Ty Gibson - You Are What You're Not

this is Nick mentioned this is the meeting after lunch and I think we all know what that means so I won't I won't go into an explanation but but I just want you to know some I don't want you to feel like you're being watched or anything but the Holy Spirit is watching you and the angels are present so and I'm gonna come a little closer so if you if you start to feel a little drowsy I will notice it's just it's just the fact of the matter I can see you right now so we're gonna have some fun together I want to ask you because of the time of day that it is and we've just had a meal just sit up a little straighter than you normally do just get your posture on breathe a little deeper just take it in deep and just oxygenate your body and specifically your frontal lobe just just take in that oxygen and we're gonna begin we're gonna begin with a little quiz now if there's anybody here who knows my experience with what I'm about to unfold you are disqualified from answering okay I'm gonna say a word I'm gonna say a word and I need a show of hands if you know what this word is referring to are you ready here's the word if you know what this word means raise your hand and that means yes I know what that is okay you ready here's the word Bugatti raise your hand if you know what that refers to whoa this must be like New York City or something there are a few people who just a few though not more than ten people in a crowd this size it's not a special kind of pasta although it sounds like that doesn't it I'm gonna show you what a Bugatti is just just take a look at take a look at the screen here for a minute can we have the lights down so we can see this work of art now some of you are thinking some of you're thinking that's a car no no no no no that is not a car that is a driving machine that is a work of art this is the Bugatti Veyron the Bugatti Veyron last I checked now these things change from time to time people are competing with their driving machines last I checked though the Bugatti was this fastest street-legal car on earth this is the Bugatti it tops out at 267 miles an hour I understand that right now Bugatti is in the process of engineering another driving machine that will surpass it but right now 267 miles an hour that's impressive the Bugatti if you want one it will cost you about two million dollars if you want some of the extra amenities like air conditioning and leather seats 2.2 million dollars this is the Bugatti Veyron the Bugatti gets eight miles to the gallon in the city it gets a whopping 15 miles to the gallon on the highway and at top speed the Bugatti gets three miles to the gallon three miles to the gallon at top speed you will be out of gas the tank will be empty in 12 minutes which is fortunate for you because the tires will be in need of replacement in 15 minutes now once you have brought your Bugatti up to top speed for 15 minutes and you need new tires if you want a set of four 42,000 dollars to replace those tires you don't get them at the local tire shop you you order them in special they bring them to you or they actually bring the Bugatti on a covered flatbed trailer to the place where they put the tires on the Bugatti is an amazing driving machine and I just happen to know somebody who owns one of these I only got come on all together whoa whoa I actually know somebody who owns one of these now I didn't always know him I was at an event and a friend of mine knew that I was going to go over to this particular country in Western Europe he said are you going there I said yeah we're going there in a couple months he said are you aware that we have a brother there by which he meant a fellow seventh-day adventists I think Brotherhood's bigger than that but we have a brother there he said who owns a Bugatti I said you are kidding we have a brother that owns the Bugatti said yes I said what's a Bugatti I didn't know I didn't know - that plant I knew nothing at that at that point in my life had a Prius okay so I didn't know anything about the Bugatti and he showed me this very picture on his phone he said that's a Bugatti and we have a fellow seventh-day Adventist that owns one I said wow he told me the specs he told me all about it I said I'm going there to the place where the brother is that owns that car he said yes you are and he owns one of these he said yep I said I am Telling You I will drive that car he said no you won't nobody drives the Bugatti but the brother that owns the Bugatti that's it nobody else drives the but there's a two million dollar car you think he's gonna let you drive it I said if there's a seventh-day Adventist on earth that owns that car I will drive that car before the Second Coming he said not gonna happen not gonna happen so we made a little friendly wager that I would or would not drive the Bugatti so my wife Sue and I we landed in this country they picked us up at the airport not in the Bugatti another couple picked us up they took us around and then finally in a couple days we ended up having lunch at the home of the brother owns the Bugatti we're at the house we're having lunch good food there there they they're newlyweds they have a new baby it's like oh this is my new baby I was like wow that's an incredible baby where's the Bugatti bro so he takes us outside we walk out and we come to this place where there is a series of garage doors and he pushes a button and the first one opens and then the next and I see the Ferrari and I see the Rolls Royce and I see the boxer the Porsche boxer I see brother where's the Bugatti he opens the door there's the Bugatti he