Skip to content No Other Gods - THree Jun 17 · 53 min ...more
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Since 2000 Every Man Ministries has been activating men worldwide to live out their truest identity in Christ through its discipleship resources, live events, and steaming platform.
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The God of Me 0:00 When Jesus left this earth, he told his followers to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything he commanded. Well, here at Everyman0:12 Ministries, we take that charge. Seriously, we exist to teach and admonish every man according to Colossians 1 28 so that we might present every man perfect0:24 in Christ. And that mission is made possible by your generosity. God is doing incredible things through partnerships around the globe. Our content is now being0:36 seen in multiple languages. In a hundred and 70 countries, we just started partnering to minister to over a half a million prisoners in state prisons by0:47 providing our content. God is moving. And we want to invite you to jump in. For those of you who are already on the team, for those of you who are already all0:59 in, God bless you and thank you. To those of you who have been blessed by this teaching and by this ministry, we encourage you jump on in. Because the water is flowing quickly and1:11 God is on the move. Well, welcome brothers to the men's global live stream. Grab your Bible and make sure you download the notes and get ready for this week's1:22 session. As followers of Jesus, we're reminded maybe daily, that as humans our natural inclination is we just we don't like1:34 to follow. Which makes it hard to follow Jesus. And it's not that we disagree with Jesus. It's not that we're doubting him or that we don't desire him. We just really don't like to follow anyone,1:47 Anyone else. Right? Because we like to lead. We like to think for ourselves. We like to make our own decisions. We like to be the ones that call the shots in our lives. We wanna do what we want.1:59 And what makes all of this really difficult is that we live in arguably the most self focused time in history, and 1 of the most independent and self reliant2:11 nations in the world. And and so 1 of the most common struggles for people, both believers and none, is this struggle, this desire to be in control, to choose what we want for our2:23 lives, to to make it happen, to seek what I want, when I want. And so for us as as God's men perhaps the greatest God lowercase g that2:35 we have to defeat the most difficult idol to tear down is is me. The person who most often wants to kind of push Jesus off of the throne of my2:47 heart is is me. For all intents and purposes, I wanna be the God of my own life. Now, I'm not foolish enough to think that I'm actually a god.2:59 Right? That's delusional talk for people that believe that they're, you know, actually equal to the divine ruler and creator. But practically speaking, in our daily lives, in my daily3:10 life, I wanna be the God. I wanna be the guy. I want to make all of the decisions. And so the idol that we're gonna unpack, that we're gonna hopefully dethrone today is the God of me,3:24 which we worship through narcissism. Now, where does it all begin? I mean, where does it start? Where do we go wrong? Where do we get so self focused? Where in our lives does it3:36 start? I mean, how far back does the God of me and worshiping him really go? Just talk to a 2 year old. 2 year olds are absolutely adorable, Right? Listening to them3:48 try to convey all of the thoughts that are in their minds before they really have command of the spoken word. Watching them try to run and and and do things with their bodies before they really know how to work,4:00 everything out. They ask wonderful questions. They ask a lot of wonderful questions. But they dream and they pretend and they love so easily and so fully and they are also4:13 incredibly self centered. It's crazy actually. I don't know if there's greater proof of the evidence of original sin than a 2 year old. Seriously. I want you to imagine this for4:25 a moment. What if I tasked you? What if I said, this is what I want you to do. I want you to teach and instruct a 2 year old, how to be as sinful as they just naturally are. I think about4:36 it. If you try to coach and explain to a 2 year old, you know, something like this. Alright, Billy. In every situation, I want you to consider yourself first. For4:48 example, if you see a plate with 1 cookie left on it, I want you to do everything you can to take it for yourself. If there's 2 cookies, don't leave 1. Take both for yourself. Maybe even make up a story. Right? If you if5:00 you get caught. I want you to understand that everything around you somehow belongs to you or at least it it should. Anything that you want anyways. If you