Sunday Service - 10/3/2021 - Matt Chandler - Unearthed: Who We Are

jesus [Music] [Music] here i am is [Music] [Music] your is jesus [Music] free forever is uh [Music] the highest price [Music] [Music] [Music] salvation was your aim your blood of freedom boy [Music] it is finished you proclaimed you reign high above it [Music] you're my prince of peace and you i've been set free [Music] away [Music] hey church family good morning how are y'all doing all right okay good hey excited to be here together excited to worship together very first thing i'm sorry for this but we do need it if there's room in the middle your sections here on the floor if you could scoot in towards the middle of that section it'd be a huge help for folks that are coming in so if that's you if you're able to scoot in please do that and here's here's a promise as you scoot in as you get closer to the people around you as you get plugged in here at the church as you get closer to this place this is what you're going to find we are not perfect this place does not offer perfection we are figuring things out as we go but here's why we're here today we're here because we serve a god who is perfect we serve a god who is good and this morning we're going to turn our eyes towards him we're dedicated to be people who love god who love people and who make disciples of jesus christ who become followers become disciples so that's our plan so if if you would like to be a part of that if you'd like to be a part of this community the easiest way that you can get plugged in is to text the number that's going to appear on the screen here just text the word belong to 56549 the next easiest way is to grab the card that's in the back of the seat in front of you fill out that card you can also put prayer requests on there and just drop it off in those boxes by the door you can also stop by connection central around the corner out here and have a conversation with a real person but today is the first weekend of the month and every first week of the month we have a first steps class that meets this afternoon and so if you would like to get plugged in to get funneled into the different opportunities and ministries and places where you can receive ministry here at the church that is probably the best way to get plugged in so you can register with this link that's behind me but if you're here and you haven't taken that step to get plugged in we would invite you to that that's that's where this place becomes not just um something to consume but a family to be a part of and and relationships to belong to and we believe that's that's where you're gonna find flourishing and so we invite you to that um a couple of announcements for us this one is shameless and selfish but our worship team just released a song called strongholds yeah thank you um will reyes another worship leader he wrote that song and the entire thing was produced and recorded and put together by volunteers and by staff members here at the church and so it's a prayer from this place and and for this place having seen the lord's work calling back to to strongholds of the enemy that we've seen torn down and work that the lord has done and and then asking for more praying for more and so you can listen to that anywhere that you stream music that's available now um and so with that in mind with prayer for this place in mind as we head into october as a church we've made our goal our plan to dedicate ourselves to prayer for our neighborhoods prayer for those who live around us in the city in this community and so we are giving ourselves to that for the month of october and so if you as an individual or as a family or as a home group would like to walk through your neighborhoods and and pray for the houses that you pass pray for the individuals that you may know already by name you may not have met yet but just ask that the lord would reveal himself to them and when opportunities arise when you get a chance to interact with the folks that are in that home trevor a couple weeks ago gave us a few statements that are really helpful just to say hey my name is trevor my name is grant whatever your name is i serve a god who i believe loves you and who answers prayer and i would love to pray for you if there's anything that i could pray for you for so those simple statements take us so quickly from an interaction that that might have no long-term significance into a spiritual space where we get to offer what we believe changes lives what we believe centers us and grounds us and provides us with a foundation so let's offer that to our communities let's be a people who are about prayer there's a link behind me as well where you can find a digital guide to that process for this month so prayer is how we're going to start this service as well would you stand with me we're going to read from psalm 145 and this is just the text of that psalm the text of god's word we call ourselves into worship through this one generation shall command your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts on the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works we will meditate they shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds and i will declare your greatness they shall pour forth the frame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness great is the lord and greatly to be praised having pointed his greatness in his righteousness we acknowledge our need but this is how he responds to our need this is how he responds to our imperfection the lord is gracious and merciful slow to anger abounding and steadfast love the lord is good to all and his mercy is over all he has made he fulfills the desire of those who fear him he also hears their cry and saves them great is the lord greatly to be praised all your work shall give thanks to you o lord and all your saints shall bless you they shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom your dominion endures throughout all generations great is the lord and great need to be praised so we praise him we declare again that he's great [Music] [Music] [Music] you bring life [Music] you restore every heart [Music] are sure [Applause] is [Music] me [Music] you restore every heart [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] wow [Music] these [Music] yes [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] our hearts will cry these wounds [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] is [Music] in our lives [Music] [Applause] we compare ourselves to his greatness we find ourselves lacking we find ourselves in need we find his goodness we find his forgiveness we find identity in christ so we give thanks give