Transition/transition6l

This was in Christianity Today magazine, gosh, probably 20 years ago now. It was called, In Search of the Christian Lifestyle. And I'll see if you can relate to this. Ostensibly, it's from a man's son-in-law's frustrated son-in-law. It's from his diary. It says this, Saturday. I slept in today, read the paper, wasted most of the day lying around watching TV. I was listening to Christian radio tonight, though. Challenged by the message. He said that the problem with the world is too many lazy Christians. So Sunday after church, I bade farewell to the wife and kids. I spent the afternoon collecting canned goods for the soup kitchen in the city. I met the family back at church just in time for the evening service. The speaker talked about the decline of the family. He said fathers just don't spend enough time with their children anymore. So Monday, I left work a little early, took the kids out to eat, and took them to a movie. Had a great time. Back at home, I was flipping through the channels on TV. Special on World Hunger caught my eye. You could support someone for an entire month for the cost of dinner and a movie, the announcer said. So Tuesday, I fasted all day. Then I went to the men's fellowship meeting. We had a special speaker who talked about physical fitness, emphasizing that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He said the key to being in shape is good nutrition and exercise. So I went home and ordered pizza. Wednesday, got up early to jog. After work, shot some hoops with the kids, driving back from the basketball court, turned into another radio preacher. This one talked about burnout. Said people are so busy with church, family activities, work, etc., they never have time for themselves anymore. Thursday, slept in today, read the paper, wasted most of the day lying around, didn't bother to turn on the radio. There's the key to Christian growth, isn't it? Just keep off that radio. That'll kill you. I think the hardest thing for us in moving from here to here is moving from following principles, good principles, nothing wrong with things that we hear, but living around principles instead of living in love. This is how Paul describes it. This is Galatians 2. I'm going to read it to you from the message, so you're not used to the language unless you read the message. I love the message quite honestly. I think he gets it wrong in some places, so I don't think it's a translation that you can necessarily trust. But there are places where he really gets it right, and I think this is one of them. This shows us that what's at stake in Galatia is not Judaism versus Christianity. Listen to this. This is about verse 14 to the end of the chapter. We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over non-Jewish sinners. We know very well that we are not set right by rulekeeping, but only through personal trust in Jesus Christ. Doesn't that sound good? How about rulekeeping? Personal trust. How do we know? We tried it. And we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen. Why? They're Jews. They've got God's rules. My goodness. They've got the real stuff. Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement. We trusted in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good. Has some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? No big surprise, right? And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me who go through Christ in order to get things right with God aren't perfectly virtuous, that Christ must somehow be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I were trying to be good, I'd be rebuilding the same old barn I toured down and I would be acting as a charlatan. What actually took place was this. I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it did not work. So I quit being a lawman so I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how to do it and enabled me to do it and I identified myself completely with Him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion. And I'm no longer driven to impress God. That sounds like revolutionary language, doesn't it? You're no longer... What? You're not trying to impress God? No, I'm not trying to impress God anymore. He said, Christ lives in me and the life you see me living is not mine. But it is lived by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I'm not going back on that. Is it not clear to you that go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be to abandon everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do it. I refuse to repudiate God's grace if a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping. Then Christ died unnecessarily. Does that say it about as well as it can be said? My goodness, I think that flips religion on its ear. We need to learn to live out of this love relationship with God. Here's what I hope ends for this weekend. I hope to all the blather. What I'm really telling you is, tomorrow morning or tonight if you want to start, but you want to take the rest of the day off, put your arm on it, wake up and just say, Father, would you show me how much you love me today? And would you teach me how to live in your life? That's it. That's really it. I've told some people, look, I don't care if you don't do anything for two years, because the angst we have in religion is I've got to do something. It's not enough just to live in God's love. We really don't believe God's worth loving for Himself. And then until I get the loving right, following all the principles in the world is not going to make me a better person. It's not going to change. In fact, it's going to make me more obnoxious to other Christians in the world. I've got so many principles I'm following that Doug, you better follow it too in like this frustrated Son-in-law and this article I read to you. I've got books on my shelf that all tell me the right way to do everything. And none of them work or people wouldn't keep writing new ones. The only way this works is that God wants to engage you through Jesus so that you wake up in the reality of who He is. Now that's not always touchy-feely, goose-pumpy. Some days it is. I love those days. Some days it's not any of that. It's just here we go, God. And live out of not following all these principles to ingratiate God to you. But simply, Father, what are you giving me today? I think we've got to learn how to stop living by principles. Tangential to that is stop living by guilt. I was asked to enthrom a fellowship in a town I was living in. We're between pastors, we're going to hire a new one. Would you be our enthrom guy? And I said, no, really, I'm so not interested. And they said, would you at least teach us on Sunday mornings? And I was home for the summer, so I thought, well, I could do that. And I said, well, what do you want me to teach about? So we want you to teach on the cross. I said, well, if you want me to do that, I need to meet with the elders. And they said, OK, so we arranged a lunch with the elders. And I said, I just want to ask you guys, if you want me to come for nine weeks and teach on the cross on Sunday morning? I said, I want to ask you a question. How much work do you think gets done around this building during the weekend on