see something, take something. And5:12 if you don't get that, what I want you to do is I want you to roll around on the ground and kick and scream. I want you to believe that everyone around you, especially your parents, exists for no other reason but to5:23 bring you pleasure and enjoyment. Right? All the time, I just want you to think about what it is that you want. And I certainly don't want you to see things from from anyone else's perspec Guys, I could5:35 keep going. But a 2 year old doesn't need to be taught any of this. A 2 year old just naturally does this stuff. It's in the flesh. It's proof of5:47 the fall. They like us think only about themselves. They consider the world only from their point of view. They desire everything whether it's possessed by someone else or not. They5:59 live for themselves and so do we. At least naturally. I mean, our natural inclination is to think just like this and act just like this.6:11 And it's only as the spirit of the living God starts to transform our desires in our hearts and makes us new as he invades our hearts and our minds with his truth, that we start to live a new6:23 way. That we start to think and be something different. But like we said, naturally, the truth remains inherently. Right? We focus on self.6:36 And our culture, our cultures taken in even 1 step further. Culture encourages us to worship ourselves. Culture worships the self, love celebrating6:48 the individual, and then they encourage us to do the same. It pushes us forward, encouraging us to consider and advocate for and seek the self above all. They want us always7:00 looking out for number 1. It's crazy really. And they would never use words like I did, like, you know, ugly words like narcissism or being self obsessed or myopic or you know, self centered. No. No. No. No.7:11 No. No. The words that our culture uses are much prettier. Noble sounding even. Things like self love, caring for the self, being true to the7:23 self, advocating for the self. You just you just do you. But when we're steeped in this kind of culture with the primary value and the primary focus being ourselves, our lives start to come7:35 off the tracks rather quickly. We start to veer away from God's intended lives for us. When our days are filled with ways and efforts and plans and agendas to self7:47 promote, how could unity I mean, really how could relationship, deep relationship ever be possible. Right? When we strive to be number 1, it's hard7:59 to consider others. And if you don't believe that we're completely self focused, just open any social media app. And just the invention of the selfie8:11 itself should blow our minds. It's a photograph of me. Taken by me. Sent to others to get them looking and talking and thinking. You8:23 guessed it. About me. I was reading the newspaper the other day. Yes, the newspaper. It is a physical document containing news from around the world that you open8:34 like, I don't know how young some of our some of our listeners were. Anyway, it comes to your home every day, but I was reading the paper, and it was actually shortly after graduation in the last year. And there were8:45 photos of ceremonies from around the local colleges. I live in a college area. There's a lot of colleges, you know, within an hour or 2 of our house. And so on the front page, there was a whole section kind of reviewing8:55 some of the people that spoke and there was there was a photo right there in the in the front in color of about 15 or so grads all donned up, cap and gown. They had a bunch of tassels that made a bunch of stuff.9:07 I don't I don't really know. Various cords hanging around their necks with bright smiling faces and each of them, every single 1 of them was taking a9:19 selfie. Now they weren't grouping up and taking photos with friends. They were trying to get a picture with maybe 1 of the professors who had had some kind of a deep impact on their life. There wasn't a photo with9:31 their parents or siblings who no doubt had played a huge role in getting them to this day. No no no no no. Each of them was taking a photo of themselves. And what's more in the background, there9:43 was a group of other people huddled over screens, no doubt scrubbing and adjusting and filtering photos so that they could post them. Why? To what end in purpose? I9:55 mean, rather than experiencing 1 of the most impactful days of their life, rather than just living it and enjoying it, they were capturing it, documenting it,10:08 recording it and posting it to promote themselves. And culture sees absolutely nothing wrong with this. If you remember, in session 2, we read from second Timothy10:19 chapter 3, in verse 2, where we saw that in the end times people would be, you know, not considering things holy. That they would their lives would be off the track that they would