our gratitude to give our worship let's remember our needs [Music] without your goodness i would be desperate without your love asleep to the darkness if he [Music] with your kindness he chased me down i was lost [Music] thank you jesus i was a prisoner now i'm not [Music] [Applause] hallelujah no more shame i've been given mercy in its place [Applause] [Music] will be my songs [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] but my jesus [Music] hallelujah thank you jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] he paid [Music] thank you jesus how was it prisoner now hallelujah [Music] it's our posture is gratitude and celebration not because of what we bring but because of all that he's given us so staying in that posture we're going to sing a new song acknowledging we bring nothing to this table but knowing he gives us all that we need and so so our posture is is not just kneeling it's not just looking inward and acknowledging what we lack but it's setting our eyes on who he is and responding to that so what you sing as you catch on [Music] so [Music] oh my words fall short i've got nothing new [Music] how could i express all my gratitude i could sing these songs as [Music] so i [Music] is [Music] except for a heart [Music] i've got one [Music] [Music] i will [Music] is [Music] i know it's not much [Music] [Music] as we lay shame aside we lay fear aside we give our god the worship that he's do unashamed of the gospel of christ let's lift our voices call ourselves into this [Music] now come on my sword don't you get shy on me lift up your song cause you've got a lying inside of those lungs get up and praise the lord he's worthy come on [Music] now come on my soul and told she can't shine [Music] get up and praise the lord [Music] [Applause] get up and praise the lord [Music] [Music] get out there [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] just one more time that you actually raise your hands we respond in this way so i'll throw up my hands and praise you again and again [Music] [Music] i know it's not much but i'm nothing else fit for a king except for [Music] [Music] amen would you give him your hallelujah what your word [Applause] pray this with me lord we ask that we would not be shy where shyness where timidness to speak your name to sing your name to speak of you to others is is just some sort of contorted shame some sort of fear of man that the enemy has planted in order to slow down your kingdom we pray that you would just cast that off of us that would be gone from this place gone from my heart gone from our hearts would you give us a boldness for the name that's worth shouting a boldness for the one name that's worth saying in every space that we enter there's no other name but the name of jesus given unto men by which we might be saved so would you cause us to be those that share we thank you for that name we thank you for the forgiveness of our sins that we have through your son through his blood we thank you for the hope for the future that's given to us through him that can't be taken away spirit which do that work within us it's the name of jesus christ that we pray amen [Music] [Music] uh good morning it's so good to be here my name is doug alexander my wife suan and i serve here at the church in the home groups ministry and also in the pre-marriage mentoring ministry now i'm going to read from the book of psalms the 139th chapter starting in verse 13. before you formed me i'm sorry you for you formed my inward parts you knitted me together in my mother's womb i praise you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made wonderful are your works and my soul knows it very well my frame was not hidden from you when i i was being made in secret intricately woven in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed substance and in your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them this is the word of the lord thanks be to god um i know that dub looks like a man that could crush me into powder um but i i wanted to just stop before we moved in and and dub you know standing here reading this morning um is one of the original 168 that that was here when i became the pastor here almost 20 years ago now um and dub in particular and there are others like i saw the wince and the last service uh i would i'm gonna sing del steel's praise i wouldn't be your pastor if it weren't for del steele who's since gone to be with the lord but the scheffler's i mean i'd see gene there was this group here 168 of them when when i got here um and and god started growing this congregation very quickly um and and that created some significant pressure here for people that were a part of the 168 who were used to room weren't used to being turned away from a service um had a parking spot that they really liked and they were used to parking it you can giggle in that but that that's a thing right some of you somebody ain't been around long enough no that's a thing um and and so as the church began to grow uh in those early years there was a group of people that were having a very difficult time with it uh they were just like uh that i don't know anybody anymore or why does he do that or why does he do this and dell represents one of the many men who would remind the original 168 we prayed for this and and i want you know if jesus has done anything in your life uh over the last 20 years at this place it's because that man and men like him wet the ground with their tears asking for a move of god in their day and suanne is at home and she's very much a part of that and and so i i like putting dub in front of you because he's just like if i think biblical masculinity i think dub right dude like just deep voice could break you in half but starts to weep when he reads the word of god and thinks about how true it is like that that that was a gift and of itself i could just leave now and there would be enough but don't get your hopes up i'm not wired that way so i i want to dive in uh last week we started this series called unearthed and and i tried last week just to get my cards on the table that's all i was trying to do last week i was trying to tell you uh that that we need to do some work if we're going to be uh what we desire to be and and so i said really all of this year's preaching uh planned out in fact we've already got next year now planned out we're going to do uh first peter in the spring and then in the fall i'm gonna just do a big series on the imago day where we talk about manhunt womanhood we talk about children we talk about i don't want to call it elderly i want to call it something cooler than that uh and then we're going to talk