Skip to content Stand Alone Messages: Think About It Feb 11 · 47 min ...more
Stand Alone Messages: Think About It
February 11, 2024 · 47 min
Speaker: Justin Hart
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Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub serves as president of Pastor Jeff Ministries, a national and global ministry designed to equip believers and challenge them to take
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0:00 So Lord, just lift up our servant, our friend, our brother in Christ, pastor Justin Hart. Lord, just continue to use him mightily like you did in the first service. Lord, just bring to mind the0:11 things that he needs to share with us. And Lord, I just thank you that he's a faithful proclaimer of your word. And Lord, we believe as a people that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed, no0:20 matter who's doing the proclaiming, that it's you who are speaking Lord, we wanna hear you. So our prayer is speak Lord, for we are ready to hear. And so now for all those who gather who desire to hear Jesus Christ speak0:30 directly to your heart, who will believe what he says, and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you, will you agree with me very loudly this morning by saying the word amen. Amen. Let's welcome pastor Justin0:41 to the pulpit. Alright.0:47 Good morning break church. You guys doing alright? You ready to get after it today? I love getting after it and worship and just praising the Lord. This is a church that loves to worship. It's a church that loves Jesus.0:58 And I gotta tell you from the bottom of my heart, I am honored to to be in this pulpit today and share a moment with you that I believe God wants to use in your life to bring some real transformation. So by the grace of1:09 God today, I believe he's gonna work and do something amazing in your lives on all of our campuses. As I was thinking about the message that I wanted to to build out for this week, I was thinking about,1:21 my kids. I have 4 children and I love them all to death. But if you have kids, especially young kids and there's a moment, in your day where things go super quiet, you1:33 know something is up. Like start peeking around corners and you start hearing like the jaws theme song in the background. Like what is, what's happening? And I1:45 remember, finding my oldest daughter and my second son, Bennett and they had taken my wife's, nail polish, like 20 bottles, and just emptied them1:57 all on top of themself and on the carpet. I mean, was a like, you can't wash your kids off with acetone. You know that? Like, it took forever to get that stuff worked out and all I could think in my head was this thing2:08 that you and I say all the time, sometimes out loud, sometimes not out loud. It's this phrase, what were you thinking? What were you thinking? Like, what in the world is going on? And2:20 I wish I could say that this phenomenon of not thinking or not thinking ahead or not paying attention to consequences of things stops when you're children. But if you've been on to I 25, you know that's not the2:32 case. You know what I mean? Those things continue to happen and growing up, I had this book that was always on our coffee table at home called the Darwin Awards. And you may not know what the Darwin Awards. It was2:44 this book of people who died or almost died in these ridiculous ways where it's like, what were you what were you thinking? 1 of them was this gentleman who in a hurricane, had a palm tree that got2:55 like stuck underneath his house. And and you know, the guy just thought, well, I gotta get that out of there. So he got his chainsaw and he sat on the business end of that palm tree and cut it3:07 off. He got thrown like a mile out to sea. He became like a palm tree catapult that threw the guy. Right? And you're thinking, what were you thinking? What were you thinking sitting there? There there was another3:18 gentleman who I think he was like 75 years old and he was some kind of fitness guru guru. So he wanted to show the world, that he at 75 years old was with able to live through a3:29 hurricane and it would be fine and dandy and nobody told him that it's not just the wind that's blowing against you. It's what the wind is picking up. Right? So if you get hit with the roof of someone's3:41 house, it doesn't really matter how many pull ups you did this morning. You weren't thinking. Right? You you weren't thinking and the book was filled with these stories of ridiculous things of what people had done. And3:53 what I wanted to share with you this morning is that thoughts have consequences because they're leading us to action. Thoughts have consequences because they're leading us to action and I've titled4:05 this morning's message, think about it. Because I'm hoping that we can, in this post modern world that we currently live in, that doesn't really love truth and doesn't really love objectivity and thinks4:17 that it can just do whatever and not have