love money, that they'd be10:31 boastful and rude. But it started off by saying this, in the end days people will be lovers of themselves. No. Not in a healthy sense.10:43 Not in knowing that I was created by the 1 true God that I'm loved by him. I'm not talking about healthy identity in the way that we were intended to kind of love ourselves as as broken vessels carrying around10:55 God's spirit. No. No. No. No. No. No. These people it's it's hinting at were lovers of themselves above all things. Above their fellow man. And11:07 practically above even God himself. And while they wouldn't and we would never admit that, our behavior proves it. See, our reveal our11:19 behavior always reveals our true hearts. It it always does. We pursue what it is that we really value. We live according to what it is that we truly believe.11:30 We worship and praise with our lives, not just our mouths. Actually, when when considering the gods that we're serving, I wanna challenge us because you and I11:42 functionally worship with our wallets and our calendars. With how we spend our time and how we spend the resources god's entrusted to us. And it's hard to argue11:54 that you and I are not the greatest beneficiaries of both our wallets and our calendars, of both our money and our time. Guys, the reality is this, there is a God. There is12:06 1 God. And even though we may know that we are not him, a lot of times we live as though we are. In our broken and sinful nature, all of us12:18 feel this call, this draw to practically worship the God of me. To worship ourselves. And I'm not talking about singing songs to ourselves. But we want12:30 fame, or we want control. At least we want the respect and the admiration of the people around us. The worship of those12:42 we rub elbows with. And this has always been 1 of our enemy's strongest lures. I mean, the very first lie recorded in scripture spoken from the serpent to12:53 Adam and Eve was to doubt God in his heart, to doubt whether or not they could they could trust God, to doubt his word, and to seek to become gods themselves. The13:05 enemy lied to Adam and Eve, and his lie was aimed at trying to take their hearts and their eyes off of the 1 true God, off of the thousands of trees he had given them13:17 to eat from and get them to focus on the 1 they weren't supposed to in order to draw in their hearts and listen to the bait. Genesis chapter 3 verse 5. God knows that your eyes will be13:29 opened as soon as you eat it. And here it is. And you will be like God, knowing both good and evil. The same struggle you and13:41 I face every single day. Not to eat from some forbidden tree, but to fight the urge to be the god of our own lives because our13:53 lives can only have 1 god. We've said this often in this series, there's only 1 being that calls the shots and so every day, god's man is faced with the decision. And it's very simple and14:05 it's incredibly profound. Will we submit to, follow, and learn from the 1 true God or the flesh? The flesh as both it14:17 and culture are saying the heck was serving someone else. You are God. You should rule. You should reign. It's a daily struggle to recognize God for14:29 who he is. For seeing myself as I am in him. Or do I listen to that small voice of the serpent saying, you should call the shots, Dusty. You don't need14:41 God. Heck, you can do it by yourself. Reminds me of my kids. I have 4 amazing kids and while they are growing up rapidly into the middle school, high school, even college14:53 years. I remember when they were young, and I remember when in times in their either ignorance, inexperience, or just their pride, they would they would push me aside to attempt15:05 a task that was far too great for them. Right? Something either beyond their young minds ability to figure out or something far beyond their small frames ability to reach or to lift, something they were15:17 not equipped for. Maybe something that they were never even intended to be able to do alone and rather than humbling themselves and asking for help, they would simply push me away, look me right in the eye and go,15:29 no daddy, I'll do it myself. It was so cute. It was so adorable. It was so foolish. And it sounds exactly like I15:40 do and exactly like you do. You see it's funny when a little kid thinks they can accomplish stuff they can't. It's funny when they don't realize that they lack 3 feet worth of height to be able to grab something from the15:51 top shelf or considerably more strength to pick up something that's twice their size. It's adorable in kids. It's devastating in adults. So why do we16:03 completely ignore or at least allow and tolerate or even as culture encourages us celebrate this type of a hard position? The I can do it myself. Why are we trying to16:15 build lives that we lack the tools for, To reach for