about homosexuality and we're going to talk about these things that are all tied to the imago day what does it mean to be a human being so that's next year but that i gotta get this here it was revelation uh right it was uh we i let's get some courage let's lean into the moment and then now it's this series called unearthed because i i need we need to understand who and what we are if we're going to cause trouble for the enemy and that's what i'm listening you'll know more about this as we dive into the sermon that my my endgame is just as best i can make his life as miserable as he's making ours that's it i got no power for that other than the power of the holy spirit but i'm i'll even use i'm hell bent on it right i get up thinking about how can i cause problems for him today how can i live my life in such a way where he's like gosh i can't i despise this guy and then i want it for our whole congregation but to get there you have to understand the the sovereign authority of jesus christ over all things that's revelation calling you into courage calling you into commitment calling you into a unwavering won't shrink back mentality and then the other thing that i think we're desperate to know is the who and what like who are we what are we and and that led us to unearthed because if you're a naval gazing everything about me is terrible and you can't see kind of your distinct significant specific identity in christ then i think you will compare yourself to others rob yourself of the joy of your destiny and sit on the sideline and i think this is one of the big ploys of the enemy in our day and so last week that's what i just tried to lay out i said there's three ways by which we can understand the who and what we are the first is that we are human beings we are made in the image of god we are distinct among among the rest of creation has been given to us and us alone to have a mental emotional spiritual component that as much as you think your dog loves you he or she does not have i'm not saying they're not a wonderful companion i'm not saying dogs aren't great we've got a couple of them i'm telling you your dog's not worried about what happens to it when it dies i'm saying your dog's not thinking about retirement or worried about his relationship with his girl that that is non-present in your dog or hamster affair whatever you've done to yourself we alone possess that because we alone have been made in the image of god so that that's one the the second way that's basic we're all i'm looking around we you did it congrats you're human that's us equal in dignity value and respect because we're made in the image of god right so that's one the the second way that we're to understand the who and what is in what i just called our general identity and i said general identity has everything to do with what you do with the person and work of jesus christ that you're generous you want to move from human you move from human to two one of two categories the the first category is child of god a child of god believes uh that christ has come uh the the son of god co-eternal with the father put on flesh and dwelt among us in the person of jesus christ he lives a spotless life he is crucified for our sins absorbing god's wrath towards us and imputing to us his righteousness at his resurrection and he reigns and rules alongside the father right now he is ascended to the right hand of father in physical form not ghosty form in physical form and you and i are partakers in that victory we have been adopted as sons and daughters that makes you a child of god if you're a christian here you're a child of god you have moved from human to child of god the other option the only other option would be what the bible calls child of wrath and i know that offends modern sensibilities so let me try to package it in a way that i think we can understand um if you are a child of wrath you have chosen that you are smarter than god and are a better authority over your life and the lives of those you know than the creator god of the bible so by doing that god's response to you going i don't want you i want your stuff i want your creation but i don't want you all right i think that i'm smarter than you so i want to live my life the way i want to live and i'm not going to give you any credit for the good but i might pop off about the bad romans 1 says when you do that god says okay go for it and he turns you over to do what ought not be done so so if you've got a beef with being called a child of wrath you just have to understand you chose that for you christ has come actually to save you from that that's what john 3 17 says for i have come into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world from condemnation what condemnation being children of wrath so so everybody in here is either a child of god child of wrath so human child of god child of wrath and then once we get that settled and that's a huge one right now the illustration i used last week is that that's the first button on your shirt so i got up this morning uh i'm i'm earlier than everybody on sunday uh so i'm kind of tiptoeing around and and what i have to do is like i got to pop it down right and then i find the first one and then once i have the first one you got it but you get that first button wrong right how how how how easily can you listen to me right now if my shirt's all janky right now you're like is that what the kids are doing honey is that sweetheart are you do your kids at school do they wear that like that yeah i'm not i'm not fashion forward i don't know if you figured that out about me yet but no you if you get that button right though if i know i'm a child of god bam then the rest of it any other question i ask about specific identity i now can answer with the right lenses on and so my plan today is to turn our attention to specific identity and what that means is this will only make sense to you let me say it this way this will only work for you if you first understand your general identity and that general identity is i'm a child of god nothing else i'm gonna teach for the next six seven weeks will work for you if you don't have that button buttoned it's not that it's not true it's that you have determined that your ultimate reality is this kind of fluid ever changing desires in your guts that you're now kind of personifying and making about your personhood while you find a group of people that agrees with those desires and then if that doesn't work and you're still a little bit lonely you want to sprinkle some spirituality on top remember how we talked about that last week we look in what do i most desire let's forget the fact