consequences that we as a church would go back to the Shema. Right? Here, O Israel, the Lord our the Lord our the Lord our God, the Lord is 1. You shall love the Lord your God4:28 with all your heart, with all your soul, and say it with me, with all your mind, with all your strength. We need our minds. We gotta think about it. And as a church, we should be people who can stand on that hill and be4:40 a bastion of light against the darkness and say, no. Their their decisions have consequences. Thinking has consequences. How you're living your life has consequences. And I learned earlier this week that the4:51 majority of people get into car accidents when they're merging, but but not because of what's going on behind them. That's where their eyes are focused. It's actually what's happening in front of them. They're looking5:03 behind them to try not to hit anybody and then they plow into the person in front of them. And and here's what I want you to do today. I want you to realize that regardless of what has happened in your past, regardless5:14 of our tendency to look back and say, well, this happened and that happened. I want you to see that those things can sometimes blind us from what's actually happening in the future. And if you're not paying attention,5:24 you could end up in a wreck. If you're not paying attention, you could end up in a place that you don't want to be in. So I want to take us as a church to a familiar text today to help us think through how our5:36 thought life affects our actions and inevitably how we will end up. Because what you sent your mind on and what it's being transformed by has everything to do with where you will5:47 land. So let's look at this together. I wanna take you to Romans chapter 12, and we're gonna read verses 1 through 2. And I hope this is very familiar territory for you. It's a wonderful passage, and, I'm excited5:59 to get after it. Let's let's go ahead and read it now. It says, therefore, I urge you brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable6:11 to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is6:23 good and acceptable and perfect. Will you pray with me? Lord, we believe that every single time your word is opened and we come to you in humility, Lord,6:36 you can transform our minds, our hearts. You can do something brand new so that we would leave here a totally different person. God, so I'm asking now to remove any encumbrance, any distraction, anything that would keep6:46 us from hearing exactly what it is that you would have for us today through this passage. Do a work, Lord. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if you've spent any time in the bible or you grew up in church, you'll6:58 actually start to see this pattern emerge, especially in the old testament prophets and then the new testament epistles. This this this pattern that happens this way. It's basically, here's the way that you're thinking.7:12 Here's why it's leading you into all this trouble. Here's how you should be thinking gospel minded. And here's the blessing that would occur in your life if you would just take it7:23 seriously. Like it's basically Paul talking to these teenage churches telling them, hey, would you just would you pay attention before you do the things that you're doing? Would you seriously consider about it? And this7:34 is this is important because what Paul wants us to understand and what the bible is trying to under help us understand is that belief is central to our faith, not good intentions. Belief7:45 is what actually drives and direct our lives, not just what we hoped we could have spent more time on or what we thought we would eventually get to. And the text gets right at the heart of this because7:57 Paul is a loving father that wants you to end well. And my heart for you today is that you would identify areas in your life that are setting you up for a spiritual Darwin award, that8:09 are setting you up for some kind of failure. And and I need you to know this church. This is so important. You can either be a pillar of salt like Lot's wife, or you can be a8:21 monument to the faithfulness of God like so many of their patriarchs in the faith. Your life will either be an altar you build to yourself or an altar that you build8:33 to God, but it can't be both. Right? But but either way, whatever you end up building, the day is coming for all of us when we will breathe out and we will lay our lives down on8:45 the top of these altars that we have built as a statement of who we are and what we stood for. That's not an option for us. That's coming. That that's happening. And everything that we do8:57 speaks. I hope you know this. Whether you're building the tower of Babel or you're building a temple for the Lord, what you put your mind to is where your heart and, your hands will will go. And I I need you to know9:07 this. Some of you think that like, well, I'm not doing anything, so there's not repercussions for that. And I wanna tell you right now, a