Grace Against The Grain | Lisa Harper

i can't even tell you how excited i am to be here i told levi that i felt like christmas came early this year because i love pastor levi and jenny their ministry has meant the world to me for a long long time so to actually get to come to your house to be a fresh life i'm just undone i teased pastor levi and told him i was afraid he got me confused with lisa bevere who is another amazing bible teacher but um lisa is just a tad smaller than me and off often wears leather pants and so i wondered if i should pretend just in case he sent me home when he found out i wasn't revere i thought i could have walked up here in leather pants but it would sound like ducks were being killed so um alas i am lisa harper not bevere but so stinking excited to be here at fresh life and in the middle of this series because i've been watching from nashville tennessee and i've already been so blessed by what god has poured through through this series through the holy spirit through levi's throat and so we're gonna stay right in the middle of it i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but i'm gonna stay right in where levi's been preaching not as well but we're going to stay in that flow first i've got to tell you a story before we dive into the text we'll be in mark if you want to flip there in your bible this was part of my gift basket when i arrived in montana from nashville yesterday this is bear spray and i just started laughing that i had bear spray in my in my welcome basket and it kind of took me back to a season when i lived in the mountains i know you can tell i live in nashville now because of the extra syllables and the hanging diphthongs but i used to live in the mountains that was diphthongs that was not trashy so you don't get that out anyway i used to live in the mountains i lived in colorado springs for about six years and i used to love to trail run in the mountains and one of my favorite trails i used to run not quite as pretty as as glacier but still beautiful was called pulpit park pulpit rock park and there's this trail in that park this two and a half mile trail that snaked up through the mountains when you got to the very top you stepped into this alpine meadow above tree line and from that alpine meadow if you looked west pike's peak was just right there i mean almost looked like you should you could touch it even the summer it was always shrouded with snow at the top i thought of that when we flew in over glacier yesterday and i would run that trail two or three times a week it's where i went to de-stress i was in vocational ministry then still am and i don't know about y'all but sometimes christians get on my last nerve and so sometimes i just needed to get apart before i fell apart you know and i'd run that trail well i was really disappointed when the newspapers and television stations started talking about criminal activity in this particular park around that particular trail my favorite trail running trail and they said that a man had violently attacked several women so the police began telling people no longer can you trail run or mountain bike on this trail until we apprehend the criminal and i was like dog gone and i can't believe it and that's my favorite place to go and be outside i don't know about y'all but sometimes i feel god's presence even more thickly when i'm outside of a building as much as i love the brick and mortar churches i feel like outside that sanctuary blesses me even more and i thought shoot i can't believe i can't go to that trail anymore well one saturday it was this gorgeous fall saturday just no humidity blue blue sky and i thought it's just too pretty for criminal activity today so i thought i'm going to chance it i'm going to go over to the trail even though they've told us not to run it i'm going to run on my favorite trail that's where i go to be alone with god so i drive to the trail saturday afternoon there's only one other car in the parking lot i step out of my car i go to the trailhead there are now posters from the colorado springs police department on either side of the trail very clearly warning people no hiking no running no mountain biking on this trail and i thought i'll be fine so i walk right past the warnings and i start running this two and a half mile trail i start singing i was singing a hymn it's best for me to sing by myself i can't carry a tune in a bucket but i'm singing this worship song i'm running up through these evergreens and it's just glorious i get to the very top of this trail and right before i step out into that alpine meadow to just kind of marinate in the glory of pike's peak i stopped dead in my tracks behind this huge ponderosa pine tree because from me to i'm going to say this camera guy right here although this has nothing more to do with him so don't email ugly things fresh life about him but just maybe 15 feet from me there was a naked man and i was like oh you are kidding me yeah i'm like i was seeing a hymn i was being all spiritual and now i've run into the criminal in his birthday suit and so at first i was really indignant because i thought oh my goodness this is my favorite quiet place and this guy is just spoiling it with all his trashiness and then i realized you know what i'm actually in a pretty vulnerable place which