that these two aren't compatible in fact i can't have either both of these but let's just take this one it's the strongest one right now okay i've got this this is who i am my personhood is wrapped around this desire that i have now let me find people who agree with that check got my community that agrees with that gosh why why is this still going wrong for me why am i still angry why am i still lonely why am i depressed oh you know what i need some spirituality now let me find a spirituality that will agree with my community based on my desire at least for this five year window because god knows that desire's changing soon and now let me sprinkle that spiritual and let's go for it and and this has been the primary way that identity has been formed in our day and age look in look around and lastly look up and it has been disastrous the fruit of it is anger and anxiety and depression and the most medicated generation the world's ever seen the pressure of forming your own moral universe laid on people that can't bear the weight of that is an impossible thing and yet i said this to you last week everything the whole flow of our culture is telling you that's the only way to understand who and what you are so we reject that as christians in fact we said this last week we are not self-created you're not self-created god created you and we went a step further and we said you're not even self-defined you're god defined so so all the weight of me trying to figure out who i am what i am has actually been lifted straight off of me and now i know whose i am right i belong to him and here's the here's the truth that i want to remind you before we get into specific identity as i turn the page on this although i think every week i'll come back and hit it uh maybe even harder next week than this but that this concept of looking in and then around and then up is this idea that that ultimately since i was created by him and i am defined by him that i want you to hear this because i've been praying all week it would get down in your soul um the more we become his the more we actually become ourselves listen to me the more we become his the more that the pressure from the word of god the compulsion of the spirit says like this and i submit to that rather than buck up against it the more i do that the more i actually become more like myself the more i actually step into what i was designed to be and who i was designed to be and likewise the more i reject that the more i do myself to be thrown all over the universe by my desires to constantly be angry at any time you disagree with me because my desires are my personhood how dare you sir right so so i've been set free from that the more we see him clearly the more clearly we see who are really we really are that this is that lens of our general identity that we have to have on before we move to specific identity lest we get all cocky about how unique we are but i do want to tell you this you are unique i do want to tell you this you are something specific and there's no one else like you anywhere and there never will be you are you and so i want to start talking about that aspect of identity so general identity set now right we are children of god so with our adoption papers intact sealed by the blood of jesus the power of the spirit we move into our specific identity look at this psalm 139 starting verse 13 for you formed my inward parts you knitted me together in my mother's womb i praise you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made wonderful are your works my soul knows it very well my frame was not hidden from you when i was being made in secret intricately woven in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed substance and in your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there was not one of them now i'm going to get back to that line right we were made for the day and the day for us that was in ephesians 2 10 also it's all over the bible more on that in a minute this passage is speaking of god's good design in us specifically it's not a if you don't if you don't really know how you you're supposed to approach the bible that this is not us denying biology right we are aware of how babies are made we wouldn't argue with you if you're like well actually there's a sperm and an egg and there's like we'd be like yeah absolutely uh we're not going no god has knitting needles that's how babies are made like we don't believe that here's what we do believe though look at me there's something going on under the biology like as christians we're happy to affirm what science shows us about biology we're like yeah absolutely but we're here to go and there's something underneath it and if you understand what's underneath it the rest of it might make sense to you so we would say to the person that just knows physiology or biology great you got part of it you need the other part of it and as christians we should be humble enough to go we've got part of it what's the other part of it right and so here in this passage here's what he says he speaks first to our frame our friend this is this is the word for our frame here is our physicality that god wove us together in our mother's wombs and part of what he's doing there is adding our physicality who who we are physically is a part of what god is doing for the days that he made for us and that the way he's making us for those days so maybe this uh would help you i'm loud i have always been loud i came out of the womb loud one of the great ironies of my life is i spent the whole first half of my life getting beaten for being out because i didn't grow up in that timeout generation where my axers like man i would have loved to just get in the corner or sit on a step and think about that that wasn't on the menu hey man it wasn't just your folks that have put a beating on you like it was like socially acceptable for everybody too like your teachers could you were acting up in a store somebody might pop i'm not saying it was right i'm saying it was our world right that's why some of y'all are solved anyway that's not that's for free you're not solved it's not okay so man i spend i'm serious the number of detention hall and then my dad was like if they whip you at school what happens at home you get a double portion and somebody has spent the whole first half of my life constantly in trouble constantly in d-hall constantly and because i can't whisper and now i kind of get paid for that and and like if i'm looking at this passage like i'm tall i'm frenetic and energy and i've got a booming voice and this passage is like god going yeah yeah you are it's exactly what you are because i had