father's empty seat at the table speaks just as loud as an, as a as a full seat.9:17 Right? A mother's absence in someone's life speaks just as loud as her presence. There is no neutral ground. You are building something. What what are you building? And I actually have a a slide9:29 for you, a picture I wanted to put up of this monument in in Gilgal. There's these things are everywhere. It's awesome, especially all over the old testament. And there were these waypoints, these markers where they9:41 would point to stuff and say, this is where you're supposed to go or this is where heaven touched earth. You guys wanna learn a fun word today? You ready? Hierophony. Say, Hierophony. Not bad. Not9:53 bad. Hierophony is a place where heaven came down and touched earth and did something transcendent. And I wanna tell you today, brave church, I want that for every single person in this room. If you put your faith in10:04 Jesus, I want you to be a place where heaven touched earth in a dramatic way that would speak to generations going forward. Amen? So I want you guys to think about these these altars, these monuments10:16 that speak to us. Your life story is going to be a pile of rocks for the next generation to learn from and be directed by. And the question is, what do you want it to be saying? What will the10:28 message actually be? I have a quote for you I wanna put on the screen. It says, people don't decide their futures. They decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.10:40 People give their thought life to a particular thing and that's actually gonna end up being what happens over the course of that person's life. How many of you guys know you're not gonna magically turn10:52 into somebody else? That doesn't happen. It's what you do, how you're processing, what you're thinking that is leading to a particular end. This is why we need Romans 12 1 and 2 today.11:04 This text functions for us as a diagnostic for healthy Christian thinking. So I wanna give you 3 things to consider today. 3 things to help you renew your mind and11:15 3 tools to go along with those things so that you can start adding to your pile of stones to make a statement that outlives you, for a long time. So so I want you guys to come with me and we're gonna read verse11:27 1, at least a portion of it real quick and then we're gonna get into this. It says, therefore, I urge you brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice11:38 acceptable to God. Here's what I want you guys to think about today. I want you to think about how God defines acceptable sacrifice. How God11:50 defines acceptable sacrifice. And in this passage, I I want you to think about this for a second. He wants them to think through the sacrificial system. He's writing to a bunch12:02 of people who understood the Jewish sacrificial system who year after year after year would bring these animals to the temple and they would be sacrificed and they would never see them again.12:15 Never again. They they were gone. And I want you to understand from this what what he's trying to get from in this text is that listen, if you give your life to Jesus, you're literally saying you and your agenda are12:26 done. It's burned. It's gone. It's it's dead. Don't resurrect it. You now have a new agenda and a new life and a new purpose in Christ. And we see this this antinomy, this paradox12:38 throughout scripture of this kind of like like I'm I'm dead, but I'm also receiving a new life in Christ. Galatians 2 20 makes it clear. Right? I've been12:49 crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live. It's Christ who lives in me. And then in the same breath he says, yet the life that I now live, I live by faith in the son of God who13:01 loved me and gave himself up for me. It's like, well, which is it Paul? Do you live your life or does God live your life? And he said, exactly. Exactly. That's the sweet spot. Where I've given away what I used to be and13:11 I am not that anymore. It's gone and I've become something entirely new and I want you to see this. It's a wholesale. It's all of it. You don't get to keep portions from that sacrifice.13:23 It it's gone. He's doing something fundamentally different. The gospel is not asking you to check a box or make a a donation to the13:35 gospel, it's saying, no. I need your life commitment. And I was actually at an IHOP the other day. See if we can throw this slide up. And it it had a pig and a chicken on it, and it it it said chicken13:47 for breakfast. Right? It's a breakfast chicken all in a day's work. For a pig, a lifetime commitment. And and this is what I want. I love it. Be a commitment. Be the bacon. Be the Doesn't that make you feel13:59 about giving your life over? Yeah. I'm gonna be bacon, not eggs. Right? Gross. You know, bacon. Here's here's the deal. It's it's exactly that point. Are you gonna make contributions to the kingdom or you gonna commit14:10 your life to the kingdom? Are are you just gonna check a box and come on a