is what the bear spray reminded me of i wish i'd had bear spray um on that particular run i thought oh my goodness i left my cell phone in the car the sun is starting to set i'm two and a half miles into the wilderness i have not seen another person on this trail and i thought oh goodness gracious it's just me and the criminal and i thought he hadn't seen me yet he was kind of looking off i'm mostly behind this pine tree and i thought oh goodness if i turn and start running back down he'll see me and definitely hear me i'm not exactly a quiet runner and i thought you know should i stay and fight or should i run i just felt so vulnerable and when i get scared i'm like a junior high boy on mountain dew i just i can't think clearly and the only two thoughts in my head that we're going to call logic on this day of worship are one thought i had was i had seen i think on oprah that men who expose themselves are typically cowards and non-confrontive so i had that thought the only other kind of clear thought in my mind that afternoon was i had read in one of my hiking magazines that if you live west of the mississippi and you come upon a wild animal unless it's a bear if you come upon a wild animal other than a bear it behooves you to put your hands over your head and advance toward the wild animal all the while speaking in deep guttural tones because then that scares them and they think you're a bigger scarier animal so i'm thinking these two thoughts behind that tree and i thought okay okay i'm gonna fight i thought i'm gonna jump out from behind this tree and i'm gonna try to scare the naked man before he tries to attack me and so i jump out from behind the tree i promise y'all this is truth i tell you if i was lying in church i jump out from behind the tree and i start running toward the naked man just like this and it worked because he jumped up obviously terrified turned around and took off running in the opposite direction now here's the deal when he turned around took off running i noticed for the first time i promised that he was actually wearing these really small blue running shorts you know um sometimes guys wear those really trashy tiny shorts when they're serious about running and they have slits on the side well this guy was wearing those just tiny tiny minuscule shorts and he was sitting and the way the split had splayed y'all i promise he looked so naked um but he's running as he's running away from me he keeps looking over his shoulder you know obviously scared to death that i'm gonna chase him you know i'm just this big girl with my hands over my head screaming at him and i got so tickled and i thought i bet you he is still in therapy trying to deal with running into this woman screaming he was probably having a quiet time i thought of that when we flew over the mountain yesterday i got the bear spray and then it reminded me of something i told you i'm not the sharpest tool in shed but i'm not completely dumb i brought my study guide of take back your life with me and at the very beginning on day one pastor levi says this looks can be deceiving we can look at something but not see what's there and that means we cannot trust what we see with the naked eye scaring innocent men loitering in mount meadows yeah that is mild compared to the damage we do when we turn blurry vision toward our creator redeemer toward who he is and toward who he's called us to be i think that's my favorite thing about this particular series is taking back your life is really not so much about us it's about us recognizing just how good our god is actually opening our spiritual eyes to the glory and the power and the kindness and the holistic redemptive nature of our creator redeemer and so that's where we're going to go today we're going to be in mark chapter 10. i should confess to you that mark is my favorite of the four gospels it used to be my least favorite because mark is the shortest gospel he uses the fastest language that's because you probably know because levi and jenny are great teachers that mark was written by john mark when he got older he just said just call me mark it's kind of like southern boys they they start with double names and they're like no no don't call me jimmy john anymore i'm just jim um john mark's name as as a young guy was john mark his mama was a great leader in the early church you can read about her in acts and so he writes it he's he's literate he's educated but the narrative voice of mark's gospel this yuan jelly on the word gospel comes in the greek word you on jalan it means the good news the narrative voice of mark's gospel is peter and i don't know who y'all's favorite disciple is but i love me some pete because pete was just always stepping in it surely he would have scared a naked woman had he been running the same trail he's just always stepping in it and i love that god chose pete to lead the early church he said because peter it's not about you it's not about your capacity it's about my compassion so anyway i love the activity of mark i think peter was probably a little add and i am too and so there's all these action words but there's also this running theme of the goodness of god because remember pete's back story peter had thrown jesus under the bus at his greatest point of need vehemently and vulgarly denied that he even