Sundays? Because people would feel guilty if they didn't. And pretty honest, but they said probably 90%. Really? Yeah, probably 90%. I said, I don't know if people didn't have guilt. I said, well, then I want you to understand. If we're going to talk about the cross for nine weeks and you listen to me, then 90% of what you're doing is going to stop. Are you OK with that? If you're OK with that, I'm OK with you. And they were going, yeah, we're OK with that. OK. I talked for nine weeks, they didn't listen to it. The thing I said, they were wonderfully gracious and amen-ing me and laughing when I make them laugh and all that stuff. But in the end, even if I could skip one Sunday in this nine weeks, they were canadating a guy. And could I come and listen to the guy and give him my feedback on the guy? So the last thing I want to do is sit to some guy coming out of seminary with all the answers in the world, but I said, OK, I'll come. So Sarah and I went that morning and this guy was worse than your normal guilt shoveler. I mean, he was the opposite of everything we'd been sharing for seven weeks together. And sure enough, not one elder called me to ask later, what did you think? They asked me to be there. And then no one called, they knew what I thought. They hired the guy anyway. I just went, man, at least now you know what you're getting, I guess. If you're addicted, and people are, I think the hardest bit in this journey for me was that I'm not doing the things I've done since I was a little kid. Being in church Sunday night, Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, being involved in all these activities and all of a sudden that just cut them all off. I'm not doing any of that. I'm only going to do what Father shows me to do. And if Father doesn't show me anything for six months, I'm not doing anything for six months. I mean, it's not. Boy, guilt ravaged my soul. And I said, God, what do I do with this? I wake up Sunday morning, guilty. Oh, my gosh. And I remember playing golf with my son one Sunday morning because my son wanted to go golfing. I said, yeah, let's go. We were out playing golf. I had to rent to have church. And I was playing golf. I'm feeling so guilty. And I'm going, God, I know better than this. I'm going to get with the believers tonight. So even if there's a requirement issue, I'm doing it later. Why do I feel so guilty? And I just had a kind of moment where I think, remember driving past you all that time, thinking about all those guys playing golf, which you'd rather been doing anyway, but you just said what bad people they are. And you dumped all that condemnation didn't Jesus say something like, with the judgment you met out, the judgment will be meted back to you. Okay, so this is mine. This is my guilt out here. Perfect. You're going to help me fix this, right? He says, oh, yeah, we're going to help you fix it. But the only way is to lift it. It's to stop. As long as you respond to guilt, guilt will own you. It's when you stop or something. I'm going to feel guilty. We probably should go. When you hear the word should, and don't should on your friends. Yeah, because shoulding is what we do to ourselves. I should do this. When you're saying you should do it, you're not saying God's asked me to do it. You're not saying I want to do this with Father. What you're saying is, I've got a rule I'm following. And if I don't follow it, I'm going to feel bad. And I'd rather do it than feel bad. So I do it. And I stay captive to guilt. The only way to get free from guilt is to keep walking in what God asks you to do, and nothing more, and let the guilt die. The good news is, it will die. The bad news is, it seems to take an awful long time for some of us. Oh, man. But when it dies. Now, I even hear the word should anymore, and I just kind of quiver. I hear people talking. I used to live there all the time. That was my life. I woke up with such an agenda. All I needed to do for God on this day. And all God needed to do for me through all the things I needed to do for him. And every day of my life, I lived exhausted and frustrated. At the end of every day, God never came through from my agenda like I thought he should. Oh, he did a few little nice things now and then. But on God's best day with me, we broke even. I never ended the day overwhelmed with joy. I can tell you there's been one day in the last 10 years. One day, when I haven't put my head on a pillow at night when I was just outrageously grateful for what God had done in my life that day. And that was the day I dropped my computer at LAX and broke it. I'm going through security. I was laying in bed at night and saying, God, I'm really not grateful today. I'm just not. This day really sucked, man. I lost my computer. Now, I've had worse things happen. I'm not saying my days are lovely, everything's there. I've been through and people were going through very difficult things with. When God is in the midst of it, it's okay. And if God had been the one who dropped my computer at LAX, I probably would have been okay with it. But I had dropped it. What a fool I was. And that was my issue. It's a great way to live. To live out of this growing relationship. And I had a woman tell me a couple years ago, the best thing you said to me, Wayne, for a year, God was okay with that. Because my whole life was driven to do stuff. And you know, we're busy doing stuff. I think the whole parable, the Good Samaritan, I think why the Levite and the priest, we always talk about the hypocrisy of ministry and they really didn't care about people. I really just think they were too busy to stop. Because I know what that looks like. I'd see people in need pass my way. And I'm late to a discipleship meeting or a board meeting or something I had to get to. You didn't want to stop. It's that you couldn't stop. When you live without all that stuff, you've got time to stop. You've got time to acknowledge the moment. You've got time to live in it with people. Learning to live free. And I think that's what, Jesus, this is John 15 language. If you want to go back to the sermon on the, excuse me, the upper room discourse that we talked about yesterday, abide in me and I'll re-bide in you. Remain in me. Let my words be in you. And John 15 starts out pretty aggressive, doesn't it? Bear fruit or burn is the first few verses. Right? And you would think the uptake is, I better bear some fruit. But the uptake is not go bear fruit. It's you can't bear fruit if you don't abide. If you abide, you can't not bear fruit. So the uptake wasn't go bear fruit because how many apple trees you see out there just really gonna bear some fruit. If an apple tree is happy, it'll bear fruit. And I don't mean happy in, I don't mean that God wants to make you happy every day in the temporal terms we measure it. But the fullness of his joy, when we live in the fullness of who he is in a growing way day by day, your life will take on whatever fruitfulness God wants it to take. And so learning to live by principle rather than living, learning to live in love rather than by principle, learning to live in the freedom of who God's made us to be. Let me just read you a little bit. And I'll show you what else this means because it's not just not living by principle, it's not also not living by flesh avoidance. