Skip to content “come to ME” Part 2 Live with Kenny Luck Feb 23 · 48 min ...more
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The Hidden Struggles of Men and Jesus' Invitation 0:01 Hey, guys. Welcome to the men's global livestream. If you have a Bible, I want you to hold 2 spots. 1 in Psalm 32 and the other in Proverbs chapter 3. We're in part 2 of a series called Come to0:13 Me. And if those words sound familiar, they should. It's Jesus's standing invitation to take advantage of his care and his capacity0:25 in this life. And the goal of our series is simple. Never let fear or pride limit God's help and relief0:37 from coming into our lives. Isn't that a good goal? Right? Jesus' standing invitation to offer his care and capacity to come into our lives right now, today,0:49 during this time, and just don't let your your fear or your pride limit God from doing what he wants to do. You see, men are very good1:00 at limiting God's help in their lives and help from other people. Why? Because we we live a lot as guys like icebergs. Right? You know what an iceberg is. Right? You got you got the water1:12 line and then you have you can see the tip of the iceberg, but then below the water line is the true substance of the iceberg. And just like that iceberg, people in our1:24 lives only see the tip of who we really are. We live seen lives. That's the tip. And we live unseen lives. That's the life below the waterline. Our outward1:35 man is the image, our inner man, and thoughts is who we really are. Right? And publicly, we we say a lot. I'm good. I'm okay. But privately, we're walking1:47 around with a lot of pressures and unseen struggles. And here's what happens, guys, and and I know that you already know this, that struggles take a toll on a man,1:59 when no 1 knows about them, when they're unshared with people, when they're unprocessed with people, we stay unhelped. Right? Unshared,2:11 unprocessed, a man stays unhelped. And then the next step in the progression happens. Those struggles now start turning into secrets, and those2:23 secrets have a pressure connected to them that we're just walking around with. And when you have challenges and needs that are going unmet in your life,2:35 the stuff below the waterline of the iceberg, those challenges and needs are not met by potential sources of help. Why? Because they're remaining2:47 in the dark. Remember, unshared, unprocessed, unhelped. Right? And every day we live seen and unseen lives.2:59 Right? Walls start going up. Right? Between us and help, between truth versus lies. Right? There's a narrative that we're telling, and3:11 as we continue to tell it, over time, the truth becomes harder to tell. And that that wall gets higher and higher as time passes. And the wall starts growing between us3:23 and people because you can't be intimate with anyone unless there's truth and honesty and transparency. Right? And the the the taller that those walls,3:36 get, the harder they are to get back over. And you know what that produces? Isolation and attack by the evil 1 where it's like, no.3:48 You're too far down this path. You've said the narrative over and over. You're good. You're good. You're good. Nothing's going on. Nothing's going on. And then that that isolates you4:00 because the pressures connected to the struggles are still real. It's just that it's unshared, it's unprocessed, and you're unhelped. Right? And into this secret life4:11 comes the call of Christ. Come to me. Right? Well, what does that mean? Well, it just simply means that Jesus wants to unburden us from those4:24 private struggles, from that unseen life that creates so much pressure. He wants to unburden us from having the anxiety connected with a a public you and a4:36 private you. Right? Living a seen life of of images and a private life of unseen struggle. He wants to end, most importantly, your isolation that4:47 that creates. But he knows that you won't end that isolation unless you're assured that if you come out with it, right,4:59 to him or to people, that there's 1 critical thing on the other side, and that is love and acceptance. You're not gonna come clean or share what's going5:11 on if there's not love and acceptance in the person that you're sharing with it. And Jesus is putting himself at the center of that. He says come to me because that's what you'll get on the5:23 other side. And so I'm gonna share a truth that we really need to take to heart as we move forward in our study today, and it's this. Our connection and conversation with God5:35 will never surpass our awareness of the love of God. I'm gonna say that again. Our connection and conversation with God will never surpass our awareness5:47 of the love of God. Think about it. Do you have close connections and intimate conversations with people who don't love you? No. Of course not. Right? You don't go to them.5:59 Right? Because they may not like you for some reason or another. But now think about the people who really do know you and the people who really do love you. Do you have close connections and intimate conversations with6:10 them? Exactly. The opposite is true. And that's where we need to make that connection between our awareness of God's love and the closeness that he wants6:22 in our connection and conversation in prayer. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna we're gonna unpack Jesus's invitation briefly, again. Then we're gonna see from God's word a man6:34 in the Bible move from secrets and and being unprocessed and not sharing and unhelp to coming to God and watch what unfolds.6:46 Right? And then we're gonna look at 4 things we bring to God because he loves us so well in faith. So let's go to Jesus'6:58 invitation again. Matthew 11 verses 28 to 30. Ready? Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke7:10 upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So we7:22 see in Jesus' invitation, just by way of review, we see an invitation, we see an audience, and we see an outcome. The invitation simply is is come to me. You can go to other sources or7:34 keep it to yourself, but I'm inviting you to come to me. Right? The audience is the burden. Right? Weary, heavy laden, burdened. And if you're on planet Earth7:45 right now, the research says that 9 out of 10 of us are walking around right now with a burden that we'd love to get resolved. So, I know that that there's there's fertile7:57 soil, right, for this message and for this invitation. And then you see the outcome, which is rest and lightness. I want us to say those 2 words, rest and8:09 lightness. Can I ask you a question? When was the last time that you felt light in your spirit? Like like not heavy.8:22 Right? See, because in this life, you're gonna have a lot of heavy things go down. Heaviness is is a part of this life. Otherwise, why would Jesus make make the offer if he didn't know8:33 that his followers and the people who knew him were gonna be experiencing very heavy things? That's why he extends the invitation. Alright? So there's a little review8:46 of Jesus' invitation. Now let's look at a guy who went from heavy to light, from carrying around this load inside, right, the unseen life,8:58 to giving it to God and talking to him through prayer. It's in Psalm 32. The it's the man after God's own heart. It's our good friend David.David's Journey from Silence to Freedom in Psalm 32 9:11 And just listen in and watch the transition and watch for what we're talking about here when it comes to our connection to God. He says this to God. When I kept9:23 silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.9:35 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.9:48 Therefore, let all the faithful pray to you. While you may be found, surely, the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. You are my hiding place. You will protect me9:59 from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the lord's unfailing love surrounds the 110:12 who trusts in him. And so let's unpack right now what we see in this and let's draw some lessons before we get to our10:23 next section. Right? What do we see? Number 1, we see private pressure. We see private pressure. When David says, when I kept silent.10:35 Right? He's got pressure inside. It's unprocessed. It's unshared stuff. Right? In this instance, it's sin. Right? He has a struggle and it's10:47 in his relationship with God. He knows that he did something wrong and now he's walking around, but he's not talking about it. He's not talking about it to people and he's not talking about it to God10:59 and that's creating these negative emotions inside. It's creating a pressure. Men, sin, unconfessed, creates heaviness and11:11 pressure in your life. Alright? Number 2, we see the power drain. Write that down. David says, my strength was sapped as in the heat11:23 of summer. So just imagine a hot and humid day and you're outside and it is just sucking your energy right out of you. It's just11:35 you're sweating. It's pulling all your energy. You're getting tired. You're unhydrated. That's That's what private pressure does that's unprocessed and unshared with God, is11:47 it just drains your spirit. You get that blood borne fatigue. And I know that there's actually some guys right now that that have that. And and part of the reason is11:59 because you're walking around with private pressure but it's unprocessed. There's no there's no way to get it out. And so what's gonna happen when you just contain all of this is a power drain. My12:10 strength, was that. Your physical strength, your emotional strength. But then there's this turn. Alright? Let's let's look at that. Next, we see a prayer valve.12:23 Alright? David says, alright. When I kept silent, I had the pressure and I had the power drain, but then I acknowledged my sin to you. David starts talking12:36 to God. He starts coming clean. He starts getting honest about where he's at. Now when I say a prayer valve, you know, for all of you construction people and engineers, you know what a valve is. But for for those of us12:47 who don't know, right, a valve is a device for controlling the passage of pressure, whether that's water pressure or air pressure. Right?12:59 So a prayer valve is a device, the device of prayer, that controls the passage of pressure where we're in private13:11 pressure and we're experienced the drain, and then we turn on, we flip that valve, and now the pressure gets it's a controlled passage, and it's13:23 it's going up to our mighty God and Father. Wow. And that's what we see happening in this passage. Fourth, we see a personal hope.13:35 So David experiences going from heavy to light, and all of a sudden, he's stoked. He says, let everybody who's faithful pray to you. It's like13:46 he had an experience, and then from the experience, there comes this exhortation, like, man, you gotta do this. Right? And he's he's talking to God, and he's, like, boy, I hope other men of God don't13:58 run around and keep everything. I was silent, and I had the power drain, and and I had all that pressure. But then I acknowledged my sin to you, and then you dealt with it. I I used14:10 that device of prayer. And what did it look like? He just acknowledged what was going on on the inside. There are men right now listening to me right now, and you're so unprocessed, and you're so unshared,14:22 and you become, under you've come under so much tension and pressure. And can I just tell you, just like tension and pressure has to go somewhere, if it's not going to God, it's going into your body? If it's14:34 not going into God, you're projecting it into your family. If it's not going to God, you're projecting it in the form of anger. Right? Or people are like, what's the matter with you? What's going on? Right?14:46 And so we see David just hope and pray that every faithful man, every faithful person, everybody who knows God, that they'll do the same thing. Right?14:58 That they'll take advantage of this prayer valve, this this spiritual supernatural device that controls the passage of pressure. And