knew the christ so pete knew that he couldn't take back his own life by himself he knew he needed grace to get there and this is one of my favorite stories in mark's gospel by the way mark's gospel is actually the first gospel when they canonized scripture they listed matthew as the first gospel but in written order mark is actually the very first literary compilation of the life and ministry of jesus christ so i love that too anyway this is mark 10 i'm reading from the esv so it may differ a bit from the translation you prefer beginning at verse 46 and they came to jericho and as he was leaving they're talking about jesus here and as he was leaving jericho with his disciples in a great crowd bartimaeus a blind beggar the son of timaeus was sitting by the roadside and when he heard that it was jesus of nazareth he began to cry out and say jesus son of david have mercy on me now he's yelling i don't know if he's got his hands over his head or not he's yelling and the people around him it says many in the crowd rebuked him telling him to be silent but he cried out all the more now to set this it's an it's an actual story but to set it up for you so you get a mental picture jesus is passing through jericho on his way to jerusalem first half of mark's gospel is all about the compassion of christ the word compassion in our english bibles is translated from the greek word splognitzo my and it means from the gut and so the whole beginning of mark's gospel is all about the the from the gut compassion jesus expressed towards those who were sick or wounded or worried or powerless just the way so many of us have felt for the last few months instead of expressing a hallmark kind of compassion or some kind of religious stiff kindness jesus expressed compassion from the gut gut level compassion so first half of mark's gospel is all about the splagnitsu my the gut level compassion of christ second half of mark's gospel there's a turn we're right in the turn second half of mark's gospel is all about the passion of the christ and i'm not talking about emotion i'm not talking about how we feel after we've had a double espresso the passion of the christ in biblical literature means that jesus was resolute about the cross he knew exactly where he was going he knew what easter meant for him he knew he was headed to his own death and he was resolute about it he said this is my purpose i'm passionate about this it is worth it for me to lay down my life so that you will have yours and so we're right at the turn he makes us turn he's passing through jericho it's his very last pit stop i don't know about you but if i knew i was headed to my own murder that was going to be horrific and painful and humiliating i might stop for a massage or for some carbo-loading but jesus doesn't jesus doesn't stay at a nice hotel he doesn't carve out some me time he's still actively involved in expressing compassion which just slays me given the context of this passage so he's passing through a crowd forms not necessarily because they believe in jesus they've just gotten all the facebook forwards and instagram stories and they've heard he's a healer and so they decide they're going to come together to see what he's like so a crowd forms well at the very back of the crowd sitting on the curb we're told in the greek is a guy named bart bartimaeus now he's not part of that raucous crowd partly because he's blind and in the first century if you had an ongoing medical illness or disease it was assumed that you had unconfessed sin in your life remember how even the disciples of jesus when they encountered a blind man in john's gospel they said jesus who sinned this blind dude or or his parents so it's assumed bartimaeus is hiding something so he is ostracized ceremonially and literally he's sitting at the back the crowd not engaged in the party sitting at the back he hears obviously he can't see he's blind he hears jesus is coming through he hears people talking about this is jesus of nazareth this is that rabbi everybody's been talking about it's that rabbi when he preaches everybody says he's so good you're not tempted to play angry birds like he's supposed to be so great he hears is jesus coming through and kind of against protocol certainly cultural protocol he begins to hauler that's what we'd say in the south anyway he begins to yell jesus son of david have mercy on me if we were meeting in person right now so wish we were i've watched fresh life so many times so i feel like i know y'all if we were meeting in person i'd do a little quiz right now and i'd say what is significant about him calling jesus the son of david because i know y'all know this answer the fact that bart called jesus the son of david means bart actually believed jesus was the christ he's saying i know i know the prophecies i know the back story from torah i believe you are the son of god essentially bart is saying i believe you're the only one who can help me take my life back jesus son of david have mercy on me now remember it's a religious crowd they don't necessarily believe in jesus but they're a religious crowd because they've gathered to see him so you'd think the crowd would kind of split like the red sea and they go bar bart hey come on come on be part of us come on we'll usher you through to meet this rabbi but they don't