something we lack the height for or to try to judge and discern and decide things that we lack the wisdom for? Because God's16:27 man, the follower of Jesus Christ is called to a very different life. Following Christ is a life of dependence.16:39 We just don't like that word. It sounds like losing and it runs contrary to our flesh. Our flesh is insatiable hunger for independence. It16:51 runs in opposition to our desire for control. It stands firmly against both what we want and what our culture. That's what God's man does. He pushes back on that17:03 and says, I am dependent. We recognize, we celebrate even our complete dependence. We are not looking to be self made men. We are men being made new by the holy17:15 spirit. And our spiritual success is not of our own making either. In our spiritual life, it's not, no God, I'll do it by myself. It's recognizing holy spirit. You have to reveal truth to me. You have17:27 to lead me. You have to guide me. We are called to a life of humble obedience. Again, to become followers. I mean, that was the invitation in the beginning17:39 that unlocked everything for Jesus's first disciples. It's it's to become followers. In humility to choose to recognize the extent of our17:51 limitations. To seek the 1 who has no limitations. Jesus never once encouraged somebody to just look within for strength or look18:02 within for answers. He never told somebody to the secret wisdom lies within you. Then why do we live so radically in today's age? How do we18:14 as God's men push back and live counter culturally in a world that loves the Marlboro man, the self made man, even the lone Christian battling and winning alone, how are we18:26 to stand? Ephesians 6 chapter 10 has a very counter cultural encouragement. 1 that you've no doubt read countless times, heard it spoken18:38 on at men's breakfasts, heard it preached on in men's conferences, but I want you to listen with brand new ears. Says this in verse 10, be strong in the Lord,18:50 and in his mighty power. Goes on to say, put on the full armor of God that you might take your stand against the devil's schemes. You recognize this. Right? This is the beginning of the armor of God,19:02 strapping up and going to spiritual war. Let's get ready to fight. It's an incredible passage. Today, I wanna just stay with the intro. I don't wanna unpack the armor itself. I wanna look at19:14 the attitude that predates the putting on of the armor. It's the mindset. It's the framework that God's man has to hold on to every single day. How19:26 are we supposed to be strong? Well, according to this passage, where does our strength actually come from? God's man finds strength in the Lord and in19:38 his mighty power. He is our strength. Jesus is not merely the source where we become strong. He19:50 himself is our strength. Period. Ongoing every day, every moment. But depending on the strength and power of another,20:04 it presses up against the god of me. That's not very godlike language. Last time I checked, gods don't need stuff from other people. A god would be rather inadequate if he didn't have his own strength.20:16 Yet nothing could be more true of us. In our flesh, in our self, we lack the strength to do what god's called us to. This is a big stiff arm to the20:28 god of me because gods don't depend on others for their own strength and so the God of me won't go quietly into the night. This is a death blow to the God of me. Our own frailty.20:40 Our own limitations. Our inability. Our need. The proof of our dependence, our utter helplessness apart from the strength of God, it proves that the God of me is a false20:52 God. God's man has to learn to depend on God's strength, to expect God's strength, to know that only God's power will enable us to live a life that pleases the21:04 father. In our arrogance, we don't only worship ourselves. Right? As culture says, seeking and promoting ourselves. We want the admiration and focus of other people through it.21:17 But in our arrogance, we also start to depend on ourselves. Even though scripture is full of encouragements to do the very opposite. I mean, beyond the verse21:29 we just read about standing in God's strength, look at the entire life of Paul, who boast often about his weakness, who is proud about his inability, who talked constantly about21:41 his complete dependence on God for everything. He talked about how prone he was to sin. How he constantly did what he didn't want to. He boasted about his frailty. The more Paul learned,21:53 the more the spirit taught him, the less confident he was in his flesh. He ends up telling us that apart from Christ, we can do nothing.22:05 As Paul set out on his big life mission to take the gospel to the Gentiles, to the non Jews around the world, he reminds all believers and himself where his strength22:17 comes from. In