Tyler Staton - Liberty University Convocation

so if Jesus came to show us what God is like what do we learn about God through the way he arrived or said another way what do we learn about the author through the way that he wrote himself into the story that's what I want to talk to you about this morning let's pray and let's ask the Spirit to speak to us and then we'll look closer at this passage Heavenly Father together we humble ourselves because you promised Lord to draw near to the humble and so anything that is in any one of us myself especially that is pride that is not of you we just pray right now God you would cleanse us so that we can hear from you and I believe God that however much individuals in this room may be desiring to hear from you and however bored individuals in this room may already be you longed to speak to us and so we pray holy spirits we are here we are available would you come and surprise us and meet us with your presence Jesus name we pray amen so one of my very favorite podcasts is revisionist history by Malcolm Gladwell and he has this one episode I think it's in season 1 where he talks about guy I'm Hank Rowan who is the founder of a company called inductotherm which builds industrial-sized furnaces and Hank Rowan is an MIT grad he built this company from the ground up and made quite a bit of money it became really successful but he was also just this really salt-of-the-earth guy from South Jersey and so the moment that he's known for and the reason that he's featured on this podcast is that he got to the very end of his life and business and he's amassed this massive fortune and then he gave a 100 million dollar donation to Glassboro State University he just basically built a massive business and then gave all of it away and that's really generous it's really beautiful but it's actually not that that makes him unique because quite a few people have made massive donations to big universities the the thing that separates him is that most people have made donations to Stanford and Princeton and Harvard schools like that are used to taking in huge endowments from people that believe in what they're doing because they have this proven track record of churning out elites but he gave a massive endowment to a totally unproven public university Glassboro State University is now called Rowan University for obvious reasons but the question that his life should make us ask is who would give away their entire life's work to a totally unproven totally unqualified source God God would on the night of Jesus birth things were all quiet in Bethlehem which was a small town where nothing ever happened and for the most part God arrived totally unnoticed and there was this one moment where where angels broke out and in a choir singing of God's arrival and who took in that heavenly spectacle a few Shepherds illiterate hourly workers Shepherd's had such a bad reputation in the ancient world that they were actually banned from access to the Jewish temple entirely if you went down the vocational path of becoming a shepherd you were also expelled from God's presence in the Judaic system and these were the night shift Shepherds I mean this was the bottom of the barrel of a bottom of the barrel profession and they are the chosen audience for God's arrival it's hard for us to imagine a more objectively unqualified group forgot to clue in on the whole plan that he was unraveling on this otherwise quiet night so why would God choose of all the people that he could have chosen to have a private meeting with shepherds on the night of his arrival to understand that you're gonna have to understand the strategy of heaven I'm so I want to give you the strategy of the heaven as a statement and to kind of break it apart and try to understand so here's the strategy of heaven the fall came through human hands redemption is passed through human hands the fall came through human hands redemption has passed through human hands let's look at both sides of that coin first the fall came through human hands Genesis 1 and 2 is this poetic description of a world made perfect there's perfect unbroken union between God and people and between people and one another there is no such thing as suffering or pain or disease or guilt and then Genesis 3 is it's stark contrast it is this southern explanation of where that world went where this world the one that we all live in and then have it and have come to know actually got created by rebellion by stepping outside of the bounds that God had lovingly created for people to live with and human beings opened up the floodgates to everything that we now know as human life fear showed up in the story for the very first time Adam and Eve turned their gaze from God as their protector and provider and with that fear plunged into human consciousness it was felt as an emotion for the first time in history and they hide and with fear came self-sufficiency do you remember the tempting words that caused Adam and Eve to pluck that fruit from that tree it was you can be like God you can be your own protector you can be your own provider and so they took and ate self-sufficiency is every human attempt to reconstruct the provision and the protection that we lost in the fall and then there was of course rivalry because if God is out of the equation then the sense of their identity the sense they were getting from their creator now has to be derived from some outside source and the only outside source left is you to tell me who I am and so suddenly people derive their identity not from the voice of a loving father but from the voice of what they can perceive of the opinions of other people and this is why there was enmity between the man and woman listed in the consequences of the fall it is why Adam and Eve's offspring Cain and Abel lived as rivals competing with one another for their entire lives and so in a moment that we tragically now sum up as the fall fear plunged into the human heart self-sufficiency rose up as a result and then rivalry pours out of human lives and here we are a perfect world was the creation of divine hands this world was the creation of human hands that's our history but it's also our present because regardless of what you think about the historical accuracy of the Genesis narrative we all know this to be true for sure that the Genesis story is something popping popcorn in