instead it says the crowd rebukes him and the word rebuke in the original language is actually much grittier than rebuke and english in the original language it's epitomic and it means to command with the implication of a threat how many of y'all are moms or dads okay if you're a parent or a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle or as they say in haiti and an auntie then you have epitomiad epitomia looks like this you're driving to church when we could actually attend in person and your kids are in the back seat and if you're still cool you only have two kids you have an suv if you have more than two you have a minivan because you just have to go there but you're driving to church and your kids are fussing in the back seat and you tell them to be quiet but they keep fighting over this imaginary line that they've drawn down the middle of the seat and they keep fussing it gets louder and finally you aim the rear view mirror and you say something along the lines of if y'all don't shut up i'm gonna shut you up if y'all don't quit fussing i'm gonna give you something fuss about if you don't you know the language because we've all used it i mean not those of you who are really committed christians and fill in your bible study blanks but those of you who still struggle with sin and impatience you know epitomize it's stronger than rebuke and that's what they do to bart here he says son of david jesus and they say if you don't shut up we're going to shut you up they're probably embarrassed jericho is a small city compared to jerusalem doesn't have nearly the panache that jerusalem has they're probably like bart quit being such a redneck like don't ruin our reputation shush or we're going to shut you up when i was 40 years old i went to a women's conference and one of the speakers was talking about adoption now i'm 56 now i'm single i've never been married i tease and say my husband has lost and won't stop to ask for directions um so if you're interested one eight hundred five eight and i'm teasing um mostly but anyway at 40 i realized you know i probably am not going to be able to have children of mine i've missed that window and truth of the matter is i was really really broken in my 20s and 30s very broken relationally i was in some very abusive very toxic relationships and around 40 i realized you know what i'm afraid i'm never going to get to be a parent and i thought you know that's just the consequences of my own sin i don't for a moment believe that our redeemer is capricious but there are consequences to sin and i thought the consequence of my relational toxicity is i'm not going to get to be a mama and i never really thought that i could adopt as a single woman i just grew up in the south super conservative christian culture so that wasn't even kind of on my radar then i went to this christian women's conference and and i actually went to a breakout session not realizing it was on adoption it was on missions and i knew the speaker was interesting and i didn't want to go to one of the boring sessions about table settings or something not that there's anything wrong with that but i thought i'll go to this missions breakout and then this girl little teeny blonde girl jenny size got up and started talking about adoption and she said there are 147 million give or take a few orphans in the world as we know it she talked about the fact that millions and millions of orphans die every year from very preventable diseases like malaria or having access to clean water and then she paused before stating a verse that most of you are probably familiar with it's in the new testament in james and basically it says if you've put your hope in jesus then you'll help the poor and the mess and the marginalized she'll help widows and orphans and she quoted that verse and then she paused for a second and again like jenny very gracious very petite i didn't expect her to be so bossy she paused and then she kind of looked out over the sea of you know women's christian conference attendees with quilted bible covers and she said what are you doing about it and i remember thinking well i didn't i didn't know i could do anything about it you know i'm old my ovaries are raisins i i didn't know i could do anything about adoption but you know how sometimes pastor levi will say something or jenny will preach something and you'll go goodness gracious that just hooked something in my heart and i don't know what god wants me to do about it but i just get the sense he wants me to do something and that's where i was after hearing her talking about adoption so i thought i'm not going to tell everybody i know y'all don't do this at fresh life but sometimes in the south women disguise gossip as prayer requests so i thought i'm not going to tell everybody i'm just going to tell my small group that i feel like god is just kind of stirring my spirit of the issue of orphan care i don't know what that means i don't know if i'm supposed to do a you know short-term or long-term missions and help in an orphanage in a third world country i don't know if that just means giving more of my offering um to ministries that that are about orphan care i'm not sure what i'm going to do about it i just know i've got to take a step in this direction and because i don't always hear super clearly from