Romans chapter 1 verse 16, he says, I'm not ashamed of this good news about Christ. It is the power of God at work,22:29 saving everyone who believes, the Jew first and also the Gentile. Paul knew that the gospel was the hope of the world. The truth that Jesus had exchanged himself for us. The truth that Jesus had22:41 made a way back to the father. The gift, the good news. And that good news didn't put on display the wisdom of man. It didn't display our good deeds. It didn't elevate22:53 our spiritual efforts. It put on full display the power of God almighty. Paul had unseated the God of me, no longer23:04 living in his own strength. But why do we? Why do we effort and strive and try to trust in our own strength even though scripture tells me things like John 1523:16 5, apart from Christ, I can do nothing. Philippians 4 13 says that I can do all things. How? Through Christ who provides the strength.23:29 The god of me along with our enemy knows how hopeless we are apart from Jesus. He knows that we're like a23:41 big machine that's been unplugged when we disconnect ourselves from the power of the Holy Spirit. He knows that. And that is precisely why he encourages us to live lives apart from Christ.23:53 If he can keep the power out of his opponents, life gets easier for our enemy. Self reliance is a lie, a clever lie crafted by Satan himself to keep24:05 God's man, you and me, from accessing the power of God's holy spirit. From accessing the power God wants to unleash in our lives. The God of24:16 me wants us rather to seek to achieve on our own. To be noticed. Never to depend on anyone or anything else. We wanna be the guy who's depended24:29 on. We want good things like significance and strength and purpose, but we look for them apart from God. Rather than seeking those things in God, we pursue these lesser lovers,24:41 these idols we've been talking about. Social media really seems to be 1 of the largest arenas that exposes the epidemic of self worship that's playing out in our culture today.24:53 Self promotion, gaining followers, increasing influence, making an impression. It's just it proves that this God is alive and25:05 well. I can't tell you how many posts I've seen from men talking about all the things that they are going to achieve in this world. All the great things that they are going to do, the things25:17 that they're creating, making, speaking into existence, all the wisdom that they're manifesting. All of this language sounds familiar, if I'm honest.25:29 All of this I will I will I will create and make and speak into existence. It sounds like a dude in scripture who who thought similarly. He said this, I will ascend to the heavens.25:41 I'll raise my throne above the stars. I'll sit in throne on the mount of assembly. I'll turn the company around. I'll increase profits. I'll become a millionaire. I'll buy the boat. That25:53 was actually an angel recorded in the book of Isaiah. His name is Lucifer. That was his plan. God like language,26:05 god like plans, and brothers the amount of social media posts from men that I've seen. After they have blown their life apart, deconstructed their faith,26:17 divorced their spouse is claiming that God told them to, walked out on companies, left lifelong friends that were holding them back, men that have this new fresh vision for their lives, who are now gonna seize and26:28 create. They all are believing the lie that they are God. Believing the lie that the life that God promises can be found anywhere apart from him.26:41 But sometimes the God of me is more subtle than that. Undercover even. Not blowing up and pontificating on social media, but tempting us to worship26:53 ourselves just the same. So where does it leave us? I mean, practically as we hear that, how will we know when we're trying to do things that please God and when we're27:04 worshiping the God of me? What signs are there for us to look at? When does confidence go off the rails into arrogance? That's a good place to27:16 start. 1 of the first and most obvious symptoms is arrogance. Worshiping the God of me makes us feel as though we're always right.27:28 Actually no. It makes us know that we are always right. When my way is the only way, when all of my views are the correct views, I'm now off track. Brothers the27:40 God of me has neither the time nor the desire to consider the wisdom of others. He doesn't want to. He doesn't need to. He27:52 won't even consider the idea that someone else might have a perspective of truth that opposes his own perspective. Now, I'm not encouraging us to become fools,28:04 to not seek wisdom, to doubt every thought that we have and trust only the vision and the wisdom of others. It's not an invitation to try to stop seeking God's truth. This is all about heart posture.28:16 It's about remaining humble and