Sunday and say, you're welcome pastor. I came to the or you actually coming here because you're saying, no. God has my whole life. He has he has14:22 everything. It belongs to him. It's not mine anymore. It totally belongs to him and and who he is. And what's being said in this portion of scripture is that God is14:34 looking for your whole life. He wants all of it. Why? Because he wants more for your life than you do. You know how much God can do with something small and insignificant? He can do something glorious, but the more14:45 that we hold back, the less actually gets done. This is why in John 15, he says, apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from God, we can't do anything. And and I want you guys14:57 to get this because I think so many people are stuck in this place of frustration and and I'm sort of in and I'm sort of out and I'm I'm trying to get this figured out and and I want you guys to know that15:09 what we need to be thinking about is how we lay our entire life down. That we're not holding it back anymore in these different areas. Some of the best generals from history, guys like Cortez, would do this thing where15:20 they would go to the bat. You know, they they pull up with all their ships. They'd unload everything and they'd set the ships on fire, which is for the record a really cool entrance. Okay? Like, you know,15:32 there's some pyro and you walk in and all your gear. No. But but the the picture is this. There is no going back. There's no plan b. Spartans said the same thing to their15:44 warriors, either come back victorious or come back on your shield. Jesus is not calling you to come and and and live and I'll go with you. Jesus is calling you to come and die so that he could live through you.15:56 And when we compartmentalize, we we come to this place where we end up frustrated and actually bitter. Listen, the most frustrated and bitter Christians on the planet are the ones with a foot in both worlds.16:08 They got a foot in the church and a foot in the world and they're wondering why it's not working out for them and it's because you always have a backup plan. You're shooting yourself in the foot because the very end game16:17 that you say you want is the thing that you're working against and everything else that you're doing. We're plagued by this mindset today. We're plagued by it. This this double minded, this this16:28 compartmentalization where I think I can live a certain way in my life and it not have affect anything else that I'm doing. Like so many when we went through this whole same sex marriage16:40 thing, it's so frustrating because everyone's like, it's in their own homes. Love is love. It's it's not hurting you. It's not bugging you. And now we're watching the the families begin to be pulled apart and we're16:51 watching transgender story hour and we're watching things like this and it's like, no. Listen. You cannot take Christ out of areas and expect it to still remain17:03 and be fine. You can't disconnect portions from what God said is good and right and life giving and expect it to continue to live and not devolve into something it was never meant to be. We cannot17:15 compartmentalize. It actually begins to kill us when we do. It starts to to rot us and and I want you to understand this because as I was processing how to how to17:26 communicate this, I wanted to take you briefly just to the book of Joshua. You don't need to go there in their bibles. But I wanna talk about the story in Joshua is really a book of unacceptable sacrifice. And the reason17:38 is is because like our salvation story, Jesus goes in and he says, want all of it. I I want all of it. Clear everything out of the land. I love how pastor Jeff says this. Jesus doesn't come in to be resident. He comes in17:49 to be president. And he says, all of this is mine. And he rolls in and then the story of Joshua is them stopping 3 quarters of the way. They go in with all this vigor and it's gonna be awesome and then they end up18:01 leaving some things in the land. And then right after the book of Joshua is the book of Judges, which ends by saying, and every man did was right in his own eyes. Because the places that they left18:13 slowly began to make inroads and slowly again began to break down all of the progress that they fought so hard to have because they weren't willing to give it all to Jesus. They wanted to short up their bets.18:25 They wanted to play it safe and make sure that everything was gonna be fine just in case Jesus doesn't work out. They wouldn't burn the ships. They wouldn't make that commitment. And I I wanted to tell you a story. I18:35 was, learning more and more about the Romans and I'm a history nerd. I like a lot of that stuff. And and 1 of the ways that, Romans would deal with capital punishment for people who were murderers18:47 is they If you committed murder, they would actually take the body of the person that you had murdered and they would lash it to you so that you would