some days that i made for you and i needed to make you for those days right but yeah it gets better that's crazy but it gets better um there it's more than just that like um even things like um i love ray ortland i've brought him here to preach a couple times just a beast of a man he's got these piercing eyes if you've ever been around him he like looks at you and talks to you it's like it's awkward it's a little uncomfortable it's like he can look into your soul you're just like oh gosh what's going on in my life ray what's going on in my life right now he's got this piercing gaze and he's got such empathy in his heart and it's and god designed him that way he's another just big man with these piercing blue eyes and when he stares into you you can just see into your soul like like that's not an accident that like god's up to something in that physicality but that's not the only thing in view here it's not only our frame that was intricately woven in the depths of the earth but look at that next phrase your eyes saw my unformed substance so what's our unformed substance um well i'm going to argue and i think the passage lends itself to this is that that that unformed part of our that thing that's not physicality our personality our natural bents are a part of god's good design when we come when it comes to specific identities like are you um naturally aggressive or are you naturally passive are you an extrovert or an introvert i'm not talking about nurture yet i'm just talking about nature we'll get to nurture next week in the week after that i'm talking about how you come out the womb right are you past oriented or are you future oriented these are things that you'll start to spot in your kids when they're little little little like even to this day when lauren wakes up in the morning she's thinking about a conversation she had last night or two weeks ago and she will bring that up she's like hey at that dinner when i said this do you think they and man i'm not wired that way i don't mean i don't live in the past at all i'm future oriented to a fault so i'm like who oh yeah no man i'm sure they didn't hear that like that i'm like i wake up in the morning and i'm thinking about what i have to do that day and where we're going the next week lauren wakes up and thinks about stuff that happened back here and she's still processing it right she's feeling and thinking and feeling and thinking and i'm i wake up and i'm like we got these things like we could do these things right well we like this is how we're built like god did that i don't need to be angry about that she didn't be angry like we're building god's goodness i'm not saying that we don't need to be sanctified in those things i'm like here we are this is our unformed substance are you an extrovert are you an introvert how do you respond to stress like like what what have you been like your whole life now before you think i'm trying to get you crazy about yourself i want to remind you that god is doing this god has built your frame god has put in your unformed substance for what reason for the days that he built for you do you see the passage look at it look back at it your eyes saw my unformed substance and in your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them so what's this all about what what's this voice this energy all these hands what's that about for me it's about this moment right here i was made for the day and the day was made for me but what about you you were made for the day and the day was made for you that doesn't mean you're on a stage that doesn't mean it just means that god has been intimately involved in you now i'll go back and like there was when the self-esteem movement kind of hit the ground and you got to take your test seven times or until you you passed it or felt better about yourself or something like like when that kind of came through please don't email me teachers i think i understand but um there the response um from like my my my dad in particular and some other guys were basically like oh a bunch of saw snowflakes thinking they're so special and it was an over correction from a bad deal right you had the bad deal of the self-esteem we just want everybody to feel good about themselves everybody gets a trophy we didn't win a game yeah but you showed up everybody wins and all of the rest of your life you're always going to win i wonder you're so stressed out now that you're in your 20s and you have a job but the uh like in this moment right they they responded with a kind of no you're not you're not unique just get a but you are unique like there's no one like you there will never be another one like you you have been uniquely wired by god and he build you for a purpose it's not nebulous he's not just like getting creative in glory he's like look you have been built for these days and i'm building these days for you and here's what you're going to need for these days that's amazing but god did it you didn't do it god did it you didn't put it in you god put it in you you didn't determine it god determined it right so so this is a significant part of how to understand our specific identity the second thing i want to show you is in acts 17 i'm going to pull it up on to verse 26 and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek god and perhaps feel their way towards him and find him yet he is actually not far from each one of us if you write in your bible and i know not everybody does you can you can see where i'm going i would just underline certainly mine's underlying highlight and there's something written in the margin here around this phrase having determined a lot of periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place so i want you to look at me i i felt even as i was studying getting ready for this i was kind of pricked by the spirit because i think some of you have just convinced yourself that you're an accident hey look at me you're not an accident i don't know what was going on with your family dynamics i don't know what your back story is but here's what i can tell you your parents planning has no bearing on you being here right he said i determined the allotted times that you and i would be here the reason i'm being so bold right now is things look crazy out there and i'm able to look you in your face week in and week out and say we're made for this moment we're god's people for this moment this is our time it's because of this passage right you have been uniquely wired and you've been stuck right in the mess of 2021 and into the future right so when i say this is our time we were made for this we are god's people for this day i'm coming out of this idea we