says you want me to pull it out I said yeah of course pull the Bugatti out we're gonna see all around so he pulls the Bugatti out and he steps out and he's okay so this is it he's telling us all about the Bugatti I said brother would it be possible for me to drive the Bugatti I was really I was really I was really kind of kind about it and polite you know what I mean brother could I Drive the Bugatti and he said without even contemplating it he said no of course not no you can't drive the Bugatti I said I said wait a minute let me understand this correctly are you a seventh-day Adventist he said yes I'm a seventh-day Adventist I said so am i you're a seventh day I've had Adventist I'm a seventh a haven't I said one more question do you believe the Bible brother he said what are you getting at of course I believe the Bible I said you believe the whole thing he's I believe the Bible I said you read Acts chapter two because the word says they had all things common so brother the fact is your Bugatti is my Bugatti I mean if you look at it biblically this is this is our car are you telling me I can't drive our Bugatti he said listen listen I'm a seventy evidence I believe the Bible I believe the Bible but this is my Bugatti and you're not driving it just then a brilliant idea came to my mind I said brother listen if you let me drive the Bugatti I will use it as a sermon illustration they said really I said yeah yeah people will be drawn to the Lord incredible things will happen revival will break out in the in the Church of God you let me drive the Bugatti I will I will preach a sermon with the Bugatti in it he said ok and that's all it took and then I noticed he was hesitant for a minute after saying yes and I couldn't figure it out until his eyes kind of darted around me and I turned around and there was my beloved bride do not let my husband drive the Bugatti that's what she's saying this is the only time in my whole life in our marriage that I looked at her I was all somber you know I was gonna smile about this what do you do it's the only time in our marriage that I said silence woman isn't that amazing she beat me up later and we made up but I drove the Bugatti we got in that cut well first of all he's in the driver's seat we begin driving down the road he gets out up to 40 miles an hour 56 he he says he looks and he says are you ready is your seatbelt on I said I was born ready yeah bring it on my seatbelts on I'm ready and he dropped it to the floor and I could feel the g-force as this car went so fast so fast you know what I mean by that so fast so fast it picked up speed so fast that that my body was just being pulled into that seat as far all the cush was gone and I was just just tailbone to metal it was an incredibly exhilarating experience it was a perfect combination of fun and terror it was amazing I loved it and then he slowed down he said it's your turn I said yes it is he stopped the car we opened the doors we switched sides and I began to pick up speed forty miles an hour then 50 then 60 and I turned to him and I said are you ready is your seatbelt on he said yes my seatbelt is on and he said I'm ready turns out that brother had never been in the passenger seat of this car and he said okay go for it he gave me permission I dropped the pedal to the floor and this big giant man this seventh-day Adventist who who really you would think had more more fearlessness than this he began to squeal and cry and reach for the - I made all that part out but everything else is true everything else is true and we picked up all that speed I don't know how fast we went it was so fast so fast that I had to I could barely drop my eyes down to see I'm just gonna guess I got it up to maximum speed I'm just gonna say that I don't know if I did but I think I got pretty close we slowed down and we went back and that was my Bugatti experience and as we got out of the car he explained something to me I said man we used up a lot of fuel didn't we he said yeah yeah I've got it here though I said what do you mean you got it here aw it's a special kind of fuel you don't just go to the gas station and get normal run-of-the-mill petrol for this you you got to have the real stuff and he began to explain to me that this was unique gasoline unique fuel that fuels the Bugatti the Bugatti is a driving machine everybody and the Bugatti is a highly engineered device of I guess you could say transportation and you move across the pavement you nearly fly when the Bugatti is operating at its optimum it's an exhilarating experience because the Bugatti is doing what the Bugatti is designed to do are you tracking with me the Bugatti is doing what it's designed to do and it is designed to be fueled by a very high octane fuel source a pure fuel source it is dependent on that fuel to be what it is to do what it does now I'm gonna suggest to you right now that like the Bugatti you are I am a very highly engineered let's say not a driving machine but you and I we are this is going to sound corny at first but roll with it we're love machines God created us psychologically emotionally and biologically and socially even God created us in a certain way we're designed to operate at the optimal level on a particular fuel we have to have it or we malfunction things begin to just go south and sideways you got to have this particular fuel in order to be all that you really are in Christ now just follow me through on this and and let's see where this go the Apostle Paul the Apostle Paul brilliantly in in one of the most important lines in Scripture the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 