here thank you sir the Genesis story is every are we good let's just start over I'd like to open in prayer I'm just kidding I'm just kidding here's what I'm trying to get you to understand as people have different opinions about the historical accuracy of the Genesis narrative but the genesis stories every individual story if you want to know if the Genesis story is an accurate story you don't have to go digging through history you can just look in the mirror because we all know this we all know fear fear plunges into our lives just as violently as it plunged into the life of Adam and Eve we just have new names for it we call it worry and anxiety what keeps you up at night what thoughts surface when all of a sudden you're at the airport and your phone dies and you've got a two-hour flight ahead of you alone with nothing but your thoughts what comes up the fear of failure the fear of missing out or the fear of being left out the fear of settling of coming to the end of your days and realizing this was nothing but a normal mediocre objectively fine life C from childhood we have learned the art of hiding we have learned the art of cloaking our motivations and something more noble but I think if we were to sum up what we're actually afraid of it would go something like this life's assumed guarantees may not be guarantees for me I always just assumed that I would find a spouse or someone to spend the rest of my life with but what if the window is closing on companionship for me and I'm not so sure that's going to be delivered how do I move on with the other things I'm pursuing when I thought that one came first but what if I'm not successful in the industry that I've convinced myself I'm preparing to be successful in or what if I don't get invited or what if I don't leave a mark on the world that other people think is worth writing down or remembering we're afraid and so we hide and then self-sufficiency rises up in us Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves and we make coverings for ourselves the reaction to a life motivated by fear is to try to drum up our own sources of protection and provision and we all have a drug of choice for some it's success I am what I do and so I accomplished to make sure that I feel like I'm enough or it's judgement I feel safe only when I'm looking down my nose at some other person or other group of people or it's perception I'm working as hard as I can to make you think I'm who I want you to think I am and what are all of those they're just attempts to reestablish the sense of protection and provision that we lost in the fall and then rivalry pours out of us because comparison is the only gauge I have left to tell me how I'm doing suddenly you have to become a mirror to tell me who I am instead of being a person that I see for who you are and when we're all insecure were all just barometers to measure our our status against see what we see in Genesis 3 we also see by an honest look in the mirror and so here's the strategy of heaven the fall came through human hands but redemption is also passed through Hugh hands so with all of that context I want to go back to the night of God's arrival this is Luke chapter 2 do not be afraid I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people hang on do you see it do not be afraid so fear doesn't have to be the constant defining emotion of my life anymore I bring you good news that will cause great joy what you've unsuccessfully been working to provide for yourself has been accomplished fully and finally on your behalf by an outside source phenomenal how do I get in for all the people the people whose opinion you think defines you the people who you are looking down your nose at the people that you know need help and the people that think they don't need any help at all it's for all of them and it's for you Jesus birth is God's Way of saying you cannot mitigate the effects of your own failure so I'm getting involved personally God's entrance in this way is both a declaration and an invitation God's entrance was a declaration angels started singing on the night of God's arrival and it was a brief but I imagine a pretty show-stopping chorus and it was a news report and the thing about news is it's not opinion based it's not supposed to be anyway the the thing about news is it is a report on events that have already happened is just keeping you up to date if you opened up the New York Times tomorrow and went to the news section you would be reading objective information about the events that happened today you wouldn't be reading life advice and that's because it's just keeping you up to date on events that have already happened and so here's the declaration the news report today in the town of David a savior has been born to you he is the Messiah the Lord someone's been born in Bethlehem who has three names Messiah Savior Lord Messiah meaning he fulfills every ancient prophecy and promise all of God's promises beginning with Abraham or about reclaiming what the sense of protection and provision that we lost in the fall and so a messiah has been born means someone who's arrived to fulfill all of the ancient promises casting out every last bit of fear Savior that's directly translated as rescuer so you who have been scrapping and clawing to protect and provide for yourself can now finally rest because the rescuer is here and then Lord this is the Hebrew word Adonai and the Hebrew people had a unique claim in the ancient world everyone every nation had their own God and battles and wars were fought to see whose God was stronger and then the Hebrew people showed up making this provocative claim actually there's only one God and that one God is the one God over all people even those people that don't recognize this one God and the term they used for this unique belief was Adonai Adonai or Lord has been born to you as a way of saying the Lord is here to fulfill all of Jewish prophecy but it's not only for the Jewish people it is for all the world this is the one true God calling together all people and here will be assigned to you for all of that cosmic beauty you'll find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger all that God is doing comes down to such a tiny little normal sight God has come to the earth it's a heavenly declaration in the humblest form possible and it's that that makes God's entrance not only a