the lord on my own he's called us to community he's made us in his image genesis 1 26-27 god made us in his image and as in us our god perfectly existed augustine says as a community unto himself god the father god the son god the holy spirit be careful during this coveted season when you can't touch all your friends and you might not be able to meet in person be careful that you're not spiritually distancing be careful that you're reaching out that you're connecting you're saying even if you can't lay hands on me lay hands with me through the phone i need you to pray for me i need you to pray with me so i told this small group i said y'all i need your help i just need you to seek god's will on my behalf i'm i'm hearing but i want to make sure i'm hearing the directions god's giving he says in isaiah that he'll whisper when we should turn to the right or when we should turn to the left he doesn't try to be mysterious he says i want you to know the way that i want you to walk so i said will y'all help me just help me here and three of them basically said lisa we'll pray with you we'll pray for you we've got your back they were really encouraging one of them said if you have time later on this week i'd like to meet you in private process this further now this is an aside this has nothing to do with fresh life don't send fresh life ugly text or emails about this this is just free if a really kind of grumpy looking christian woman with elastic waist pants tells you she needs to meet with you in private because she has a word from the lord just for you y'all need to take a friend um but i've as i told you never been the sharpest tool in the shed so i met this woman by myself she was a member of my small group and a woman who loved jesus it's interesting how sometimes christians can use scripture as a club she she said lisa i want to be really straight with you because you talked about the fact that you're praying about adoption and she said i don't know if that means you're considering becoming an adoptive parent but i just want to be real direct with you because the bible says that the wounds of a friend are better than the kiss of an enemy and then she came in with a club she said i just want to be real frank and tell you i don't think you should be a a mom she said you have shared with our small group that you were sexually sexually molested when you were younger and she said i know you've been to christian counseling but she said lisa just in case you weren't fixed you could potentially take some of that trauma you experienced as a child and unwittingly transfer that onto a child of your own so she said i just don't think you're a good candidate for parenthood i know you really want to nurture so my advice to you would be to go to the humane society and adopt a dog because you're really good with pets you know she wasn't trying to be hateful she really wasn't she was trying to be truthful here's the deal we are called to be in community but the loudest voice has got to be jesus loudest voice has got to come from god's word if somebody says something to you and it's not congruent with god's word it's not from god everything we hear from pastors teachers friends small group community members it has to be congruent with this text and i should have recognized as a 40 year old i've been walking with jesus since i was a little girl i should have recognized gosh the words fallen out of her mouth don't match the words my heavenly father speaks over me because god doesn't use shame as a motivational tool and i thought hmm i should have known that but i didn't y'all because what she spoke paired up with my deepest bruise my deepest bruise was what if what happened in my past has put a lid on my future what if because of what i walked through then it's damaged me to such a point that i would be a cruddy mom it scared me to death that was my greatest fear that's the thing about the enemy we do ourselves such a disservice when we characterize satan the father of lies that's another thing i love about this this message from levi he doesn't play when it comes the enemy we tend to in christian culture characterize the father of lies satan the enemy of our souls we care characterize him as like wearing a red onesie a beyonce onesie with horns and we make him like this cartoon innocuous cartoon character that is not who he is scripture says he's a carnivore he is seeking who he can devour he is planning today to rob steal kill and destroy and here's how he does it the most effectively i know with me but i bet some of y'all he's done this he doesn't say things to me that i would know right away oh that's a lie like when the enemy is messing with me trying to jack me up he never says lisa you're such an introvert with such a high metabolism i mean if he said that i'd be like liar liar paints on fire i would see him from a distance that's not how he talks to me the enemy when he's trying to take my life what the enemy does is he he takes a a really painful usually a really painful chapter from my past and he speaks something that happened to me that broke my heart and then he stirs that with some toxicity and when he presents it it smells like the truth so when that woman said you might be too messed up from your past to make a good mother it resonated with me instead of going