5 he says for we through the spirit eagerly wait for the hope of something say that phrase out loud it's the meeting after lunch you need to talk ok so what are we either lis waiting for we're waiting for the hope of what righteousness by faith now that's a pretty cryptic term if you don't know much about the Bible or Christianity or or what we call the gospel but but from Paul's perspective this is the gospel this is the equation that in Paul's day rocked the world and turned it upside down this is the concept the idea that turned the world upside down in the Protestant Reformation and if the world is ever going to be revolutionized again it will be on the premise of this concept maybe not these exact collection of words because righteousness by faith is a concept beyond the parameters of this particular formulation in fact this is the only place in the Bible follow this this is the only place in the whole Bible where you find the term righteousness by faith if it doesn't occur anywhere else now the concept is ripp sweet throughout Scripture Genesis to Revelation but just like anything a concept can be explained with various formulations of vocabulary alright so you're reading the Bible about something called justification by faith for example you'll read in the Bible about salvation by grace through faith in Christ you'll read about the experiences of people with not a whole lot of language at all just watching them intersect with one another and with God and you'll you'll witness righteousness by faith being played out in one biblical story after another but this is the only place where the term itself occurs in the Bible righteousness by faith I want you to notice a few things right here off the bat number one the Apostle Paul tells us that the Spirit the Holy Spirit the third member of the Godhead is the impetus for this experience of righteousness by faith the Holy Spirit is in the process of stimulating in you and me and eager anticipation for this experience Paul is talking about so this isn't something that we come to on our own if if we are just left to ourselves to kind of meander through the world and just kind of happen to the world this won't occur to us but the Holy Spirit has taken an interest in every single member of the human family the Holy Spirit is taking the initiative let's say it that way in fact Psalm 23 one of the most popular pieces of Scripture people who aren't even familiar with the Bible know the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want right when you come to the very last verse of that shepherd's Psalm it says surely David's singing to the Lord surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life follow your being followed literally the the Hebrew word there is more than even just followed approximates in the English it literally means David is literally saying surely goodness and mercy is pursuing me all the days of my life goodness and mercy are chasing me down all the days of my life God with goodness and mercy is hot in pursuit of you and of me the Holy Spirit is stimulating in us a desire for something other something better something more we all sense inside of ourselves that there is this awesome incredible untapped potential that needs to be stimulated in to action so the first thing Paul tells us is the Holy Spirit is the one who is awakening the desire for righteousness by faith in us now check this out he says not only is the Holy Spirit awakening this desire in us he says that we experience eagerness for it the word eager that's a fascinating word the moment you begin to to just even in an elementary sense understand what Paul is saying here and even if you don't know these words you begin to desire this thing called righteousness by faith whether you even know what it's called because because you know that you can longed for something that you don't have words for you know that right you can trap words around it but there's some some some something right so even if you don't know the language the Holy Spirit awakens that and we become eager and and the one who's pursuing us we begin to kind of pursue in reciprocation that's how love works he reaches out and stimulates in us and then we begin to respond to him and we begin to feel eagerness we kind of lean forward in our seat we kind of scoot to the edge the front edge of our seat we want to put the pedal to the metal we we know that we're capable of something that we're not experiencing and we begin to hunger for it now after describing righteousness by faith I want you to notice the word righteousness here because righteousness is not something that you and I are capable of of achieving or apprehending on our own this is not a venture of grabbing your bootstraps and yanking hard enough to get elevated Jesus explained to us how outside of the realm of possibility righteousness is for the likes of you and me when he he reasoned like this he said hey hey which one of you Jesus this is Jesus now which one of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature which one of you by thinking hard enough can make yourself taller that's what he's saying you can't think hard enough you can't feel any feelings you can't ratchet up your willpower to make yourself any taller than you are right it's a rhetorical question when Jesus says hey which one of you can think hard enough to make yourself taller what's the obviously implied answer nobody right it would be like me today saying listen I have a billion dollars here and that's a lot of dollars and I'm gonna give you 1 billion dollars every hand would go up you want the money