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. This is this line that Romans is talking about. Religion exists here. Religion is still us performing for God. It doesn't free us from the law of sin and death. It still results in death. And yes, I know I spelled religion wrong and it's bugging me and I'll go back and spell it right some day. There you go. Those of you that didn't know, to live here, this is the law of the spirit of life which is even kind of funny to call it a law because it's life. Now here's where I think principles are valuable. When I read the Scripture and I see the way God thinks and the way God wants me to live and looking to be in conversations where I give grace to the hearer rather than in conversations to get out what Wayne needs to say. This is a real wake up call for me with this. When I was moving from being a localized teacher of Scripture with a group of people on Sunday morning which I loved. I loved teaching people, taking people through things in God's life and working them through over time. I really enjoyed that and when we had multiple services I really hated having to teach the same thing through three times on the same day. Oh man, I gotta do that again. I knew I'd be traveling around more and talking about similar things with different groups of people rather than different things with a similar group of people. I was meeting with my friend and I said you know what, I don't know how you do it. He does this and if you've never heard Gail Irwin talk about the nature of Jesus go hear Gail Irwin talk about the nature of Jesus. Servantquarters.org will give you his schedule. If he's anywhere near you go let some other group pay for him to be there and just go enjoy it. Jesus down like no one I know it is hilarious. You will hurt when you leave because you will have laughs so hard. He's a comedian, does his great stuff on it. But he does the same thing every Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning of his life. He does exactly the same thing. And I was asking him, I don't know how you do it. He says what do you mean? I said you know what, even when I teach the same thing three times on a Sunday morning I'm gonna switch up the... I'll get to the same point next in three different illustrations just so I won't get bored. And he just looked at me with his little tweak on his eye and he said oh, so ministry's still about you. Oh my gosh. I mean, talk about feeling naked. I felt naked. He said so really he said listen Wayne when God gives you something to say and you see what God gives you to do frees people to live in his life you won't care if you say the same every day of your life and you're feeling free because it's not about you being amused that says a whole lot about what I thought of ministry. And now when you're in conversations with people not for what you need to say but see you could read the Ephesians 5 passage about make sure that in conversation you're giving grace to the hearer you could read that as a rule and go try to implement it and you would fail. But what you can do is look at that passage and say oh gosh, God this is somehow you want me to live. You gotta change some things in me to live this way. I think the power of living out all the things putting on the old man and putting on the new that's what we do in relationship that's not the invitation to performance stop doing these things and start doing these things this is what's saying, this is the old man this is the old Wayne, he's got agenda he needs to look good in front of people he's gotta, he's gotta, he's gotta when you see that, that's the old you and who's gonna deal with the old me am I gonna deal with the old me I just came around here on this side of my mess and I can say God I just, most conversations I'm in I'm always focused on me and what I want to say and what I want to get done that's it, I notice that can you change me ah yeah, I can change you now he doesn't always change that he changes something you think is totally unrelated to that and then you notice the next time you're in a conversation suddenly you're actually really listening to the person you're talking to you're going wow, this is unique I've never listened to before and then you're talking to them and saying nothing more than is gonna be helpful in the moment and letting them take it on conversations I have about who God is with the world are all controlled by the person I'm talking to I'm not going one bit further than they want to go because I think it's really important for me not to have an agenda with them but Jesus set me free of my agenda in so many other ways that I only see it now happening in relationships with the world, that's crazy and the best stuff in life isn't it the stuff that we're unaware that we're doing if we're doing it intentionally I think this is the freedom so he says now we're going to leave the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death for what the law was powerless to do and that it was weakened by sinful nature God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering and so condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the spirit for those who live according to the sinful nature have their mind set on what that nature desires but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mind set on what the spirit desires the mind of sinful man is death but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace the sinful mind is hostile to God it does not submit to God's law nor can it do so those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God however you are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the spirit if in fact the spirit of God lives in you notice what he's talking about the mind set on the flesh now in the old way of looking at this the mind set on the flesh is the mind set on indulging the flesh we can read that though the mind set on the sinful nature that's the person meditating on sinful things doing sinful things also acknowledges the mind set on the flesh is also the mind that wakes up trying to avoid the flesh if you're living your life to abstain from the flesh rather than to indulge the flesh you're still living with a mind set on the flesh haven't you noticed that the things you promised God you would never do again then you do them then you blame yourself because you're a lousy person you're not committed enough you don't work hard enough but this was never meant to work you cannot live by the abstention of flesh if you live to abstain from the flesh that's the same as living to please the flesh it's still living in the land of sin and death when I live relationally I don't wake up in the morning okay now I'm not going to do this today I'm not going to get angry the more I focus on it the more I'm going to do it absolutely but the more I get in touch with who God is the more He transforms me and I'm in a situation thinking about what is God doing here I'm not even thinking about my flesh not only do I not indulge it I also am not abstaining it and I'm finding freedom to be who God wants me to be I used this word yesterday we didn't parse it out very much but I talked about sin