got exactly what we need and exactly what we have to have to punch the devil in the mouth as a church and you as an individual i'm just trying to get you to wake up and do it right you've been come on man you're uniquely wired by god more on this next week look at me skip next week self-hate comparison and coveting are accusations against god they're not something you do you hate yourself you're stuck in a cycle of your brain where all you do is constantly condemn yourself you constantly comparing and coveting those are not just things you're doing you are making an accusation against god that in all of his design you know better you're doing what we already said leads to despair and look it's not just it's not just that that we aren't accidents and that we're here in this moment in human history but even here in this area because of god's good design uh i don't know how much everyone has traveled um has anybody ever been to whitefish montana having been there do you wonder why we live here yeah yeah like it doesn't make any sense you don't come back from whitefish or i could name 30 other places uh well we're in dallas i could name a thousand other places and then you get back to flower mound and you're like i get it i get it no man we've got great and we've got great taxes and it's an easy place to live and the people are friendly but the people in whitefish were friendly i was like looking for somebody to be rude to me up there like somebody be rude right i mean it's just stunning beauty in every direction but we're not there we're here we're not there we're here that we are god's people in this period of human history placed in this place for what reason well according to the apostle paul that men might seek him and find him though he is not far from any of us why isn't he far from anybody because we're here because we're here now this is this is a stunning reality if you could think about yourself this way not in a way that puffs you up and makes you feel like you're the point because i just want to continue because i know something i knew going into this i was like i'm going to have to do a lot of talking because these people are going to get whiplash because for 20 years i'm like you're not the point quit making it all about you get over yourself and i'm like but you're kind of awesome i mean that's a little like wait what huh yeah because they're both true because they're both true you aren't the point but the creator god of the universe has been intimately involved in every aspect of your life if you want to get into ephesians 1 and a couple of other passages before the foundation of the earth was laid that's pretty cool like you not not me you you have been uniquely wired by god you have been then uniquely placed by god i'm not saying we're stuck here i'm saying in this moment at this period of time in your life and in mind we're together on mission by the design of god and listen i know there's a billion questions here about um you know got sovereignty and free will and i don't think that's the point of any of these passages i think these passages are trying to stir up your heart to be glad and and to break cycles of self-condemnation and to step out from under a weight that's been crushing and stealing from you what's rightfully yours can't preach next week's sermon but you trying to be a poor version of somebody else takes you right out of your destiny man i know what that's like gosh the the preachers that i was listening to growing up i was like like that then i read a book on preaching that was like if you're ever funny up there you're about you and not about god and and for a couple of years i had a manuscript i was standing here nearly about to explode because that's not me it's not who i am it's not how god wired me i don't have a joke in my notes not like this would be funny right there i'm not thinking like that i'm just built a kind of way and i need to step into how god has built me he's uniquely designed me he's uniquely place me that's true about you i'm gonna want to close with a couple of things and if you're like close yeah i mean you know that can be 40 minutes but yeah close i want to say this to you and i want to say it through the lens of a god who has created you and i want to say it through the lens of a god who has given to you a specific identity so don't hear it in any other way than that you can hear this wrongly there is something significant about you that is different from everyone else that's not general identity we're all sons of god daughters of god children of god but there is something distinct about you that's different from the distinction of the person sitting next to you or the person sitting behind you the person sitting in front of you you have an individual story you have highs and lows you came out of the womb a certain way and then god has used all of that to shape and form you into what's sitting in this room right now and what's sitting in the room right now it's quite powerful and profound if we'd actually believe it and step into it that would be the first thing gosh you know this when you read your bible right like noah isn't moses and moses isn't jeremiah right and jeremiah's not david and right they all have different personality types they have different skill sets they have different gifts and god uses them in different ways and then if you want to make it new testament peter is not paul and neither of those brothers are john right but what makes them distinct they're all children of god what what makes those guys say they're all apostles well what what makes them distinct well a specific identity is a specific calling right this is true the second thing um is and i already said it but i'm gonna say it again if this is true that you have been uniquely wired and uniquely placed then self-hate comparison and coveting are accusations against god they're not just thoughts in your head so i want to be really gentle here while simultaneously telling you the truth if the internal dialogue and i don't know if you're surprised by this but no one talks to you like you do like you never stop talking to you you're doing it right now like if i keep talking about you'll try to find the voice that's talking to you like that's you talking to you all the time even when you're unaware that you're talking to you you are talking to you when that voice that is your voice begins to agree with satan more than what god says about you in the bible begins to be nothing but condemning nothing but comparing where you are in this period of your life with this person over here in this period of their life that's next week sermon i gotta stay