teachable. Our only our good and great God is all28:28 knowing. Only he contains all wisdom. Only Jesus Christ is the truth and the way and the life. And so the rest28:40 of us should all be okay. Finding ourselves in situations where we don't know the answer. As created beings, we should be okay saying, I don't know. This one's hard for me.28:53 I thank the Lord. He's granted me the ability to understand a lot of stuff, but certainly not everything. And yet often in my arrogance, especially during my teen years, man, I knew so much more29:05 then than I do now. I thought I knew everything. My dad used to even joke around and call me the answer man. The problem is this, what starts off as confidence29:16 over a gift that God has given you quickly becomes arrogance and you start to believe that it's something you gave yourself. And in our culture today, everybody is more certain than ever29:29 that their view is the right view about anything. We're not even open to the idea. We've lost curiosity. We've lost the ability to have honest dialogue and29:41 conversation. We're not even open to the idea that there might be things that we need to learn or even things that we're wrong about. Ask yourself. I want you to29:52 honestly consider this right now wherever you are. When was the last time that you told somebody you were wrong? Not after something exploded and it was obvious.30:05 Not that you were sorry. Not that you were frustrated to be dealing with the consequences of the proof they did something was wrong. I mean, when was the last time that you owned up on your own and admitted that either30:16 what you had thought or what you had done was wrong, was incorrect. You know, boys, God's word deals pretty harshly30:28 with our arrogance. Right? The God of me says you got this. Ignore them. They don't know what you know. Scripture tells me that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the30:40 humble. The God of me says, just trust your own way. Love yourself enough to speak up. Go your own way. God's word says, there is a way that seems right to a man.30:52 It ends in death. I love Paul's encouragement in the scripture about our attitude. When dealing with even our own feelings of of rightness, he says, don't be selfish and don't try31:03 to impress some others. Listen to this, be humble thinking of others as better than your selves. Considering the wisdom of31:15 others, testing it against God's word. And notice in that Paul doesn't say think lowly of yourself. No, no. He says think rightly about yourself.31:28 You were made in God's image. And so is the guy who's given you advice. We're broken people having to go in a broken world, and so is the spouse that just corrected31:40 you. Remember that. Think rightly. There is there's a genuine humility and an incredible unity that's found when we realize31:52 that none of us is God. It's actually freeing. Because arrogance arrogance is like a signal flare that just alerts32:04 us that the God of me is alive and well in our hearts. We have to look at the flip side. The other side of arrogance is insecurity. An32:15 arrogant person is an insecure person. Well, maybe not as offensive as just kind of the openly arrogant, the guy pontificating on social. Right? But the32:27 insecure guy will similarly live out his life on a stage trying to gain the approval of others, trying to be worshiped, admired, affirmed,32:39 wrongly living for the approval of man. Right? And the God of me just lures us right into that trap. Proverbs 29 25 says that fear of man will prove a snare, a trap like a bear32:51 trap around the ankle. But trusting in the Lord means safety. Let's look at this verse. Hear it again. Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting in the Lord means safety.33:04 As we think about a life trying to please or gain the admiration or respect or just getting the eyes of others on us and working backwards in this verse. Let's start at the end where things are good. It says33:16 that we can find safety. The insecure can find safety. Where is it found? In the Lord.33:28 Our God is the only 1 who can make us safe. Who can make us feel safe about who we are. Safe in the middle of trials. Safe with an33:40 unknown future. Safe when the diagnosis comes back bad. Safe when the relationships are falling apart. Safe when the job is lost. Safe when everything feels out of our control.33:53 Safe when considering our own abilities or maybe our inabilities. It's only God who can give us this safety. And what's the vehicle? Like34:05 how does God's man get to God's safety? Trust. Not just trusting that God's gonna make stuff right. We're so tempted to trust and hope and talk34:16 about results, outcomes. This is not just trusting that God will work it out. That's not putting trust in God. That's putting trust in a good outcome.34:29 