but then if I said you there's just one condition to get the money all you have to do is jump and touch the moon once not three times even just one time question how many of you would actually stand up and start jumping just okay one very materialistic brother who's in recovery okay so here's the thing here's the thing we wouldn't stand up and start jumping because we immediately know that we're dealing with something that is in the realm of the impossible right we we don't stand up and start jumping me that's what Jesus is saying he's saying listen you can't think hard enough to make yourself righteous you can't try hard enough to make yourself all that you know you have the potential to be there's something else you need and Jesus through our understanding here is informing us that righteousness is outside of our parameters of achievement if left to ourselves so notice Paul says that righteousness is by something else it's by faith now faith is interesting because what I'm going to suggest to you is that Paul's not done with his basic equation yet even faith is beyond our capacity to exercise if left to ourselves here's the Bible's teaching in brief about faith faith is a universal gift the book of Romans says that God has put a measure of faith in every human being so we all have faith but it's not always active right faith was present in me until I was 18 years of age but it was dormant like a sleeping giant of potential but it wasn't active faith is like the other universal gifts the universal faculties like reason everybody has the reasoning capacity we all we all can reason from cause to effect what goes up will come down two plus two equals four we all have the Faculty of memory we can remember stuff that has happened and then and then we can recount those past experiences we all have the Faculty of imagination then you can either use your imagination or not right faith is like that it's a universal gift that God is deposited in every human heart without exception it's there but listen faith is not something that by discipline or thought you can bring in to activation yourself so Paul goes on next verse and he breaks it down he adds a vital component to righteousness by faith watch this in the next verse for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything pause right there pause right there at the comma you saying it's circumcision are we really about this well it's there in the text because that was a hot-button issue of controversy in Paul's day so so don't trip on circumcision that's not something your church or your community or your family's arguing about hopefully but that was a big deal back then you can literally put anything you want there Sabbath keeping there Sunday keeping vegetarianism or not you can literally think of anything you want to think up any issue and you can that's a place holder for anything literally nothing nothing avails for achieving righteousness by faith Paul is saying nothing in Jesus Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything for your eternal salvation and you can drop whatever you want in there and it would remain true then Paul tells us it's not anything other than one thing are you tracking righteousness is by faith he says and faith how does he say it here faith is working through something are you following his equation it's brilliant he's saying righteousness by faith works by love now do you see the word that is here translated working in the English focus on that word for a minute that word that Paul employs here that is translated working is a Greek word that's an easy word to spell to remember because it is a Greek word that has an immediate equivalent in the English I'm going to show you the word the word working in this verse the word is energy o or energy o in the Greek so so energy o what is it that sounds like an English word what energy o is energy that's right energy Paul literally says follow this Paul literally says that righteousness is by faith and faith is energized by love so Paul's reasoning with us here he wants us to understand that righteousness is is is just completely out of the realm of possibility for you and me so so don't paul is essentially saying don't expend your energy on trying to achieve righteousness you will be Paul says in another place talking about the same idea if you focus on righteousness you will be like one who beats the air you'll never make contact with it it's some it looks at book and as soon as you thrust your fist toward righteousness to make connection there's nothing there Paul says so so righteousness isn't where you and I need to focus our attention but check this out it's not even faith that you and I have jurisdiction over we can't we can't stimulate our own faith to action faith is like a sleeping beauty inside of us awaiting the kiss of divine love to wake it up to action it's the kiss that we need it's God's love that we need vital contact with love is the energy infusion being to thrive love activates faith by which we are able to achieve righteousness but righteousness is never to be pursued as an end in itself faith is never to be pursued as an end in itself there's only one thing that we need to focus our attention on that we need to pour ourselves into there's a direction we need to look and this is why this is why the gospel idea in the Old Testament with Moses who threw up that serpent in the wilderness on the pole he said listen to the children of Israel who were dying of the Serpent's bite Moses said here's the remedy look look and live but you got to look it's the looking at the thing that's outside of