before the lord and going lord is this what you would say to me i didn't i thought she's probably right and i had secretly printed out an adopt adoption application i was 40 years old after i met with her i put that in the very back of my file drawer and the next day when i got off work i went to the nashville humane society and i adopted a chocolate lab named sally with bladder control problems my third dog that season sweet dog but she was not god's best for me that season y'all anybody who says to you that you need to lower your expectations or keep a lid on it that's not a voice congruent with god's word you might need a new choir so if anybody's speaking words of death over your life and they have it covered with scripture even pretend like it's from the lord take it to god's word because anybody who's saying you need to put a lid on it and you need to lower your expectations that's not congruent with god's word i wish i had been more like bartimaeus because when the crowd around bartimaeus says put a lid on it lower your expectations shut up do you know what he does it's one of my favorite verses in mark's gospel look back at this and if you've got your highlighter highlight this baby because we'll need to come back to it it's so great and many rebuked him epitomized him said we're going to beat you up if you don't shut up telling him to be silent but he cried out all the more don't you love that yeah that's a secret when it comes to taking your life back if the world around you goes you know that's just not very appropriate cry out all the more for god to reveal himself to you i love jesus response and jesus stopped and jesus stopped now y'all remember the context jesus is on his way to easter he's on his way to jerusalem this is his very last pit stop hear me because the social historical context of this is huge he's on his way to easter and he effectively puts easter on pause for one person one man one man that nobody else would even give the benefit of the conversation one man that his whole little community had tried to shut him up jesus stops isn't that profound i mean then i just slay you that he always chooses us even over purpose he says hang on just a minute let's put the cross and cross on pause for just a second because this guy needs me he leaves the 99 for the one anybody who tries to tell you that our god is not loving is a liar and has not read his word our god is so kind he's so personal he's so loving he sees you i know some of you all because of covid because of your circumstances right now feel completely invisible that is not spiritual reality it might be your circumstantial reality this levi says what you see right now is not what is really true you can't see the god who breathed this earth into existence looking at you going i'm right here i'm right here i've got you right here jesus stops and he says bring him to me can you imagine how embarrassed the crowd was you know pretending to be religious they've been shushing this needy guy oh yeah sure sure we'll come okay and so they they get bartimaeus bartimaeus comes he stands before jesus and this is what happens they called the blind man saying to him take heart get up he is calling you and throwing off his cloak bart sprang up and came to jesus and jesus said to him what do you want me to do for you can you imagine if you could see jesus wherever you are right now in your watch party you imagine if jesus comes walking in he'd be wearing a a robe because that's what jewish men wore in the first century there would be blue tassels on the robe because that's what they told them to do to remind him of the law he'd probably have long hair brown hair he's jewish so he wouldn't be the blonde you know super pale guy that the germans painted he's a jewish guy but can you imagine if jesus came walking up into your watch party and you could see him with your natural eyes and he looked at you he looked at you on the couch by yourself with your link cuisine and he said what do you need me to do for you i mean can you imagine y'all it's here the bible says where two or three are gathered i mean he's in our midst we just can't see him with our natural eyes bart's standing in front of jesus the son of god and jesus says bart what do you need i always picture bart standing there now this is my word not god's word um my imagination not not holy rip but i imagine bart standing there imagine him going jesus i want to see my my son round third i lost my sight when he was just a little guy last time i've seen him swing about was in t-ball and my boy's gotten really good he backs forth and i've cheered myself hoarse i've lost my voice listen to my boy play but i've never seen him round third i'd love to see my boy score jesus i'd love to see my wife smile again her smile is what grabbed my heart in the first place i was working on my dissertation in a coffee shop in downtown kalispell and a door i heard the bell on the door behind me and i turned around and she walked in and our eyes met and her face split into a grin and i lost my heart my wife had me at first smile she says i haven't seen her smile in 11 years i would just about do anything yeshua if i could see my boy around third and run toward home and i could see the love of my life smile again and jesus says to bartimaeus this man nobody else