We trust that God will heal the sick. We're open if he doesn't. We trust that God will restore every relationship. We're okay if he doesn't. The hope is not in the outcome, the hope is in the person. And34:41 God's man has to continually and intentionally kick himself off the throne of his heart. Otherwise, he will try to trust in himself. We gotta get our eyes off of ourselves and34:53 back onto the king of kings. And whether it shows up in the inability of kinda appreciating and allowing wisdom from others, or or a defensive insecure35:05 heart. We gotta go to the end game. Right? What does the final scoreboard look like? A heart that's in bondage to the God of me. Like, how dangerous is this, Dusty? Where will this leave me? The God of35:16 me will always leave us alone. We'll always find ourselves all alone. Loneliness is the result of pursuing the god35:28 of me. Why? Because when you and I are gods, we can't have equals. No 1 can be as smart. No 1 can be as capable. You see35:40 when you and I believe that we either can or should be as god is. Right? Perfect. Unapproachable with all the wisdom, able to be trusted all the time. How could we ever tolerate35:52 failure? How could we ever be okay moving beyond our own failure or the people around us? How could we ever be in real community? Simple answer, we can't.36:05 The god of me will make us a verse to any kind of outside authority. So I can't accept anything that feels like a challenge or a question or a correction. All I can tolerate is admiration.36:18 I have to have the agreement of the people around me. They have to be admiring me. They have to take the back seat. The heart that sounds like this, we read about it in Ezekiel chapter 28. Where the heart that says, I am36:29 a god. I sit on the throne of a god. You are a mere mortal and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god. And what's really36:41 sad is this attitude is as consistent believers as it is in non believers. And believers, when we accuse god of something, when36:53 we demand something from him, when we grow furious with his inactivity in our lives, when we're frustrated that the answers to our prayers are something other than we asked for, we now37:05 are considering ourself his equal. Standing toe to toe with the living God, our attitude that those that accusatory attitude displays that I think I share37:17 equal ground, equal footing, and God needs to explain himself to me. The same living God that scripture says it's terrible to fall into his hands. Treating37:29 God as less than who he is, Ignoring, forgetting, or downplaying his might, his strength, his goodness, his perfection, treating him as our equal?37:42 It's it's so incredibly lowers who god truly is to bring him down to our level. Reminds me of the Chronicles of Narnia. The children are seeking to understand this Aslan37:54 character, this character who portrays God. They try to figure out his intentions. Maybe they wanna test the limits of his strength or understand what life's gonna be like once he's a part of it. And as they're trying38:06 to figure this all out, Susan voices the question that's in all of their hearts. She says, is he quite safe? And it's mister Bieber who responds and he says, safe? Who said anything about38:17 safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king. We ask the same question. We ask the38:29 same question for the wrong reasons. We ask the same question with the God of me whispering in our ear. We ask God, are you safe? Not are you safe as in are you going to hurt me?38:42 Are you know, are you huggable and safe? We ask, are are you a safe god? What we're really saying is, just how much authority do you really want in my life? Are my plans38:54 still safe? Hey. When you get here, are all of my desires still safe? Can I still pursue everything that I want? I mean, how much of my life are we really talking about here, god, if39:06 I if I follow you? What about my opinions? Are they safe? What about they come up against stuff in scripture where they don't seem to line up? What do I do then? In all of it, our heart is really39:18 asking the question, am I willing to let you be god? Am I willing to let you be my God? Or am I gonna keep being my own God?39:30 Will I let you call the shots? Will I let you tell me what's real and true and good? Or will I decide all that for myself? In Romans chapter 12, Paul pleads with us. He says, give your39:41 bodies, your entire selves to God because of all that he's done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice that kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Isn't that amazing?Show more In this video 0:00 The God of Me48:36 The Invitation to True WorshipComments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
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