declaration but also an invitation because on the night of Jesus birth these angels break forth this choir begins to sing the entire thing if you go back and just carefully read Luke 2 reads kind of like God is trying to arrive as quiet and unseen as possible in heavens just like they they could get some points that can't take it anymore and that is burst out just for a second just in this course just to declare the beauty of what's actually taking place and who is the chosen audience and there were Shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified so news that was first heard eloquently from the mouths of angelic beings is now going to be heard by everyone else through the rural dialect of nightshift shepherds who would entrust their entire life's work everything they have to give to someone completely unproven and unqualified God God would in fact God still does and God always has this isn't an anomaly that happened on the night of his arrival this is the way God's always been doing things it's a pattern all throughout the scripture if you think only of Jesus arrival God could have written himself into the story at any point in history in any way that he want and so what does it mean that he chose peasant parents I mean scholars agree that Mary would have been a teenager at this time so God found like inseparably wrapped his identity up with two very ordinary teenagers that the rest of the world would find easy to dismiss it's a pattern and then when it came time to announce his arrival his preferred audience was shepherds so the fulfillment of every prophecy that is red so reverently in the temple is now going to be spoken by those not allowed in the temple when it came time to call disciples Jesus chose fishermen and that doesn't mean like blue-collar sort of guys that means people that other rabbis had discarded at some point because if you understand the Hebrew education system you know that every Jewish male grow up grew up being trained to be a disciple and so the fact that all of these men were fishermen meant that some other rabbi at some point in their life had said you don't have what it takes and Jesus is picking from the leftovers to build a revolution and then finally on his resurrection the most important declaration he will ever make who did Jesus call as his first witness Mary Magdalene at a time in history when tragically a woman's testimony was not admitted as evidence in the court of law you could not call a woman as a witness in a law case and Jesus calls a woman as his first witness this is what he's always been doing and it is why the Apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians God has put the greatest treasure and the most common vessels jars of clay to show that the power comes by grace not by human qualification so here's what you cannot miss this morning is that it's possible to hear the declaration but missed the invitation it is quite possible to nod an agreement with the strategy of heaven but keep on living by the way of the earth actually I think it's pretty common it goes something like this you can sit here and nod your head and agreement with what I'm saying with knots of anxiety and your stomach about whatever you've got going on after this or you can say yes to Jesus and experience momentary relief and then go on living on the fumes of your own effort you you can join the angels and singing o come let us adore him with a mind totally distracted by what the people around you are thinking of you it is possible to agree with the declaration of heaven and then keep on living by fear self-sufficiency and rivalry and that brings us to a quote from CS Lewis because that's where it's always going to a quote from CS Lewis am i right ok CS Lewis writes of God's arrival enemy occupied territory that's what this world is Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed you might say landed in disguise and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage I like that I like that because we know how to live in cooperation with this world God is showing us how to sabotage it if you don't know how to sabotage the way of the world just look at the reactions of those first people in Luke chapter 2 so I just want to go through and we're going to bounce back and forth between the differ people involved in God's arriving and see how their reactions might inform our reaction so first to join the great campaign of sabotage we must ponder Luke 2:19 says but Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart now ponder literally translates as to put in context or to connect the thing that distinguished Mary from all of the other people taking in the story was that she was fitting in all the events of her personal experience into a larger context into a larger story so what are the events that Mary was pondering well some of them were supernatural events like the fact that she has conceived as a virgin or the fact that an angel has appeared to her and then on a totally separate day has appeared to her fiance Joseph to tell them the exact same message their supernatural events involved there's also very natural events and it names them off a Caesar Augustus is still on the throne Quirinius has recently taken over as governor of Syria and he really wants to get things started by getting the affairs in order and so it calls a census that means that Mary who's nine months pregnant at the time has to travel without a vehicle to Bethlehem the town that her husband happens to be from they get there and there's no vacancy at the local hotel and you probably know what it's like to say I thought I was following God why is all this happening surely Mary could have been thinking something along those lines very legitimately because that's a totally reasonable question if your life is a disconnected series of events if your life as a disconnected series of events the best it will ever get for you is circumstantial happiness because your circumstances will get good and then they will go against your favor but either way you know that the moment is fleeting that things are always changing and always turning but Mary has more than just a series of disconnected events because she's pondering she is pondering the way that God is masterfully weaving together supernatural things and natural things to get done what he wants to get done God is taking angelic appearances and