yourself righteousness can be a fixation with self-righteousness as an end in itself will be our undoing listen listen if you and I focus on behavioral conformity to the standard of righteousness only one of two things can inevitably happen either you will become a self-righteous Pharisee that lowers the standard sufficient that you can delude yourself into thinking you've met it the Pharisees did this they thought that as long as they didn't physically murder anybody that they were in the clear or physically have an adulterous affair they were in the clear and Jesus came along and said your your standards way too low even if you hate someone in your heart you're a murderer jesus said if you look on a woman to lust after you're an adulterer Jesus wasn't giving them a higher challenge he wasn't saying ratchet up your willpower you got it you got to try a little harder you got to aim a little he was saying to them listen the thing is so far beyond you that you need something more fundamental to happen for you you need some kind of deep inner transformation that doesn't come by trying hard enough you need to be Jesus says in a sense you need to be reborn you need to be born again you need to you need to have a whole new humanity because trying hard enough isn't going to do it for you and it's not faith it's there but you can't wake it up to action love God's love is the energized force of the gospel now this righteousness by faith thing that Paul is talking about is described in some of the most incredible language you'll ever encounter now this might seem a little and counterintuitive at first but but but wrap your mind around this with me Paul in another place that was in Galatians now we're in Romans in Romans Paul describes righteousness by faith with different language in Galatians he's saying righteousness by faith that works by love right now here in Romans 4:17 he's telling the story of Abraham who was the father of righteousness by faith and here he says something astounding Paul says God calls those things which do not exist as though they did what what are the things that God calls as though they exist even though they don't well the context and this is amazing what Paul is saying is that God calls you and me righteous even though in fact were not and he calls us innocent even though he knows we're guilty now you can look at this at first glance and say well that sounds like he's lying because when you as a human being when you say something is and it's not that's called lying but God's in a different category because God's word has the power to actualize the thing he speaks when God relates to you and me as if we are what were not he creates a relational dynamic that allows us to become what we're not but Paul's point here is that the gospel the good news the glad tidings the happy message is that God relates to you and me as though we were innocent even though we're guilty this is this is the relational dynamic now watch where Paul goes with this this is incredible to understand the relationship between these two ideas he's still developing the concept of righteousness by faith and he goes on and he explains it he says here God calls those which do not exist as though they they do and then developing the concept in chapter 6 verse 11 Paul says okay likewise likewise grammatically is referring back to something likewise he says you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord now what is the word reckon mean what do we mean when we say the word reckon some people down south they say our reckon I'll go to the grocery store what do they mean what's reckon consider thank you it means to regard Paul is saying listen God is regarding you as righteous even though you're not God is regarding you as innocent even though you're not and then he's saying now you need to reckon yours you need to begin seeing yourself through God's eyes you need to begin reckoning yourself to be what you're not you need to relate to yourself with gospel glasses as it were so so here's what Paul is teaching us basically that faith faith is the supreme relational dynamic that connects God to humans beings and human beings to God now here's where we start to get tripped up track with me faith is the supreme relational dynamic that connects humans to God and God to humans but right there with our natural egocentricity we think okay this is all about my faith that's where that's where the spirit the experience needs to begin with me exercising faith in Him but if you could see the motion graphic here it just came on the screen as a static image in my original slides the way I created this now watch this you got to imagine this in your mind is there two area arrows here the one on the left comes first when I have my motion graphic okay and the arrow from the top comes down first and then the one from the bottom goes up are you tracking us you know what I'm saying okay so the one on the left it comes down first is God taking the initiative to be the initiator of faith God is faithful to us before we're ever faithful to him the focus can't be on my faith and my faithfulness I will stall and become spiritually crippled if I keep focusing on me getting my act together I need to shift my focus and turn my attention to the faithful love of God toward me that while I was yet a sinner Christ died for me not after I got my act together Jesus came he sought you and me he enveloped us in his love by faith now this is remarkable because Paul in Romans you can't see those Romans chapter 10 Paul calls the Bible in general and the gospel in particular he calls it the Word of Faith