that's why God makes that15:09 invitation. And then lastly, we see a promise to practice. Notice David says, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the 1, listen, who15:21 trusts in him. So you have love available on this side. You have pressure and power drain on15:33 this side. And then you have this device of prayer, the device through which trust can pull the lever. Right? And then that pressure can be15:44 released and that care of God and that that unfailing love of God and that capacity of God can now be accessed. Right? And so we see15:56 this promise to practice for us. It's like, okay. Here's the promise. The Lord's unfailing love is gonna surround men who trust in him. Alright? So what does16:08 trust look like? Alright? Well, trusting is synonymous with praying. Read the Bible. Any man who's trusting to God is trusting God is talking to God through prayer. Right? It's it's16:20 it's how we do it. It's the energy that we put forth, right, to let someone know that we trust them. We move toward them. And the way we move toward God, men, is we move toward him not by keeping our16:32 mouth shut, but by opening our mouths, By talking to Him. That's a real relationship. Talking, listening, receiving feedback, then adjusting. Now we're cooking16:44 chili, right? But trusting is synonymous with praying, and praying involves a lot of trusting in your connection and conversation with God. Right? Now the Bible says that God's16:55 people can live in fearful and prideful self sufficiency. In other words, not trusting God. Right? At their own peril,17:07 borrowing their own trouble. Or, right, you can respond to God's invitation to come to him in healthy and humble dependency and intimacy. Right?17:19 Did you catch that? Here's your choices. Prideful and fearful self sufficiency and distance, or healthy and humble dependency and intimacy with God, plus, right,17:30 all of God's care and capacity and who he is. But you've got to believe in God's unfailing love, that God loves you, that God accepts you, that God knows, that he's wise, that he's able, all17:42 of those things. But what's helping us to come into that space and pull that prayer valve, release the pressure is that God loves us,17:54 period. He doesn't love us more, right, when we do great things. For him, he doesn't love us less when we do bad things. God's not close to us in our spiritual18:07 successes and far from us in our spiritual adversities. Right? God's love remains consistent. It's the same. He does not change with our circumstances or our18:18 choices. He remains the same. He loves you. And that's what the devil doesn't want you to know. He would rather have you attach God's love and make it conditional versus unconditional. If you're doing good, he loves you18:28 a lot. If you're not doing good, he doesn't love you. And don't buy that lie. You're getting ripped off. Alright? There are some men who like the guilt and and who like that idea that they have some18:40 something to do with God's mood. No, you don't. God still loves you and he wants you to come to him and he wants you to access that vow. There are some men right now that are18:52 listening. I know because there's there's 12 to 13000 guys listening to my voice right now. And I know that a lot of you are under a lot of pressure. I wanna read that last19:04 line. But the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the 1 who trusts in him. Stop trusting in yourself and start trusting God.19:16 Stop keeping silent and start talking to God right now. Look at what the Bible says. Proverbs 3 verses 5 through 8. Trust God from the bottom of your heart.19:28 Don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go. He's the 1 who will keep you on track.19:40 Don't assume you know it all. Run to God. Run from evil. Your body will glow with health. Your very bones will vibrate19:51 with life. You see the do's and the don'ts? Man of God. What do we do? Trust God. Listen to God. Run to God. Run away from evil.20:04 That's some good advice right now. If you're under pressure, alright, if you have a problem that's creating pressure, it's creating negative emotions, it's doing stuff in your head space,20:16 start talking to God. Start trusting God. Start listening to God. Run to God. Don't go for the rip off solutions to your pressure. Don't go to porn. Don't go to self medication.20:28 Don't go to isolation. Don't go to anger. All right? Not solutions. Those are reactions. Right? Instead, trust God. Now those are the dos. Trust God, listen to God,20:40 run to God, run from evil. What are the don'ts? Don't trust yourself. The text says right there, don't assume that you know it all. But you see that's where we get into trouble and that's20:52 the devil's lie. You don't need God. You can handle this. You're resourceful. You can talk. People are buying your narrative. Why upset the apple cart by talking to God and maybe having21:04 to do something out of the context of your faith to address the issue? Right? So there's Jesus's invitation. There's an example21:16 of a man who's under pressure, his strength is getting drained, and then he pulls the prayer valve. And then after getting light again, he's like, man, I I want everybody to pray.21:28 I think everybody should go to the Lord. Let the faithful pray. That's a word from the Lord, by the way, this morning. Therefore, let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found. Right? That's God speaking right21:37 now. If you know Jesus, you're a faithful 1. God's calling you into a dialogue and conversation and connection with him. Why? Because his unfailing21:50 love surrounds the 1. Okay? It's specific. His unfailing love surrounds the 1 who trusts in him. So now let's get to what happens if I do the do's rightShow more In this video 0:00 The Hidden Struggles of Men and Jesus' Invitation9:06 David's Journey from Silence to Freedom in Psalm 3221:58 Bringing All to a Loving Father: Trust and Surrender
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