supernatural conception and the selfish actions of a tyrannical leader the annoyance of everyday politics a total social scandal and a full hotel and he's doing all of that just to get her and Joseph to this town on this night to fulfill a hundred years old prophecies about his arrival pondering allows Mary to see the heavenly invasion in the midst of ordinary life and if you can't see be this moment that you are living in right now in a larger story written by a greater author the best it will ever get for you is circumstantial happiness but there's something more there's joy lasting contentment and delight in spite of changing circumstances and that only comes through pondering and the larger context that Mary was fitting all of these events into is the promises of God the promises of God not the consequences of the fall God promises to love his people unconditionally and what that means is that your performance is not a determining factor in how God sees you there is no scale that you can possibly slide up or down it also means that God has promised to never leave you or forsake you that means that no circumstance that you ever have faced or ever will face will God not be present with you the moments where you felt nearest to God in the moments where he felt furthest away and most absent he was just as present with you in each of those God promises to work all things together for your good that means that God only authors Redemption stories it means the darkest moments of your story in the present quite possibly would be the brightest moments of God's grace in the future because he only authors redemption stories it means that he is telling in your life a unique never before told redemption story that is personal and is coming out of you God also promises to freely give you his spirit his power and his kingdom those are not things he's saying if you work hard enough or if you get yourself to a particular state of behavior modification I will bestow on you a kingdom he says I freely give you these things now is that the God you know are you building your life on the promises of God or the consequences of the fall because we've got a God who keeps his promises numbers 23 God is not human that he should lie not a human being that he should change his mind does he speak and then not act does he promise and not fulfill likewise Joshua 23 you know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed so what foundation is your life actually built on are you reciting heavenly promises while building your life on earthly consequences regardless of what you would say you believe which one is more real to you fear self-sufficiency and rivalry or love rescue and peace here's how to build a life on the promises of God you ponder how does the moment that I'm in right now look different if it's being written by an author who only writes Redemption stories if it's being sheltered by a messiah who keeps his promises and a savior who rescues from trouble and a lord who rules by love first we sabotage the story of this world through pondering secondly that eventually gives way to treasuring but Mary treasured up all these things in her heart now to treasure literally translate to preserve or to keep alive or to savor and so pondering is primarily about your thoughts it's about your intellect savoring is primarily about your emotions it's not the belief that lives in your mind is the belief that lives in your gut so what is the ecosystem that God's promises can actually live and come alive within it's a human life so I started a church in Brooklyn about four years ago for the first three years of the life of that church I had booked into my schedule a weekly practice two hours one week evening for wonder and all and here's what I would do I would go to this cafe down the street from my apartment I would sit there I would read a book that inspires me that has nothing to do with the pastoral work I'm doing or what I need to preach on and then I would just walk around the streets of Brooklyn and pray and the reason that I did that is because those are the things that I found like brought me to life spiritually and I couldn't help but notice that I had this terrible habit of building something on self-sufficiency and not on reliance on God and I was determined I want my life to be an ecosystem where the promises of God can come alive and be expressed and so I'm anchoring myself with everything I can to that we have to treasure up the promises of God in our gut and usually that requires building our life around that pursuit somehow or another and when you ponder something for long enough to treasure it it burns in your heart and then it just can't help but come alive in your bones so we sabotage the story of this world by pondering and then by treasuring then eventually you have to act it has to come alive in your hands so let's take a look at the Shepherd's one more time when they had seen him they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the Shepherd's told them so god thrust heavenly responsibility suddenly on these nightshift Shepherds they are entrusted with a message that a couple hours ago could only be heard in heaven through the mouths of angels and now they are the ones carrying that very message around and they act on that message and the result of that is and all who heard it were amazed now I want you to think about this just for a moment from the perspective of the Shepherd's they've gotten pretty used to like doing the thing and punching the clock and looking forward to the weekend and now they've walked out of a barn in Bethlehem carrying the greatest news the world has ever heard they've been entrusted with this mission that requires courage so they need to overcome the fear that has restrained their action for most of their lives it relies fully on God so it's beyond their strength it requires heavenly resources and it's motivated by compassion which was a much better driver than rivalry so one of the questions I get the most frequently as a pastor is how do I know what God's will for my life is next so I'll just get out ahead of that question you don't need to ask anymore I'll go ahead and tell you right now that God's will for your life is something that requires courage needs heavenly resources and is motivated by compassion so maybe a better way to ask the same question is what in my life right now