Unearthed: Who We Are – Week 2 – Sermons – Matt Chandler

hi guys pastor matt chandler here pray that this sermon this resource uh be used by god in conjunction with you belonging to a local church to grow you and sanctify you in your faith if these resources bless you would you consider giving back to us here at tbc you can do that either through the app or you can go online to tbc resources and give there again pray that this blesses you and grows you in your love for jesus christ [Music] [Music] uh good morning it's so good to be here uh my name is doug alexander my wife suan and i serve here at the church uh 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 steel 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 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 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 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 uh 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 gonna 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 wanna call it elderly i wanna call something cooler than that uh and then we're talking 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 year it was revelation 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 gonna cause trouble for the enemy and that's what i'm listen 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 uh 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 generalized you want to move from human you move from human to two one of two categories the first category is child of god a child of god believes uh that christ has come 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 right-handed 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 or 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 gotta 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 button 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 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 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 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 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 time-out 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 pa i'm not saying it was right i'm saying it was our worlds 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 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 now he's another just big man with these piercing blue eyes and when he stares in you you 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 look at that next phrase your eyes saw my unformed substance so what's our unformed substance um well 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 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 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 this so what's this all about 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 their their response um from like my my my dad in particular and 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 one 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 well 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 backstory 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 don't 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 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 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 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 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 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 gonna have to do a lot of talking because these people are gonna 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 i 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 ah 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 placed 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 could 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 is 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 a specific calling right that 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 darling 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 want to 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 are so stuck in this 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 uh 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 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 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 as salt and 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 for my earliest memory like like i've done this exercise i'm just telling you 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 now by giving me it by allowing it like 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 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 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 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 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 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 a 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 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 not 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 pray we'd 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

Channel: The Village Church Resources

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Id: 4jLE4OJU_vg

Length: 44min 31sec (2671 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021