being displaced and I think that's where the healing of the cross is with sin because what God wants to do is displace sin in us by let's give an example if it were dark outside, if it were nighttime and we turned off all the lights in this room and I said to you let's all work together and drive out the darkness could we do it? we couldn't do it could we we couldn't put it in a little box and take it outside we couldn't drive it out our best effort cannot move darkness why? because darkness isn't something darkness is the absence of something you turn on a light and darkness is displaced does it go anywhere? does the darkness run outside and hunt a tree or go in the kitchen and get behind the refrigerator? no it doesn't go anywhere because it's nothing I think sin is a nothing I think sin is the darkness of our hearts that results from us not knowing we're loved by Father and I think that we see in Adam and Eve at the very beginning of it here's the temptation did God say you would surely die if you eat from that tree? yep that's what God said toward Eve and the snake says you won't surely die God just knows that the day you eat it you'll be like him knowing good and evil what is the enemy saying about God? God can't be trusted he's holding out on you there's something really wonderful here and God you're not really going to die God's a liar so there's the first lie but the second thing he says is true your eyes will be open to no good and evil that was true but the truth in the presence of a lie is a lie nonetheless because what it does is it drove a wedge between Adam and Eve and the God who made them if Eve totally trusted the God who went to the cross for us and the enemy comes and says God's holding out on you what's the temptation? is there any temptation? you come to me and say Wayne I got a call last night from one of your best friends they said Sarah has taken all your money putting in a bank account and she's leaving you you better get home take care of business are you going to cause me one moment of apprehension or anxiety? you're not because you don't know Sarah you don't it's a mixture always is a mixture it only takes a little cyanide to ruin the cool light though doesn't it? and the most deceptive lies are those that travel in larger bits of truth but if you were to add if you were to say to me Sarah's running out on you I've lived with this woman for 31 years Sarah's had better days better times to leave me than she does now our relationship is as rich and as vibrant and as full I can't imagine it being any better than it is I absolutely treasure every moment I have with her she does me when I came to Pennsylvania no, it was a different trip before that we had a number of real estate deals in process and things had to close on a certain date Sarah decided we were moving last summer and this was Sarah's decision, not mine but I said I'm in, I'll go with you she wanted to switch homes I wanted to do it in the fall, she wanted to do it in the summer because she's a counselor at a school she's off in the summer, she's got all summer to do her little nesting thing so I said you know what if we're moving over the summer we've got this week right here I can be home to help move you and I really can't move some of these other things so these real estate deals had to close by a certain day so we could move by a certain day 10 days I'm going to be gone I signed over to Sarah complete power of attorney for my signature because I didn't know what she would have to sign on my behalf to get those things to close and so I'm signing this thing there and I look at her saying this is your chance babe you want to take it all this is the time to take it, you've got everything I own of course and she said yeah I just might do that and we had a great laugh over it did I once think twice about what Sarah was doing at home I did not now that's one over 31 years of a relationship it wasn't true we got married we thought it was, all that giddy love of married oh yeah we love each other completely you don't even know who they are yet have no idea 31 years of knowing Sarah, loving her if Eve would have totally known who this God was for her and the enemy says God's holding out on you, how does she respond I think she responds something like this I think she'd go let me get this straight the God who made us who put us in this garden who said everything is here for our enjoyment except this, this God is going to lie about this tree no wonder you snakes aren't supposed to talk go away and there's no temptation trust actually all sin is and I think this is what Romans is saying whatever is not a faith is sin what it's saying is all sin results from mistrust or distrust or unbelief that makes sense sin is and I think you put every sin listed in Scripture in this definition sin is grabbing for myself that which God has not given grabbing for myself that which God has not for every class of sin is something God hasn't given you but you're going to take it anyway sometimes how we treat people sometimes how we indulge our flesh it's just taking for ourselves that which God has not given and I think it's an incredible thing that how sin gets displaced in us is not somehow I'm going to get strong enough to resist this sin and resist that appetite and whatever but as my trust in God grows my sin gets I trust God about my provision I'm not having to be greedy and take advantage of people around my life if I trust God for my joy in life then I'm trying to not make I'm not manipulating Sarah to be my joy in this life when I trust God to handle the details of my future I'm not in the anxiety of what my future doesn't look like you understand trust displaces sin so here's where trust is have you ever had anybody say to you at your worst moment going through a very difficult time well Wayne you just need to trust God more have you ever had that said to you okay we have has it ever been helpful isn't that weird that's the best advice people have to give you just need to trust God more and it's the worst advice you can get when you're hurting why is that a couple of reasons we did trust God more we wouldn't be in this pit so on the surface of it they're right second thing is anybody that talks about trust that way doesn't know what trust is for reasons I'll tell you in a moment so when I'm hurting and somebody's telling me to trust God more that person usually the one that couldn't trust their way out of a wet paper bag and if they were in my situation they'd be doing a lot worse than I am that's the other thing we know that's all we've been told in religion religion makes faith another act a religious act you can choose to trust God more tonight we're going to surrender all to Jesus and we're going to choose to trust him more than anything else and we go through all those things and we actually walk out of the room feeling good until we wake up the next morning and all the anxieties back and all that and then again we blame you because you took it back from the altar and all that stuff that's the voice trust is a reality the reason when someone says to you you need to trust God more is because what you know is trust is a... I cannot choose to trust God more than I trust him today