which we preach now think this through with me the Bible is the Word of Faith whose word is the Bible is that our orders at God's Word what do we normally understand in that regard the Bible is God's Word so if the Bible follow this if the Bible is God's Word and the Bible and the gospel is the word of faith whose faith is it that we see on display in Scripture God's faith toward us God's faith so the Bible the Bible is not the gospel is not the Bible is not a moral rulebook it's not a systematic theology the Bible isn't a good moral challenge for us to try hard enough to measure up to the Bible is first aiming to bring us to a position where we understand that we are completely morally bankrupt so the Bible isn't that what is the Bible consider this I'd like to throw an idea out for you here based on what Paul is teaching us I'm suggesting you that what the Bible is what the gospel is in specific in the Bible in turn the Bible is a faith text again whose faith do we see in Scripture God's faith the Bible is a faith text the Bible is a Reis crypting therapy the Bible is a projected vision the Bible is a new storyline this is why Jesus in Scripture is called the second Adam what I mean Adams Adam right but the first Adam botched his humanity Jesus is the new man or if you like Jesus is a new way to be human Jesus and is a new specimen of humanity and faith is the process by which he enters into relationship with us taking the initiative to cast a vision of our potential now what makes this so amazing is when you and I begin to understand the gospel it changes everything it changes our perception of God which then in turn changes our perception of our selves which then in turn changes our perception and the way we relate to others in other words the way I see God seeing me notice what it says it doesn't say the way I see God it says the way I see God seeing me the way I see God relating to me determines the way I see myself which then becomes the lens through which I am able to see others through the eyes of God in other words in the sim possible form when I realized that God is living with a constant steady unbroken flow of relational faithfulness to me regarding me as righteous when in fact I'm a sinner regarding me as innocent when in fact I'm guilty when I began to reckon myself to be in Christ as God sees me watch what happens all the shame and the guilt that keeps me blaming others and living with condemnation toward them it disappears and I begin to love people the way I'm loved the way God relates to me causes me to begin to relate to others with the same kind of relational integrity this is revolutionary people this means that in any religious community like a church like this and in the broader community around us in our homes to the degree that we do not see first and foremost God's faith toward us God's faithfulness toward us there will be in the church in the home in the community there will be a constant process of examination and judgment flowing between people we will live in condemnation of others when we feel that we are under condemnation but the moment the burden of shame and guilt is lifted and we sense that we are perfectly accepted in Christ not because of anything I've achieved not because I've tried hard enough not because I have given him the appropriate reasons to respond to me but because he is who he is god is love and he loves you he loves you . . that's the good news and within that atmosphere within that relational dynamic of oh it was amazing god god loves me not based on my successes he loves me because it's the kind of God he is he relates to me as if I'm innocent when in fact I'm guilty because because God is a God who in his very nature is forgiving and kind and good and then I begin to to be kind to others rather than to always notice where they're feeling and have condemnation to keep upon them this is the good news people and it is the difference between two basic words or concepts on a theological level now now this just just hang with me here there is impulse thinking what we might call the objective and the subjective layers or dimensions of the gospel okay of the experience now objective simply means the facts are you still with me this is the meeting after lunch I need at least a nod yeah are you still with me okay so objective means the facts when Paul talks about the objective facts of the gospel he says things like this in Romans three he speaks of listen to this language he speaks of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus where is redemption where is it located for me where is it it's in Christ Jesus redemption is a done deal in Christ Jesus he fully and completely achieved in himself without any contribution from you or me he achieved in himself Redemption now I can prove this to you by a simple intellectual exercise now just think to serve for a minute hypothetically hypothetically if every person in this room and every person in the world said no to the salvation that is in Christ the redemption that is in Christ Jesus if every one of us said no humanity is still redeemed how do I know this because right now this very moment an actual human being occupies the throne of the universe and his name is Jesus he was incarnate in our flesh he lived a perfect life he died a perfect death he was resurrected on the third day and with our humanity still intact he ascended to the highest heavens and he has seated at the victory position at the right hand of the Father and even if we all say no a specimen of the human race is at the right hand of the Father right now redemption in Christ Jesus