fits that criteria and if nothing's immediately coming to mind I'll just give you a safe place to start just give away whatever God's given you just determine that anything that comes into my hands passes through my hands so if God's given me time I'll give it away if God's giving the influence I'll give it away if God's giving me resources I'll redistribute them to other people if God's given me a home I'll use it to host others if God's given me a family I'll welcome other people into it if God's given me experience I will leverage that experience on behalf of others if God's given me a place of security in a community or a friend group I will use that to welcome others into that same place of security because the Shepherd's took action the redemption of the world passed right across their calloused ordinary hands Redemption runs through the hands of those who are willing to ponder and treasure and act and if we take part in those things here's what you will quickly find out that the invitation of God's entrance is both personal and communal here's where I want to land this is an invitation that is personal and it's communal so first the invitation is personal in Luke chapter 1 all of this begins hitting Mary and she writes down this poem or this song where she's piecing all these things together the Covenant that God gave Abraham which was prophesied throughout history that we've looked forward to forever and then she eventually gets to this line where she realizes that this massive cosmic story is deeply personal she writes from now on all generations will call me blessed for the Mighty One has done great things for me what but it's true and for those of you who have come to know Jesus in this room you know that realization you know that realization of the God who is doing everything who's holding all of this together the creator of everything I've known and experienced he's not just doing great things for us he has sought out me what but it's true and that evokes a response this awestruck response and there's a terrible rumor going around the church these days but that's a honeymoon phase that you're meant to mature out of it's not spiritual maturity is not becoming less expectant for God spiritual maturity is not diminishing the joy that you carry in your life and here's how I know that for sure because in Revelation chapter 4 the description of heaven goes something like this there's these four spooky sounding creatures that are flying around the throne of God right now singing one chorus holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty that's the whole song and it just goes on forever and ever and ever and it never gets old and there's 24 elders that are gathered around the throne and they're standing there and they're taking in the spectacle and every time they finish the course that just fall on their faces awestruck and I wonder at the majesty of who God is and there's our stumble up in a room and they hear it again and they fall again and it never stops and it never gets old you will spend eternity in the presence of God and never reach the end of him you spend eternity in the goodness of God and never exhaust everything that that means for you back to the Shepherd's Luke 2:20 the Shepherd's returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard which were just as they had been told and so the Shepherd's they're reliving the awestruck joy even on the way back they are recounting the story of what God has done in their past and so if you feel spiritually stuck if you sit here and you're just like gosh man I am barely breathing when was the last time that you remembered what God has done in your past you pondered up the God who has written your story up to this point you treasured those moments that he has given you and you allowed them to inform your presence I just want to say lovingly but clearly that if you are bored with God just imagine how bored he is with you I mean is there ever gonna be any action down there it's one safe calculated decision after another and so if your faith is lifeless I'm being somewhat facetious I don't actually think God is bored with you but if your faith is lifeless just ask God to surprise you start praying God will you surprise me again will you show up in my life like a shepherd working the night shift I took a trip to London about a year ago with another close friend of mine who's a pastor of our sister Church in Brooklyn his name is Caleb and we basically were going for like pastor networking which is exactly as exciting as you would think it is and there's a number of churches there that are like-minded and that we partner with and so one thing that you do when you go to visit other pastors is you attend their church services just sort of part of the thing and so we're sitting there in this church service in London and to be completely brutally honest with you I'm fighting the urge not to like be judgmental because the whole thing the expression of it the way they've organized it's not quite my taste and I'm just reminding myself trying to humble myself and remember who I really am and then at the end of the sermon this pastor that neither one of us has ever met in our lives he's not the regular speaker they're just turns and looks directly at us and remember than this one hundreds of people in the room and he just says you there um you by the pillar will you stand up and I look and he's he's talking directly to Caleb and Caleb stands up and this worship service I just saw a vision of you raising up your right hand and you were holding a pin in your hand and I just have a strong sense them and to tell you that God wants to restore your authority and just as he's called you to right and you've heard that in the past he still called you to right and Caleb just folded and began weeping because what this guy never could have known is that he was repeating the last words Caleb's father had ever spoken to him and I'm sitting there right next to this guy as the personal nature of God's arrival confounds him see this is what God does he is riding a redemption story that includes every one of us but he has written such a personal role for you in it and when he puts his finger on that all we can say is the Lord has done great things for me so the invitation is incredibly personal but the invitation is also communal because what happens just after the