ultimately trust is the fruit of a growing love relationship you trust somebody to the degree that you know they love you and you shouldn't trust anybody one bit more than that there are kids that expect their parents to be trustworthy and love them and when a parent is abusive when a parent exploits a child in ways that that happens the reason that is so devastating to a person is because the one person in the world you should be able to trust is your parents but in our broken world that isn't always true and that gets broken and then we've taught in the church we taught people we used to teach people to trust each other here's these home groups these teachers do stupid things that hurt and we've taught people to trust that we've done them a grave disservice you shouldn't trust me one inch beyond your conviction that I love you and care about you and would put you above me and that's the same goes for God you're not going to trust God one bit beyond your growing relationship of love in him allows you to do it so when you're in the middle of the situation in your heart we don't need this false guilt of you should grow more and you would be trusting God through this you pathetic little Christian when I get in a situation now that creates anxiety in my heart here's what I know there's something about Father I don't know that if I knew it I wouldn't be anxious here that takes me right to my prayer life Father what is it about you I don't know that if I knew it I wouldn't be anxious here I am anxious here so I don't know it when somebody says trust God more we react inside because it's a real you can't trust God today more than your relationship allows you to so someone telling you to do it is not helpful it's like little Billy little Billy's in the sixth grade little Billy decides he's going to go out for track never been out for track before he's going to go out for track he goes and signs up for a track meet gets in his first race it's a 440 yard run he comes around the far turn to the finish line he is going to finish last by a mile and his dad is in the stand screaming run faster Billy run faster Billy and Billy's thinking oh now see I never thought of that I should try and run faster that's why that whole trust thing is such a problem for us Jesus is not in the stands yelling at you trust more Wayne trust more Wayne Jesus is watching you run a race like that here's what Jesus would do little Billy I think Jesus goes down to the track after the race he finds little Billy and says hey Billy saw you running out there Billy's just embarrassed out of his mind I was horrible I shouldn't have done it what do you mean shouldn't have done it I was hard to see I finished last by a mile and Jesus would say well Billy it looked to me like that was the first race you'd ever run you know what really was you know for your first race I think you did fine those kids have been running for a long time you want to learn to run Billy I know something about running tell you what I'll do I'll meet you everyday after school if you want to tell me to depart and I know some things about technique that's going to help you run faster and we can do some strength conditioning that's going to help you run faster and we can do some stamina things it's going to help you hold that pace through the course Billy I can help you run like those kids run and if Billy wants to run Billy says I'm in you see running is a reality trust is a reality faith is not another religious act that we're supposed to give to God faith trust is what God produces in us out of this love relationship the more you know that God's got your back the less you watch your back that make sense it's a fabulous thing and when I'm in a situation where I'm not trusting I'm just going God what do I not know about you what is it that you want to show me because I know you don't want me to be anxious here I know that that's just clear but I am anxious here so what is it about you I don't know but when I know it I can walk through this situation and not have anxiety or anger or depression or indulgence or whatever when I fall to sin I'm like God there's something about you I don't I'm grabbing for myself here because I don't know who you are so every point of sin really becomes a point to get your focus back on the spirit because the mindset on the flesh is death even the mind abstaining from it and certainly the mind wallowing and guilt about it and the spirit is life and pace that which turns back to God and says okay man I need some changing here and God he's got this big mess in front he knows what you he's not surprised oh you're not trusting me there oh God do you think by now you could God's into reality he's not into what he hoped would be true he knows everything about me he knows what my depth of love with him right now sustains and he knows what it doesn't so he knows when I just trip up and fall and I'm all kind of broken he says yes he didn't Jesus know that when he said to Peter you're gonna deny me three times tonight I think this is one of the best stories in the whole book because here's Peter going now Jesus says yeah Peter Satan has asked permission to sift you like wheat you would think Peter would have said hey cool you told him no right you told him no right you know Jesus Satan asked permission to do that and evidently Jesus said yeah okay he's gonna deny me three but he said I will not I love you now see the Jesus I grew up with in Sunday school doesn't let this story unfold this is not like the Jesus I grew up with in Sunday school the Jesus I grew up with in Sunday school would turn to Peter and say hey listen if you follow me tonight to Caiaphas house you're gonna deny me three times if you deny me before men I'm gonna deny you before my father who's in heaven so here's what you better do buddy you better go home lock the door crawl under the bed I'll see you Sunday Jesus doesn't do that he says you know what Peter big big screw up tonight and he's like hey I die for you I think Jesus knows that's what's in his heart but his love relationship with Jesus isn't big enough to get him there tonight it will 40 years later that relationship will grow to a point where Peter's given the choice to deny or die and he dies but not now not tonight the relationship doesn't go that deep but you know what I think Jesus wanted Peter to know it didn't go that deep so you know what let's go here's what Jesus says to Peter not only satan asked permission and by inference he said okay but now he said to Peter I've already prayed for you that your faith fail not and that you return and strengthen your brothers is this the Jesus you grew up with in sunny school that already was praying for Peter past the failure he hadn't even committed yet and could have been avoided if he'd just gone home instead of gone to Caiaphas house this is, I'll say this is the Jesus of the Bible come on I've already prayed for you one that your faith is not going to fail and you come back and strengthen your brothers so you don't even come back as damaged goods oh I'm the denier I'm the denier guy I pray that your trust in me doesn't fail and then you come back and I think that's what part of that Peter do you love me things going on after the