is the objective fact it's accomplished now faith doesn't listen faith doesn't manufacture facts it just apprehends them our faith doesn't produce any more goodness in God our faith doesn't produce any more love in God God is who he is who he is and God is good already without your helper mine god is love already without your helper mine this is the objective reality of the gospel now the subjective part of the whole deal is the experiential part right that's where you and I begin to perceive God's love for us and we begin to lean toward it rather than away from it as we've been doing our whole lives we begin to say wow I'm loved like that God is incredible this is where Paul says things like the good of God the objective facts of God's goodness the goodness of God leads to repentance repentance isn't something that I produce in order to get God to be good His goodness proceeds my repentance my repentance is in fact a subjective experience but it is dependent on his love to be produced so think of some of the characters in Scripture be this is the cream of the crop right here these are these are the the heroes of Scripture we've got Abraham who was a liar and a coward you remember that whole deal with Sarah and she's not my wife yeah she's pretty nice-looking but you need to say that you are my sister because we don't want the Pharaoh to kill me to get you so let's just say you're my sister and he sent her in with the Pharaoh to be done with as the Pharaoh pleased Abraham is not the kind of guy you would even want babysitting your kids okay and yet he's the guy so we got Abraham then we have Isaac you just read the story Isaac was a piece of work Isaac was a dysfunctional father and then we have Jacob consummate manipulator his his name literally means deceiver this guy was a habitual liar and a thief Moses was a murderer turned coward turns tail and ran off to the wilderness Moses David was a murderer and an adulterer you remember David you definitely don't want him babysitting your kids you don't want him in your neighborhood not this guy and yet he is the man you got Peter what was he all about at very least he was a loudmouth hothead some of you are saying yeah my husband is sitting right next to me don't don't don't get me started a loud met Peter okay what about James and John they were violent Mercer thugs these guys were violent these were the guys who said hey hey hey Jesus that that town that village they don't want you passing through we've got an idea let's bring fire from heaven easy to burn them all up they thought this was a good idea this is James and John and what about Matthew he was the worst of all he was a tax collector he was an IRS agent the lowest of the low this guy and then and then and then there's Paul think about Paul self-righteous Pharisee and murderer Paul Wow and then there's you and me fill in the blank fill in the blank don't say it out loud whoever you're with you want them to go home with you the fact is that there's something you could put there you and I were messed up from the word go we are dysfunctional as the day is long we are twisted up in knots inside were damaged goods at best we are hurting we are fallen we are sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God that's the facts of the case or is it the Bible says this shifting our paradigm with its faith text with its Reese crypting therapy with its new storyline the Bible speaks in the gospel says no no wait a minute yeah you are all of that in yourself but in Christ in Christ you are perfectly loved John 3:16 you are crucified with Christ at Calvary your humanity dead with him Galatians 2:20 you are accepted in the beloved in Christ Ephesians 1 6 you are forgiven and redeemed according to Scripture you are more believe it or not you are more conquerer you are enthroned Paul says in Christ at the right hand of the Father in other words the gospel says that you are in Christ what you are not in yourself and never can be in and of yourself all of this language is the Bible's way of saying that God is relating to you and me with a kind of perfect relational integrity you're not worthy you're not even worthy for your best friend to keep liking you let alone the God of the universe who knows things precisely as they are there's not a person here who has not violated the integrity of your relationships I'm not that person I've violated the integrity of my relationships but you and I we are in Christ what we are not in ourselves the Bugatti the Bugatti is a driving machine plain and simple given the right fuel it does what the Bugatti does it operates at the optimal level as the incredible driving machine that it is the Bugatti is a driving machine you and I we are love machines created in the image of God to love like God loves and yet we can't we need new fuel we need a quality of energizing fuel that will change everything for us what you need what I need is not to try harder to be righteous or to try to wake up faith and get it going for you now you and I we need to shift our attention completely off of ourselves onto Jesus and in him to witness a beautiful pursuing love that we don't deserve we can't earn it can't merit this love but the fact is he still loves us and that love is the most powerful force in all the universe if you and I begin to turn our attention that direction everything will change for us thanks

Channel: Church of the Advent Hope

Views: 4,716

Rating: 4.6721311 out of 5

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Id: v5uj1KP-ipY

Length: 52min 58sec (3178 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 01 2018