text we read is that Jesus is just a few days old and he's taken to the Jewish temple according to custom and as they enter the temple there's an 84 year old widow named Anna who is there and she sees this mom entering with an 8 day old infant and suddenly she knows Seanna had been fasting and praying for decades that she would see God's Messiah Savior and Lord in her lifetime it says that she spent day and night in the temple and so you should picture this old woman with weathered wrinkled cheeks and tears of joy streaming down her cheeks as she sees that God has fulfilled her prayers and that's really beautiful but here's the crazy part is that Anna's breakthrough was tied to Mary's obedience I mean if Mary had just sort of like brushed - the whole miraculous conception thing under the rug and come up with a much more believable story and moved on with her life and I would still be waiting and when I read this story how do you think God's gamble on Mary just seems too big you know to tie the fate of the human race to the obedience of a Jewish teenager that just seems like too big of a gamble but at the same time the redemption that he brought seems far too big as well because to redeem the whole human race through the womb of a teenage girl that seems too much and yet this is the way that God works he has written a web that is so tightly tied together where my redemption is tied to you and your redemption is tied to me and when we resist obedience to God it's not just that we rob ourselves of grace it's that we rob every one of the grace because it's that bound together there's one day a few weeks back when I was on my day off on a Friday and I was walking down the sidewalk in Brooklyn and I was pushing a stroller with my two-year-old son Hank and we were going to the playground and I was kind of talking to God as I was walking down the street and this one woman from my church just popped into my head and so I just started praying for her and I was really burdened for her and had no idea why so I started praying for her comfort and that God would just be with her and she would know his presence in the midst of whatever she was going through and then at the end I did the pastor thing that was like praying for your sister and I sent her a text and then say sister that's not how I roll but it was something along those lines and and I sent her this text and and then she responded and she just said did you see me on the security cameras and I was like mmm is this the wrong person did you intend to send this to me I was like no what are you talking about she texts again be honest did you see me on the security cameras and I was like I don't even know what security situation you're in are you in trouble and she said and when you sent me this text I was on the church doorstep banging on the church door because I was having a panic attack and I was dying for someone to be there so I wouldn't be alone and I was like look I don't want it this is probably security breach but we don't actually even have security cameras oh no I do and I got to call her and sit and talk with her and explained to her I think that God just wants to communicate with you that he sees you he sees you in your most emotional distress and your discomfort and he cares he cares about what you're going through when no one else is looking and that you are never alone because he is with you in each of those moments and her redemption was tied to me in that moment God wanted to speak to her and so he put an impression on my heart and the risk that God took on me seems too big right but this is how God redeems the world he is woven it together so God's entrance is a declaration it is the news of a heavenly invasion God's arrival but it's also a stunning invitation to pass Redemption through your hands ponder up the promises of God treasure them in your heart until they come alive in your bones we stand with me I just want to pray over you as we close if you just get yourself into a posture of prayer or reflection whatever that means for you and I just want to read this angelic declaration over you so you can receive it afresh do not be afraid do not be afraid I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people today in the town of David a savior has been born to you he is the Messiah the Lord staying in this moment of prayer this morning I was walking around this campus very early and I was praying that they God would speak to me what he wanted to speak to some individuals that would be in this room there's just two words I want to share with you the first is that I believe that some of you here have a hunger a living hunger to be a part of a story that could not be written unless God was involved and and I just think that God wants to say that he loves that and he blesses that and I would challenge you just to begin praying dangerous prayers praying prayers that might call you to a step of obedience that requires some risk that terrifies you and that needs heavenly resources and that's motivated by compassion but I also think there's some others of you in this room that have been living a pathetically and nodding in agreement with this whole redemption story agreeing with the declaration but not actually taking up the invitation and I was reminded this morning of six months ago or so I sent an email to a mentor of mine and it was a confession it's a long email and I was just confessing that I felt as if I had been ignoring the call of God I'd been living apathetically in an area of my life and I just it was like a letter at home you know long email listing out in detail confessing and he sent back one of the shortest emails I've ever received his response was this I want to read it to you for Batum God is the father of the second third fourth sixth seventh eighth ninth chance keep going the invitation is for you too man let me pray over your father we thank you for your spirit in your word we thank you that we're called by your spirit not just to be hearers of it but empowered begin by you Lord to be doers of it we thank you Father for the conviction and the comfort that he brings us we pray that tonight you will continue to speak to us in a in a clear way we love you amen

Channel: Liberty University

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Length: 43min 38sec (2618 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 10 2018