walk around. And and what would happen is this this dead18:59 body as it was decomposing would start to kill the person that murdered them. It would it would eventually be a death sentence for them. And I'm not saying that to be gross to you today. I'm saying that because I want19:10 you to understand, some of you have offered your life as a sacrifice to God and you picked it up and you're dragging it around with you and it's killing you. It's killing you because you just you won't give19:22 it all over to God. This is why in this passage, it's this urgent plea. He says, I urge you for the love of God. Choose life that you19:33 would live. Give your life wholesale. Give it over to God. Why? Because when you say I present my body to God, what it means is I'm I'm getting rid of everything else that I used to be. In fact, this word presented19:45 here is the word that's used when Jesus is presented at the temple by Mary and Joseph. It was their way of saying this boy's life and everything that he represents is your will and your work, God, and your19:57 glory, and your goodness. The text is urging us to do the same. Present your life. Present it the rest of it. Going forward, I belong to Jesus. I work for Jesus. My heart20:09 is for Jesus. It's not a give and take in your relationship with God. Acceptable sacrifice is a wholesale. It's everything that you are. So the first20:22 stone that I have for you today, because I know this can be a daunting thing. I'm like, give your life over. Thank you, pastor. Where do I start? Right? The first thing that I want you to take with you today is20:33 this. What have you told God that you would do but you haven't done yet? What are the things in your life that you told God, God, said I would start serving in this area. God, I said I would share20:45 the gospel with my neighbor. God, I told you last year that I was I was going to stop doing this thing and I was going to treat my wife better. God, I said I would do this. That what is that? Because the area where where20:57 you're telling God you're gonna do something and then not doing it is occupied enemy territory and it's coming for you. You gotta get in there. You gotta let Jesus begin to do a work in that place and bring21:09 his power and his mercy and a wholesale sacrifice laid before Jesus. And this leads to our next point because the reality is this, if you aren't giving your life over to Christ, you21:21 most certainly have a worship problem. And so I wanna take us back to this verse in verse 1, and I wanna read the second portion to you. Here's what it says. Present your bodies a living21:32 and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. I want you to think about how God21:44 defines selfless worship. I want you to think about how God defines selfless worship. And and here's the picture. It flows right into this because if I've given my whole21:56 life up, if I've given everything that I am over to God, it should follow that all of my worship is then brought to Christ. If I'm no longer the person that I used to be, then it should go to Jesus.22:07 But let's be honest, even though sometimes we kill that old man and he's gone and he's dead and I've given it all to Jesus, I still have some habits and patterns and tendencies to go to the wrong places. Amen? And so I22:18 want you guys to to understand this today. When we look at this text, it it says this word here, which is your spiritual service of worship. That word for spiritual there is actually where we get our word22:30 for logic or or rationality. He's saying, if you are thinking clearly, you would understand that you cannot serve 2 masters. If22:42 you're thinking clearly, you would understand that I can't say my life and all that I am belongs to God, but also I'm gonna hold on to other stuff because I just really enjoy these things. I I can't do both22:53 of those things. And and Jesus wants us to know that the difference between worship in our life and worthless in our life has everything to do with where it is directed. Where is our23:05 worship directed? Because that's how we know it's it actually matters. And I think a lot of us try to do this thing where we'll do like self worship and then try to staple some Jesus on top of it. Like, there you go.23:16 Now, you know, but I did this. Or how many of you guys know this? We shouldn't be asking Jesus to go with us. We should be asking Jesus where is he going? You know that? Like we should be following him into what he has23:28 for us. And I I wanted to share a slide with you. This is a picture of a of a prayer garden. A lot of these are in, yeah, far eastern gardens and Buddhist temples and things. And and23:40 this also can be found in Boulder, obviously. If you live up there, I'll pray for you. This is a small picture. Oftentimes they're a lot bigger. Sometimes they're square. Sometimes they're kind of labyrinthine.23:52 But all of them have this idea that we would start praying and we would slowly begin to pray and