dialing you're accusing god of not being good you're accusing god of not being as good of a god as you would be if you had his power and and because this is such a pervasive issue this is what i want to pray about tonight and encounter so we're going to pray for all sick we're going to do that thing we do every time we gather but specifically tonight you you battle hard with self-hate you battle hard with depression built around these things i understand there can be depression that's due to chemicals and things like that that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about you get stuck in a cycle in your head and in your spirit or all you have for yourself is hate all you have for yourself is you wish you were this or that of this we want to pray over that time we won't ask the holy spirit to break that tonight right so that's what we're going to do at encounter so if that's you come you can come if you don't have that we're going to pray for everything but but that in particular just as i've studied this week and got ready i just really want to see the holy spirit break free some of you tonight we're so stuck in this that this is just your whole world man just constantly in self-hate constantly you know finding ways to condemn yourself well there's another voice that you can tune into and that's what we want to pray about tonight okay so join us for that um here's the here's the other thing i want to just lay before you we knew going into this series um that some of this was going to be difficult right and that's why we called it unearthed because we believed hey it was going to take some energy and some time to kind of dig in there and and see about my specific identity what what is most true about me as a child of god that has been uniquely wired and uniquely placed uh one of the tools that we use here um a lot of guys on staff have done it is is just the idea of turning points and turning points is is kind of stepping back and and prayerfully asking the holy spirit to show you from the earliest one you have uh all the way up to this day turning points in our lives where at this moment this happened or i became aware of this or i experienced and at this moment i began to live my life a bit differently and then maybe it was a few years later or maybe i had this moment and and in this moment this happened or i experienced this or i learned this about me and that changed how i lived my life and what happens if you do that work when you zoom out you get a lifelong picture of god's faithfulness to you you see in ways that are hard to imagine in the moment what god's doing in your sorrow there's a broken fallen evil world that's why we're here assaulting light we are not set outside of that world but put in it and told not to be of it which means when sorrow comes and it does come it's hard to figure out what god's doing in the moment but if you you back out and you look at it over a lifetime you begin to see how how merciful god is in moments like that in a way that you can't feel at all or sense at all when you're in the middle of it does anybody else know what i'm talking about in here like that moment of like where are you god and then 10 years later you're like oh my gosh right there we just couldn't see it at the time well when you do like turning points or what we've set up for you um life plan is to step back and see that in a way that dials you more into i have been doing this from my earliest memory like like i've done this exercise i'm just telling you little little five-year-old man chandler when i was trying to get beat let's go you know uh let's go do something and i was always loud and always energetic and always and and the lord was just my whole life sent the right man at the right time wounded me when i needed to be wounded if i was going to finish strong i'm grateful for those days now i'm grateful for the debacle in 2015 that we endured as a church because of partly my failure as a pastor i'm grateful for brain cancer don't want to do it again didn't enjoy it don't look back on it with fond memories i can simply see that god knit me to himself not like giving me it by allowing it you you start to see god's work in ways that like you you see his faithfulness his goodness how committed he is to you and here's what's crazy it takes you out of yourself and helps you find yourself at the exact same time not crazy the more i see his faithfulness and and my goofiness and him doubling down on his faithfulness and my goofiest hour like it takes me out of me helps me not take myself so seriously and helps me be really serious about him and so we we've built this thing out you can find it on our web page it's like a 40-day deal there's some spiritual things around the the space 40 days but really i wanted to we wanted to go 40 because we don't want you uh to have to do this you know nobody's got five hours a day to throw this but you might have a couple hours a week so we've created this kind of a cohort based digital like like thing that we want to walk you through around these ideas of of how do i how do i dial into what god's been doing in my life from day one you can hop on like it's on the front page of our website today you can click on that it starts october 11th it lasts 40 days it doesn't require a daily thing from you but it does require a few hours a week for you to think deeply uh do what cal calls deep work if you're familiar with that book to kind of get in a quiet place and then pray and hear from the holy spirit and so so i want to invite you into that um like i said it starts october 11th but what i want to do today how i want to end today is i want to just give you a second and and you probably will never hear me say this again to think about yourself and what i mean is i want you to try to find your voice about you but like i want to know how how kind are you to you are you more apt to agree with what the word of god says about you or are you more apt to agree with what satan says about you you a child of god does he delight in you is he long-suffering in his grace towards you is he um is he desires to use you in profound and powerful ways or have you outside his grace he could only do that if you were this person that you know or man you wish you were further along than than you are listen everybody wishes they were farther along than they are everybody by the way the apostle paul believes that you're in great company look at you being an apostle there in the chair right he says in philippians not that i have attained all these things but one thing i do and then he lists three or four things because he's a preacher so let me give you this gift