resurrection because I think Peter is saying gosh I thought I did but I can't say I do now because if I loved you how could I have done that that's the false interpretation of if you love me you'll keep my commandments because the religious way of interpreting is see your failure to keep them proves you don't and you prove your loving in the keeping but that's not what Jesus is saying the context is this stop worrying about keeping get the loving right the keeping takes care of itself the keeping doesn't prove the loving the loving guarantees the keeping that makes sense absolutely wonderful so this journey when Jesus says, or John says at the end of his end of his gospel I've written these things to you is so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of the living God and by believing have life in his name and now we've interpreted that as a salvation passage believing means you confess that he's the Christ and then because you've confessed that you get life in his name believing in the New Testament sense is not the wimpy weak believing word we have in English believing is the noun form of faith we don't have it or the verb form of faith we don't use that in English we use the word believe but our language for belief is pretty weak isn't it I believe it's going to rain today I believe those stealers might win the Super Bowl again but they do or not I mean belief is just nothing to us we just use belief about everything what do we put the word trust there let's know what he's saying I've written these things to you isn't that different than just believing believing is ascent to theology ascent to theology isn't enough ascent to good theology is a good thing but even the devils believe that he's the son of God that's what James says they know that's who he is believing the fact isn't the issue it's trusting in him as the Messiah by believing the more I trust him in my life the more of his life I live in now that's trust is not a work trust is the fruit of the relationship so I'm back to abiding again I abide in him I watch God save my bacon time and time again I watch God pull me up by my bootstraps when I've been the biggest idiot on the planet and that just wins me more to his trust I think God wins us to trust and I'll tell you how he did it with me financially I travel all over the world people ask me what it costs to have me come my answer is I'll just come trust God to take care of things if God doesn't he'll put it on someone else's heart God has taken care of me for 12 years I do not spend one moment of my life thinking about how I pay for anything now oh that's a lot of faith no it's not the first time this happened for me six months out of losing my job and not knowing how God's taking care of us invited to go teach at a seminary in Singapore this is right ahead of that Australia trip I told you about yesterday same trip going to Singapore to teach but I'm $3200 to pay my airfare and $1,000 a week for teaching excuse me $2,000 for the two and a half weeks I'm there that was going to help us pay to get to Australia we had all worked out Sarah was joining me for the Australia part our whole tickets for that airfare deal was $3200 that's what the seminary promised me so we only had to worry about how does God pay for the rest of our living during that time it didn't seem as big today I was ready to order tickets I got a fax from the seminary in Singapore sorry we've had some amazing financial difficulties here we cannot afford to bring you here we can't pay for your ticket we can't pay for the stipend that we said if you still want to come as a missionary outreach you're welcome to come but we really need to be released from our financial agreement and so I just happened that day to be meeting with some brothers and I read them the facts and I said I was having lunch with them they were very depressed they said why is that I was so looking forward to this they said what we're not going because of the money yeah we're not going because of the money what are you talking about I have $3200 he said it seems to me if God's put it on your heart then God's got a way to take care of it easy for you to say you have a real job with a paycheck every two weeks I don't he goes I don't know why seems to me and so I went home I really felt like that I was supposed to go on it I really felt like God had asked me to go I was excited the teaching stuff kind of all lined out I was excited about going and I said Sarah why don't we just why don't we just go we'll still go to Australia you know if we hadn't made this decision certainly what God did in our hearts in Australia could have been done in other ways but this was all part of not missing felt like Sarah we talked about maybe you shouldn't go to Australia we saved that much money from that we felt like we needed to be there together I'm so glad we were because what happened in our hearts needed to happen together so here's what Sarah and I decided let's just go put it on our credit card if God pays for it great if not we'll pay it off over the next few years I'll get a real job we'll stop playing these God games that's pretty much how we did now does that sound like a lot of faith to you that's not a lot of faith I was ready for the consequences if I've got $3200 in debt because I don't have anything on my credit cards it'll take me a while but we'll get them paid off but let's just do it and I get to Singapore and the provost picks me up and oh and three days before I leave my son has an appendicitis attack it ruptures they do surgery we don't have medical insurance either so now I'm going oh God this is just great and I'm going to be in Singapore with a kid just getting out of the hospital and he'll be in therapy for years because dad wasn't there I'm just I'm going on this trip just depressed out of my mind I get there the provost the center picks me up we're driving down to the school and he says why are you here? I said what do you mean? he said well we told you we couldn't pay your expenses we can't pay you to be here why are you here? because you invited me he said we invited 12 of you Americans to come over here and you're the only one who came now I'm not feeling like oh gosh I've got the I've got the power I'm the idiot they have all heard from God but me I alone am the moron here at the seminary and he said we're very grateful you're here we've scheduled from speaking for you in the evenings maybe we'll pick up some honor maybe that'll be helpful and I said no problem I said and here I'm saying this on the outside we said we trust God didn't we we just pray you're totally released and I'm saying it like I really believe it inside I'm going I'll be paying off this trip for the rest of my life all faith in the way that we measure faith I guess just the willingness to say God let's see if you are who you say you are first week in the seminary I do speaking I'm getting 40-50 dollars for a speaking thing and it's not going to be helping for anything and the last week I've been there a week and a half teaching I've spoken at a few house groups and a few institutional kinds of gatherings and you know I'm getting a little bit it's not a lot and I'm having a hard time sleeping at night to be honest I'm