we would move to the center until I find myself in the middle of myself24:04 with God. Isn't that beautiful? Except that it's the exact opposite of what the gospel is. Listen. The whole gospel is the opposite. We start in the middle and we are running24:16 for our lives away from the people that we used to be. Can I get an amen? Like we don't need more of us. We need more Jesus. We don't need more self centered, self thinking24:28 worship where we're hedging our bets and Jesus, you can come with me and I'll tag this on. No. Jesus is saying, come to me because when you turn inward, it's the darkest, most awful place that you can24:40 go. But if you would get your eyes up on Jesus and begin to worship, you would find life. You'd find a hope. And our our culture is obsessed with this self help, self24:52 medicating, self centered, self reliance, self care nonsense that has permeated our world. And and let's be honest, I know we're here at Brave Church. I know you guys love Jesus, but we're crazy if we25:03 think that that's not that what's going on in the world is not going to affect us at all. Amen? Like, I think we need this today because I was spending time with my daughter. No. I love to death and I came up I came up25:15 the stairs 1 day and I was hearing this song playing about like, you follow your heart. It's the only thing to do. Trust your heart. It's the only way. And I'm as a pastor, I'm like, Lord help us.25:27 What is playing in my house? Turns out it's Cinderella 3. I don't know how many times that girl needs saved, but at least 1 more I guess. I don't don't understand. So so I25:38 look at my daughter and I'm like, sweetheart, do we follow our heart? And she looks at me and she's like, no, dad. I was like, okay, you're fine. You're gonna be okay. Like she gets it. Thank25:50 God. But but let's be honest, that stuff is playing around us. It is. It's happening. And if we're not careful, it will play us a sleepy tune of self worship where we begin to have our eyes26:02 focused on the wrong things. And we can't live a life pursuing selfish gain and comfort and expect anything other than empty worship. We can get into26:14 bad relationships though. We can get into situations where we end up in this, like, spiritual Stockholm syndrome. You know what I mean? Like like where I know I shouldn't have this thing, but now I feel like I love it26:25 and I need it. And if I remove it, I don't know what's gonna happen and I won't be taken care of. And maybe you're making some financial gain in an unwholesome way. Maybe you are in a relationship that you shouldn't be26:36 in and you're like, but I don't want to be alone. And I wanted to share with you a story from a church history. I love it so much. There's this saint named named Boniface. Saint Boniface was a26:48 missionary to these Germanic tribes that were worshiping these, Norse gods. And he was going and he was trying to share the gospel with them and tell them about the glory of Jesus Christ.27:00 And all of them were almost terrified at the idea of following Jesus because they're like, no. No. No. We Thor is the 1 that we serve here. We we don't. They felt like if I trust Jesus, I'm gonna lose my home. I'll27:12 lose our prosperity. I'll I'll be outcast. All these horrible things will happen and they had this big festival they would do all the time around this very ancient tree called Thor's tree. And they would go to this place27:23 and Boniface just has the heart of someone at Brave. And he goes in and he takes an axe. And while they're in the middle of worshiping Thor, he goes and he starts hacking at the tree.27:35 And everyone's sitting there like, oh my gosh, Thor's gonna kill him. What's gonna He can't do that. This is What is he thinking until the tree falls down? And here's what I want you to see27:47 today, brave church. When when we will cut things down in our life, when we'll remove those things that we're holding tightly to, God begins to27:59 do a work. And I want you to know that every single 1 of those people in that tribe gave their life to Christ as soon as the tree hit the ground. It was over from that point on. They were worshiping Jesus. They actually28:09 took it as lumber and made a church out of the thing that used to be an idol. Come on. Like I that fires me up. And we need to be the kind of people that in your life right28:21 now are ready to go cut the tree down. What is it that you're holding on to? Where's your spiritual Stockholm syndrome where you're continuing to worship something because you think it's taking care of you. But if you're28:32 being honest, it never has. It's it's never actually sustained you or been there for you. That that self worship nonsense where you think something is taking care of you, it's it's it's gotta go.28:44 What worries me is that I'm telling you this, and there are some of you in this room right now who are not listening and you're gonna have to wreck a valuable relationship before you cut that tree