won't you bow your heads and close your eyes i'll just ask some leading questions for you to pray through have you gone too far have you made too many mistakes if you think about the face of god the presence of god is he disappointed has he furrowed his brow is he really excited for the you that's five to ten years from now or is he smiling hard for many of us to believe that god is the god who laughs the dances that sings that rejoices maybe here just i mean we're seconds from being done maybe you can begin to have an honest conversation with the god of the bible about what you really believe about yourself psalm 51 says the broken and contrite in spirit he will never despise that means god loves honest prayers he doesn't need you to clean them for him so why don't you just have an honest conversation with the lord like it's he's big enough to hear from you that you think he made a mistake he's big enough to hear from you that you wish this or that you can lay these things before the lord as a confession it'd be great just to finally say it don't just be stuck with that voice in our head at night when we're trying to go to sleep or that thing that's causing us to live out of a hurt and a brokenness that's not truly who we are or what god says we are just spend a moment or two here just laying that before the lord father i bless these men and women in the name of jesus i pray clarity over them i pray you expose the voice of the enemy to them pray they get a sense of your voice pray that they might marvel at how you've created them uniquely pray that we begin to love this day we would see this day as our great opportunity to make much of jesus i know things are dark and weird just pray we'd run towards that this is our we were made for this moment this moment was made for us we would be faithful in it and not shrink back spirit of the living god do work in us that moves us closer to you and therefore closer to who we actually are it's for your beautiful name i pray amen just stand with me as we sing [Music] let it be our only prayer [Music] that your name be left behind again [Music] lifted [Music] will [Music] be is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] your will be here [Music] [Music] we were [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yes it is [Music] we're oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're [Music] will be [Music] amen why don't you have a seat we're going to celebrate this morning the way we always do to end our service in a celebration of the broken body and shed blood of jesus it is this reminder that helps us silence the voice of the enemy right it is this reminder that all of my sins past present and future were fully freely and forever handled on the cross that that lets me shut up that voice by the power of the spirit right so we provide communion for baptized believers in christ if that's not you and you're here this morning guest i love that you're here listen there's always a seat open at this table at this feast for you uh but if you've not come to that place where you want to say yes to jesus and kind of reject your own divinity uh then man then not warning you to not sit down and have this could put you in harm's way and and i don't want to do that uh what i want to do for the believer here is to invite you into the guarantee that we have that i am not my worst moment do you hear me that i'm going to pick up this piece of bread and be reminded that i am not defined by that night i wish i could have back that i'm not defined by that season of my life where i'd lost my mind for a second that i am not those relationships that i fractured i am not the that man i was when i was trying to find my own way when i was listening to my desires i'm not that man and that man has no sway over me that man died with jesus christ on the cross this one is a new guy right by faith through grace and when we do this guys this is what we're celebrating we are not to be defined by our worst moment or our worst season no matter what the collateral damage was or continues to be we are not those people we are the sons and daughters of god the bible says that on the night that jesus was arrested that he took bread and he broke it saying this is my body broken for you do this in remembrance of me the end of the meal he took the cup he blessed it he said as long as we gathered in his name and this is for both past orientation and future orientation right that died in accordance with the scriptures for the forgiveness of sin but then we'll drink this together again when all things have been made new so we remember saints praise god in just a moment we're going to sing the doxology and be dismissed a great way to kind of since you were made for the day and the day was made for you and were uniquely wired uniquely placed um one of the ways this helps me um especially in parenting is to wonder what god is up to in these things in my kids right they were each born distinctly and uniquely they're bent in certain ways and so it's a lot of fun to to i've got one that's way too much like me that that one just hums with frenetic energy and man if i don't just wonder what in the world god's going to do with that one right like how anxious the enemy might be and how i better take my role as daddy seriously what if we looked around like that or looked at our friends like man what is god up to in that right why don't we stand and sing the doxology see you tonight at encounter praise god [Music] praise him all creatures hear me [Music] and praise [Music] [Music] my church go in peace [Music] [Music] [Music] food [Music] [Music] the doubts in the failures [Music] [Music] [Music] you have broken their claim [Music] on peace [Music] standing before you lost [Music] [Music] the dots in is [Music] you have broken their claim on fears [Music] fear runs away when peace is a place [Music] [Music] [Music] inside my [Music] inside my heart [Music] oh [Music] inside my heart [Music] is [Music] enemies [Music] peace [Music] hearing yourself [Music] [Music] praises [Music] [Music] i [Music] way [Music] so what can i do [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] surely your goodness and mercy will follow surely you can't [Music] surely your goodness and mercy will fall [Music] surely your goodness [Music] of the days of my life [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he will phone [Music] [Music] so [Music] where are [Music] great greatly to me [Music] great reach [Music]

Channel: The Village Church Resources

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Length: 95min 0sec (5700 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021