like God we're stairs at home and now I'm here and this isn't happening the last week I was there five days of teaching Monday through Friday I come out of the class on Monday and the receptionist says Wayne I've got some envelopes here for you over and got Wayne on them people drop these off I've spoken at places I haven't said one thing about money to anybody because I'm that obstinate little child that's saying to God if you want me to live this way you're going to have to do it without my help I mean that was it wasn't great faith or holiness it was just I'm not going to help you ruin my life you're going to ruin it on your own and um but they were envelopes and little notes from people just said you know her just speak the other night and I woke up this morning God I just put on my heart to give you this and it'd be 40-50 dollars in there all week long every time I walk by the receptionist says I want to get an envelope for you what and she's got another envelope and I'm taking this money up there it's 40-50 I'm just throwing them in my suitcase at Singapore dollars I don't know what to do with this this is not going to work by Friday there's a man waiting for me I finished class at noon Friday man's waiting out front for me a man that I talked to after one of the things that we had done and he said he's a businessman he said can I take you to lunch you got anything for lunch today I said can I take you to lunch I said absolutely so we went to lunch at the end of lunch he says I hope it's not embarrassing to you but he said God asked me to give you 400 dollars so he shoved 400 dollars across the table at Singapore wow thank you that's amazing and he said I hope you can use it no doubt I can use it I went back to my hotel after lunch got all these envelopes got all the cash out counted it put it in order I had no idea how much it was US took it down to the street to change it to US before I left the country it's 3200 dollars in change I walked back into the seminary I'm calling I almost amatic God for doing this on the one hand I'm grateful to have the bill on the other hand I don't want to live like this because I haven't slept at night it's been horribly terrorizing and I walked back in a little bit miffed and as I walked by the reception she said Wayne I said don't tell me I have another envelope because I was really frustrated she said no the provost wants to see it okay so I walk in and sit down at the provost's office he said Wayne kids have loved you great teaching wonderful time we talked about stuff that I wouldn't talk about today but that's beside the point and he said you know what grateful you came we really can't pay you what you're worth to have been here for us he said but we did get some money today and I'm embarrassed to do this because I know it doesn't even pay for your plane ticket but he took out five one hundred dollar US bills and he laid them out on the desk and said we want to give you this and I reached in my pocket and I took out thirty two one hundred dollar bills and I put them on a deal and I said I'll raise you thirty two hundred because what's that how did you get that I said people have been bringing money by all week long and little bits of money it's added up to thirty it's exactly what you promised me God's provided his eyes were this big he goes that's incredible I said isn't it he said add this to it man you have thirty seven hundred dollars I said you know what your staff's not paid I've got what you promised you keep it he said no no there's a miracle gone here we'll be part of it you keep it so we spent about five minutes making our theological arguments about I finally gave up and took it I left there with thirty seven hundred dollars not from a wonderfully obedient submitted trusting son but from an obstinate arrogant God I defy you to do this kind of thing when I say God wins us to trust I mean it every place I trust God in my life right now has been won through things like that I just simply did what God put on my heart to do willing to accept the consequences it wasn't him and then watched him do I now have not lost a night of sleep to anything I do I've lived for 12 years this way to have always so go you're done providing for me people ask what I do for a living and I don't know how to tell you what yes book sales bring in some money they do not enough to live on I speak and sometimes that does it I do bridge building consulting when I do that it pays pretty well and so I was with a group of people not long ago they couldn't even collect enough money to pay it was expensive these days and it was a bit of a drive but see when I was leaving a check came in the mail for $500 from somebody I'd never heard from and just said I think you need some help this week how do they know that I don't know how they know that other than the God guy doing the God guy thing and I got in the car and I remember saying in the car to God I just said I'm not getting any money this weekend am I that was just like I and I didn't and God paid for the trip before I left now sometimes I've come back without money from groups of folks I don't count it I don't worry about what's happening but it's on your heart to help me be here help if it's not on your heart don't do it because you feel guilty or you should or because the speaker's here because God doesn't need that from you and I don't need that from you I really don't I've been on trips come back with nothing and the next day a thousand dollar check arrives in my mailbox from somebody woke up this morning God said you'd need this I'm done I'm done worrying about it I'm just done asking the questions I'm done struggling God has taken care now God's won me to trust I don't feel like well I'm really God's man of faith and power about money I don't feel like that I just feel like when we get to heaven and stand around at the end of this whole thing Carmen we're not going to stand there and say we were good wouldn't we we really got that we got free of religion and we were living in the reality of this and that man we were really good see I don't think conversations are like that in heaven at all I think Scott and I are going to find each other in heaven and we're going to look at each other and say didn't he save our butt over and over again from all the stupid places we wandered into yes that's the joy of it no you're not bright enough no we're not going to get it no we're not but if you can simply trust this is what Paul wrote to the Galatians if you'll simply believe what you hear that's how he started didn't teach him how to read the Bible he just said when I was among you Jesus clearly portrayed his crucify you simply believed what you heard faith with hearing God put something on you and how's God put stuff on your heart he didn't speak to me in words that I hear didn't scroll things God just puts those little convictions in your head that kind of sound like you except they're not you and I know they're not me when I'm arguing with them see when I'm in the shower going this is the stupidest thing you've ever thought of Wayne I'm going okay see this is probably not my thought I don't argue with my thoughts I like my thoughts every one of my thoughts are great thoughts it's God's