down. There's some of28:56 you in here who are gonna wreck good things that God has given to you because you're too busy still worshiping yourself and what you need and what you think and that self centeredness that is so destructive. And and29:07 right thinking where worship of Christ is primary and not our agenda. Listen, it leads to life. But self worship gives you a comfortable seat to watch things go badly. It really29:19 does. There's this wonderful book Haggai in the in the Old Testament. And in the book of Haggai, there is these people that God had brought out of exile. He had saved them. And they began to build the wall for the29:31 temple and build the temple area and got stuff going. And then at some point, they just stopped. And for 16 years, they were building their own homes and doing their own stuff while the temple laid in29:42 ruins and unfinished and God had a message through his prophet Haggai. Here's what he said. Said, is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate? Now therefore,29:54 thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You've sown much but harvested little. You eat but there's not enough to be satisfied. You drink but there's not enough to become drunk. You put on clothing but no 1 is30:06 warm enough and he who earns earns wages to put into a purse with holes. Thus says the Lord, consider your ways. Think about it. Go up to the mountains, Bring wood. Rebuild the temple that I may be pleased with it and30:18 glorified, says the Lord. You look for much, but behold, it comes to little. When you bring it home, I will blow it away. Why? Declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house which lies desolate while each of you runs to30:29 his own house. They thought that because they had done some stuff for Jesus, that they were good to focus on all their own things. I30:41 did that. I got I served that 1 time. I helped in that 1 particular way. And the house of the Lord is lying desolate and he's saying, are you serious? Don't you realize that if you don't get rid of30:53 this self centeredness, everything that you bring home isn't gonna matter? All the things that you're working on won't work out. Why? Because only Jesus can take what we give him and sustain it and create31:05 something beautiful. Worship that you pour into yourself is a black hole. It's not going anywhere. When we directed at Jesus, glory is the byproduct. Wonder is the byproduct. Life is the31:16 byproduct. And I need you guys to know this today. Self worship, it's a burning house. You gotta get out of there. If you're caught up in some of that today, if you're caught up in areas where you got self worship going31:28 on, you got that spiritual Stockholm syndrome, I wanna tell you, get out of there. Don't wait for a more comfortable minute to leave because it it won't actually come. The tool the the stone31:40 that I wanted to hand to you guys for this particular portion today is is 1 that I started praying about 10 years ago, me and my wife did. You go through some crazy seasons in your life and it just changes the way that31:51 you think about stuff. And and we started praying this prayer. God, ruin my plans. Ruin my plans. If it's not lined up with you and where you wanna go32:03 and what you wanna do, God God, take it away. Because my heart, if I'm not careful, can take me to places I don't wanna go. And can I tell you, the first time I prayed that prayer, it felt like I was pulling a knife out32:14 of my chest, which tells me that even though I love Christ, I still have a self centered tendency, don't I? I still got roots in me that want what I want. And I would tell you this32:26 brave church, start praying that way. And if the first time you pray that, you don't feel a little pull inside of you, then you're killing it and you're doing great. But the reality is is the majority of us when we pray,32:37 God, ruin our plans, do what you wanna do, begin to see, oh man, I really am more self centered than I thought. And I'm And you have to confront this question, am I here to worship Jesus or am I here to worship32:49 myself? Selfish worship is all about Christ and his way and what he wants. And listen to me break church. It's better. It's better to follow Jesus. There's joy and there's life33:01 there. The last point I wanna share is a little bit more insidious because I think the sins of of seasoned Christians are not sins to start.33:13 They become sinful because we take them and elevate them to a place that they shouldn't have. And so I wanna show you some of this from from verse 2 today. Let's read this together. And do not be conformed to33:25 this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and33:37 perfect. Okay. I want you to think about how God defines intentional transformation. Intentional transformation.33:49 He gives us 2 options here in this text. Be conformed or be transformed. And he makes the incredibly important point that you will actually miss the will of34:01 God for your life