would listen to and jesus said go your way your faith has made you well and immediately he recovered his sight and followed him along the way it's interesting that it says he recovered his sight which sounds like the greatest miracle in the passage i don't think it is i think the greatest miracle in the passage is the trajectory of bart's life he went from being completely alone on the curb basically sitting out on life to following jesus along the way do you know before they called us christians christ followers in the middle first century they called those who believed in jesus members of the way jim bartimaeus is included as that very small group of christian leaders who followed jesus all the way up golgotha you know bart was sitting there as jesus stretched out his arms and said it's finished my grace is covered your life bart followed him that whole way bart is counted among the leadership of the early church and acts he went from being completely checked out in life completely missed in life to being a great spiritual leader speaking of spiritual leaders eugene peterson is one of my favorites he wrote the message that's just one of his many many many books but eugene peterson defines obedience as a long walk in the same direction what he does not define obedience as is a parade down main street sometimes risky faith and the most rewarding faith there are seasons of that that's a solo walk we are called to community but as god stirs in you things that you're supposed to do places you're supposed to stand in order to take your life back in order to really rest in the love that god has for you to actually move into him into a more intimate relationship with jesus for a few of you it may be lonely for a season there's a long way bart followed jesus all the way up golgotha very few made that walk very few took their life back to that extent rewarding faith is usually risky i love that part of bart's story i love that the best part of a story was was so different than he probably even imagined he thought everything would be good again if i could just see and jesus said oh i've got so much more than sight for you for seven years i was afraid to step my stick my toe back in the adoption pond afraid i would be a really bad mom and then at 47 the lord and his kindness just said it's time for you to stand up it's time for you to get off the curb it's time for you to take your life back and i contacted an adoption agency and i said i i don't want to put my name in the hat for a kid who has a good shot at a mom and a dad i believe that's best case scenario for children who are adopted but i said if there is an orphan case that comes your way and the child doesn't seem to have a great shot at a mama and a daddy um i think a fluffy single woman living in middle tennessee is a better option than death and so if there's one of those situations i'd love to be considered and i can't tell you the whole story but bottom line is i lost two adoptions before i got paired with missy and y'all i felt like my heart had been run over by trucks on the pavement i wasn't sure i could peel it back up that's the thing about taking your life back too sometimes it's painful i think the greatest gifts are often on the other side of rivers of tears i love that levi says you you get to a point that you just keep going he talked about in the study guide a day in teddy roosevelt's life and he said a switch flipped inside and he president roosevelt became unstoppable in his resolve for the rest of his life he referred to that day july 1st 1898 as the greatest day of his life the day the wolf rose in his heart the wolf rose in my heart in 2012 and i lost two adoptions and the second one i thought would just about kill me emotionally i lost a baby four days before i was supposed to bring her home and um was just devastated and two weeks after that i got a phone call from a girl i hadn't seen in years and she said lisa she said i know you just lost anna price and she said and i know that was really devastating and i don't know if you even have the bandwidth to pray about this but she said i just got home from haiti last night and while i was in haiti one of the young moms in the village i was visiting died of aids undiagnosed aids she didn't know she had aids and she left behind a two-year-old little girl and she's really sick this little girl she has hiv she has cholera she has tuberculosis she's malnourished and the doctors in haiti said that she probably won't live more than two months and she said while i was in the er with the people who are helping at this village she said i just felt jesus speak to my spirit and he said lisa harper's supposed to be missy's mom and she said so i know this is probably really presumptuous but i just wanted to call you and ask if you'd think if you'd pray about the possibility of stepping into another adoption journey and i said no i won't pray about it i said i've been praying about this for 30 years to sign me up and i got off the phone and y'all the first word that came out of my mouth was not biblical i won't tell you what it is but it rhymes with wit and i thought goodness gracious i don't know how to do this i don't know how to adopt a child who they're saying as a diet i have no idea how to do this taking your life back involves taking the next step