thoughts that drive me nuts you want me to do what now see when I'm doing that now then okay this might be you might make now here's where I am with that I think God speaks to you I don't know how God speaks to you if he's like me and my kids he may speak to all of us very differently so I can just say for me a lot of folks I've talked to I think what best expresses it is is a growing conviction over time someone's on my heart you know what two days later they're still on my heart I'm going to give them a phone call you know I feel like God wants me to do it seems stupid I don't have the money for it three days later it's still there it's growing if anything this is growing conviction so have I been wrong doing that sometimes yes be wrong God doesn't care if you're wrong once in a while how are you going to learn to live this life see what I thought I had to do as a pastor was I made a lot of mistakes learning how to follow God so my job is to save everybody else from making those mistakes but what I actually do is keep them from learning how to listen you think you've heard God share it with some other brother you'd be an idiot not to share what you think God's saying to you to some other brothers and sisters just to get their input you'd be an idiot not to but if you want to be an idiot God loves idiots too it's okay it's okay just see how it started and it's fine I've shared stuff with brothers that all affirmed it was right and in the end it wasn't so sharing it with all your brothers isn't proof of anything either right we're muddled along in this God wants to make himself known as a person in your life he's a presence and this presence in person gives you thoughts and insight about things and peace about things the biggest thing he does isn't even words that he leads you with the biggest thing is I become so up in this love thing I'm loved by a father and as I'm loved by a father then I find myself responding in love to people without a clear word from God as to what to do well what does love lead you to do and that's good enough I mean yes what would be better do you think if we're in a room like this and God says okay Carl needs $200 and now God could just say to Marty Marty I want you to give Carl $200 and you get as an act of obedience that you know what God said here it is but what if instead God gave me such a love for Carl that in our conversation I find that there's a need here and I just want to give him $200 because I love and care about him and so I just give him $200 and say hey I hope this is going to be a blessing to you it's kind of maybe just what you're talking about maybe complain if you're going to try and give me money no that's not about that what would be better for you would you rather get love from somebody no okay God told me to do this or somebody just loves you enough to say oh man you touched me I want to help you what would you rather have as we grow in this love I'm hearing less instructions from God to do things as it's just the naturalness of what love leads me to do with people I'm near it's just so freeing to live in this great dance of affection and do it until you know your love we get caught up in this love relationship we're just doing what God puts on our heart and the more you read the scriptures you're going to find your life becoming more in line with the things that are in here but not because you've read the things that are in here and try to make them happen but because God's making you a bit like him in the world and that's just the most freeing thing in the world and so to live by what you hear to know him as he is and let him win you to trust by believing where I trust God to take care of me that's where I live in his life where I'm grabbing for myself that which God has not given that's where I'm not living in his life and that's what John 20 is talking about and where I'm not living in his life I get to go back here God what am I missing would you show me and he's just so good to show you he's got your whole life to sort those things out I love what even though it says by trust we have life in his name or by believing I have life in his name and then Hebrews 12 says question came up yesterday about discipline here's what Hebrews 12 says before it starts the discipline argument Jesus who is the what and what of our faith the author and the finisher of our faith so this is even the work he does so this is not you know what I'm going to get my faith off no it's not your job it's his job he's going to author it in you and that training is not you've done bad whack the training is what I went to at Singapore I'm going to teach you to trust and that is often times yes but God loves those who discipline my dad farming in the vineyard but when you're disciplining a vine you're not beating on it for being bad you're just putting it up on the wire so it'll bear fruit and yes the vine can just sprawl everywhere and you're whacking on me and God just says you know I want you to be fruitful because I wrote that book on the vineyard a long time ago I travel all the world and everybody has a great vine just will say to me can you have a look at my great vine I'll say why it's the bored fruit in years really it's beautiful it's a big vine no fruit okay let me look at it give me a prune cheer and I'll go out there and look at this huge vine it leaves everywhere nothing on it and I'll say I can't do this for you now because you can't prune it in summer you gotta prune it in winter but here's what I want you to do and I'll get a marking pen or something cut this off this off this off this off this off this off this off this off this off this off leave this this this and this five new growth canes on this vine there's like 300 on it I'm gonna you move it down to the five best ones they're going you're kidding I said no I'm not kidding will it kill it oh no you're killing it you're killing it by leaving it will be pretty but it will not bear fruit so do you want appearance you want to look good you want to eat grapes your choice and they I get the email from I pruned that vine the other day you better be right because that thing looks pretty pathetic and then eight months later my gosh we have so many grapes around here we don't know what to do with them God disciplines those He loves why because you want to be fruitful because God wants you to be the life I'm describing to you this is not what you want oh God please see religion grows up with a very miserly God beg it out of him if you can show him you're serious proof to him that you're worthy of this God's got all these goodies and he's holding them close to the vest I don't think so yet 300 more prayers maybe I'll do it because God doesn't reward religion he doesn't but God wants this life for you infinitesimally more than you want it for yourself if you don't know that yet then there's something about the cross God gets to make real to you God wants the ABBA relationship more with you than you want it he's extravagant about teaching us to live this way we just need to take the freedom to stop living by principles to stop living by our fears and anxieties to stop living by our guilt and just say I'm going to wake up tomorrow and say God what are you doing me to do