if you don't get this right. If you aren't being transformed, you will actually miss what God would have for you otherwise. You walking the will of God is dependent on34:13 you being transformed and not pressed into whatever mold the world around you wants. And what is wild to me about all of this is he tells us to be transformed, which means that I have something to do with it.34:25 That that this is actually something that I have something to say about. I am a part of whether I am being transformed or conformed. I I have something to say about that.34:37 And I gotta tell you guys, going through, this intentional time of fasting over the 21 days that we had with prayer and getting after it has told me a lot about my appetites and and my tendency to34:49 like do stupid things when I'm trying to get healthy. Like you come out of this fasting, you're like, alright, I'm gonna eat better for once. I'm gonna live my life different. I'm gonna I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do34:58 that. And then you have like, you know, a late night and you're thinking about that 12 AM Taco Bell. You know what I mean? And, it's like a terrorist attack on your whole life at that point when you eat it. You're like,35:10 what was I thinking? And and a part of you was like, your body's a temple. And the other side of you is like, no. It's an amusement park. Right? Like like, what is happening inside of us? And and here's what I want you35:21 guys to understand. It's like having these good habits like I'm gonna run every morning and it's gonna be awesome and it's gonna be I'm gonna be healthy and I'm putting on weight and I can't figure out why and it's35:32 probably because I'm I'm running to that donut shop and eating a dozen. Right? Do you see how we can take good things that we have and dilute them with things that actually work35:43 against what we're doing? Lot of us think I did the thing. Lot of us that I'm doing the right stuff. I checked the box. But if you are so overloaded with everything35:55 else that you're loading on top that doesn't help you, what you're doing is you're making it irrelevant and you're stalling your own progress. You're stalling the transformation that God actually has for you. I mean,36:07 how many of you guys have done this thing with the fridge where you walk up to the fridge and you open it up and you look and there's like, there's something you can make. You know, there's like potatoes or meat or36:15 things. You're like, that's healthy. There's vegetables. I just don't wanna cook. So you close it and you walk away and you're like, literally 20 seconds. You come back and you open it up again and you're back in it. And36:25 eventually that stale bag of chips on the counter is what gets eaten. Right? Not the thing that's actually helpful. I want you guys to to get this. I think we understand the gospel in churches. I think I think36:37 most churches, Lord help me, for the most part, understand the gospel. But I think a lot of churches are weighed down with a bunch of extra stuff that's actually killing them.36:49 It's it's killing them. It's not helping them. They they get the gospel but they're beginning to give their minds so much to everything else that the outcome is not the glory that God37:01 intended because what you fill yourself with a Christian when you get squeezed, that's what comes out of you. Right? And we gotta be careful what we're taking in and I I wanted to share this with you. I think this is37:12 important. The the average person sees 10000 advertisements a day. 10000 advertisements a day. You think Satan wants your attention? You think he's working37:24 hard to get you to think about what he wants you to think about? I mean, I think so. I think the world is working overtime vying for your mind because it knows if it gets your mind, it gets the outcome.37:36 If it gets your mind, it gets to decide what's your pile of rocks, what's your altar actually looks like. The average person said 7 and a half hours a day on entertainment on in front of screens and37:48 laptops and lap, and iPads and whatever other off brand thing you have. 7 and a half hour. That's 114 24 hour days of your year.38:01 And here's the deal. Some of you are gonna go home and watch the Super Bowl and eat chips and Taco Bell and I'm not dogging on you today. Okay? Enjoy your moment in the hot sun. Alright? You enjoy it. But here's what38:12 here's what I want you to get. If your time doing those things is diluting or overpowering or more exciting to you than beholding the glory of Jesus, something has gone terribly wrong in38:24 your life. If you men, listen. If you have no problem putting your hands up and putting on a shirt and worshiping Jesus or the the the Super Bowl and whatever is happening with Taylor SwiftShow more
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Daniel: The Most High Rules Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub
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