you don't have to see around the corner of where god is calling you just get off the curb like bart and take the next right step all i did was say yes and then i said a bad word because i thought i can't do this and i sense god in the spirit say no honey you can't but i've got your back and i'm going to carry you and two years later april 14 2014 i brought my little girl home from haiti y'all she's 11 years old she's healthy as a horse or hiv has been undetectable for six years she is other than jesus she's the greatest gift in my life and i almost missed her i almost missed her i almost stayed on the curb after somebody said you're not quite good enough that's a lie it's a lie from the pit of hell god has called you to a greater place than you're living now he loves you more than you can possibly imagine he is coming for you he may even be using the stillness of covid to drown out the really loud lies in your life so that you can hear his voice saying come here come closer to me get off the curb intimacy with jesus is not found in managing our expectations it's found in raising them to accommodate miracles he loves you i want to pray for those of you who don't yet know jesus you've been watching fresh life because a friend told you about it you've been reading jenny's books and levi's books and louie's books and shelley's books and they all resonate with you but there's some secret corner of your heart that like me believes that your past has impeded your future there's some place in you that feels like you need to put a lid on that expectation that may be a holy god because i actually love a man like you with a past a woman like you that some people have said was dirty or damaged he loves you so much my pastor back home my favorite story he tells involves a wedding and he said he had just graduated from seminary he was nervous as a cat to be officiating this wedding this was a very formal wedding involving two very wealthy families he said he was standing up front right before the wedding started and the groomsmen had all come into his left and the bridesmaid coming to his right everybody was wearing couture he said he was just so nervous he said then they they started the organ and the bride appeared on the back of the at the back of the church in the middle aisle on the arm of her dad and he said before he could stop him the bridegroom just ran from his position and started running down the middle aisle toward his bride he said he was so overwhelmed by her beauty that he just broke protocol and just took off after his bride and scotty said he had to pull up his robes jump off the platform chase down the bridegroom brag it drag him by the back of his tux and pull him back into position y'all that's how jesus describes himself in scripture that he is a bridegroom who can't wait to be with you the song psalm he says with one glance of your eyes you've captured my heart hollywood stole the line from the bible you had god at hello it's time to get off the curve isn't it time to move into the arms of jesus wherever you are you don't have to close your eyes that tends to be kind of a religious thing you can keep your eyes open but will you just come before the lord with me right now and if you feel the lord stir in your spirit and you want to be known you want to be found you want to be seen by god you want to be loud for the love that will never ever fade or fail he will not leave you alone would you pray with me dear jesus i'm a mess i'm a hot mess i've made so many mistakes that have separated me from your holiness i've committed so many sins and jesus some sins have been committed against me that have just about broken my heart so i need your forgiveness and i need your healing like bartimaeus i believe you are the only one who can bring me life the only one who can give me my life back so jesus today i put my hope in you i confess that you are the king of all kings i don't understand at all jesus but i believe i believe you came to this world in a suit of skin i believed you lived a perfect life i believe you willingly walked up a hill and you spread out your arms and you died on a cross to reconcile me a hot mess with a holy god my creator redeemer so today right now jesus i just commit myself into your hands and i say you are my only hope here's my heart jesus help me to rest in your affection and then jesus give me the grace to take the next right step closer toward you closer toward the rest of the abundant life that you provided for me amen and amen and amen it has been pure joy to be with you all thank you so much for for letting me me do life with y'all today it's been a joy

Channel: Fresh Life Church

Views: 119,145

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Keywords: lisa harper, eye of a tiger, through the eyes of a lion, levi lusko church, fresh life church, levi lusko sermons, levi lusko books, levi lusko i declare war, levi lusko, churches in kalispell mt, levi lusko tattoos, levi lusko quotes, jennie lusko, pastor levi, pastor levi lusko, swipe right, i declare war, bozeman montana, montana cities, the bible, books of the bible, missoula churches, portland churches, salt lake city churches, depression, anxiety, mental health

Id: VF8PnqtH12g

Length: 47min 32sec (2852 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 16 2020