down that he could even hear from God or engaged the relationship verse 9 a word of the Lord then came to him and it said this what are you doing here Elijah by the way God already knew the answer whenever God asks questions it's never to get information for himself it's always to give us information or revelation about him or about ourselves he initiates the conversation the relationship it's always an aspect of our life we need to address Elijah was running on empty god slowed him down in order to provide for his needs and to engage the relationship the good news is we get to read first Kings chapter 19 knowing that God has also provided for everything we need by sending Jesus our need for salvation because our sin was exposed but God gave us his son not only did Jesus provide our for our every need with his death and his resurrection he also set a new pace with his lifestyle can you even imagine Jesus running he was always interruptible thoughtful loving just fully present he didn't run at cultures pace or even pleased people's timetables yet he provided for our every need and he asked questions to get us to take the first step toward him in response today we're gonna slow down and listen to Jesus's questions because there's nothing sweeter I could give you then for you to hear from God's words from God's Word for yourself let me remind you where I started you can hear from God first slow down so God can provide for your needs in fact if you don't hear from them in the next two minutes don't pick up your phone quickly to see what you missed out on I trust in this time God is going to speak to you why cuz it's his word will you engage let's slow down together and listen and if one stands out write down the reference and let it be Jesus's invitation for the next conversation for your life Jesus says this can any one of you by worrying at a single hour to your life why are you anxious why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own why are you so afraid why do you entertain evil thoughts in your heart do you believe that I am able to do this why did you doubt who do you say I am what good will it be for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul what do you want me to do for you why are you testing me are your hearts hardened do you have eyes but fail to see in ears but fail to hear what are you thinking in your hearts what good does it do for you to say I am your Lord and Master if what I teach you is not put into practice where is your faith if even the smallest things are beyond your control why are you anxious about the rest for who is greater the one seated at the table or the one who serves are you asleep why are you sleeping what are you looking for what do you want do you want to be well woman where are they has no one condemned you if I am telling you the truth why don't you believe me do you realize what I have done for you have I been with you for so long and still you do not know me do you love me what is God saying to you you where is he wanting to start the conversation with you he wants to provide for your needs as you engage the relationship and slow down your lifestyle what's your next step take it walking becomes more natural over time we pray with me father I pray that even just after this prayer we wouldn't move on quickly but we would wait with you I prayed today I pray for each person listening that today they would focus on you hear from you and say yes and obedience to whatever you're asking of them god I thank you for being a God who speaks help us slow down we pray and all of God's children said amen be blessed Willem Megan thanks so much for your teaching today if today's message helped you see that you could use some support for anxiety depression stress or other mental challenges we have a list of resources available to help you we have pastors available to listen and pray and help you determine your best next step you could view all these resources at Willow Creek org slash mental health and also if you'd like to get a list of all of the verses that Megan walked through at the end of the service you can go to Willow Creek dot org slash next steps to see those verses again as always we will be online for our weekend services and July 4th and 5th Senior Pastor Dave dumb it will conclude the series get out of your mind and once again if you're watching live immediately after the service now we're gonna do a post service zoom gathering that we would love for you to join us you can go to Willow Creek dot TV slash connect to join us there thanks everybody have a great week [Music]

Channel: Willow Creek Community Church

Views: 7,252

Rating: 4.9344263 out of 5

Keywords: Willow Creek Community Church, Love Everyone Always, Willow Creek Church, Willow Creek, Willow, Church, Faith, Hope, Love, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Bible

Id: 6ECzz66Z4ew

Length: 40min 25sec (2425 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 28 2020