Skip to content Secret Life Part 2 with Kenny Luck Dec 4 · 1 hr 2 min ...more
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Support this leader
Liking this video? Support this ministry.
Give
Support this leader Liking this video? Support this ministry.
56K followers
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.
56K followers
The Secret Life: Known Only to God 0:00 Welcome to the men's global livestream. If you have a Bible, I want you to hold 2 spots. 1 in first Samuel 16, the other in Matthew chapter 6. We are in part 2 of a new0:12 series called Secret Life. And the big idea behind this series is really simple. Every man, everybody watching, myself included, every man has a0:24 secret life known only to God. And that life can be something that you hide out of fear, or, and this is the catch, pursue out of0:35 faith. Those are your only options biblically. They're very different, and they offer very different results. 1 life is invisible and hidden to0:47 men, but the Bible says will be exposed and judged. The other is visible to God as well. But here's the thing, by intention,0:59 God wants you to pursue this kind of secret life. God wants to reward that secret life that you pursue, and he wants to bless that secret life that you're living out1:11 in him. And so if you're God's man, my encouragement in this series is this. Bring your secret life to a God of perfect knowledge,1:24 constant presence, and full acceptance. I'm gonna say that again. Bring your secret life to the God who created you, who is perfectly knowledgeable of1:35 you, constantly present, and he fully accepts you. That was kind of the basis that we laid in part 1. If you missed that, go back and watch part 1. It's a real important foundation that we1:47 laid from Psalm 139 where we learned and we saw how God's man works with his maker on his secret life versus what?1:59 Versus fears God's judgment of it. Right? So God's man applies what he knows about God, that he knows him better than he knows himself,God's Plan and Our Secret Lives 2:11 that he's always with him, and that he loves and accepts us. That's a God that we can work with. We also practice in our secret life admitting God knows us better than2:23 we know ourselves. There's just really nothing to hide. We also practice in the secret life allowing God to examine our inner man. We put ourselves, like the psalmist in Psalm2:35 139, in God's MRI, and we ask him to show us, like an x-ray or an MRI reveals things that we need to address, we ask God to2:46 examine us and expose us for the things that need correcting. Or as the psalmist says, see if there be any hurtful way in me. And what that looks like2:58 is accepting exposure to God as the path to intimacy with God. Doesn't that make sense? Where God will show us things out of love that are3:10 true about us, he holds up a mirror, and then he says, you need to deal with that. And then when we say, thanks, Lord, kind of hard, but I do need to deal with3:22 that, and we deal with it according to his word and we transform, that leads to greater intimacy with God. So God reveals3:34 things to bring us closer. So that's part of our secret life in God, accepting exposure by God as a path to intimacy with God. And then lastly, what we look at is just agreeing3:46 to follow the new direction. The psalmist in Psalm 139 says, and lead me in the everlasting way. So that was our foundation. If you missed it, go back, watch part 1. In part3:58 2, we're just gonna continue to reinforce this God of perfect knowledge, constant presence, and full acceptance, and the secret life4:10 that he wants us to pursue in him by looking at first Samuel chapter 16, Samuel, God, the selection of a king. And then we're going to move into answering the4:21 question, how does my relationship with God connect practically to a secret life in God? And just to get you thinking sort of in the right direction, I want to tell you a story from4:33 our family. For years and years, all during my kids' elementary, junior high, high school time, every time the holidays would roll around, around Christmas, I would4:45 call my friend Elizabeth, and I would ask her, Okay. Elizabeth, do you know of a single mother who's struggling4:57 or who has children, You know who's this a single working mom and then she would give me a name and then she would also give me the names of the children their ages5:09 and some intel she would do sort of the the counterintelligence of the whole operation. And then what we would do is we would save up, like, all of our coins, throughout5:21 the whole year. And it would it would usually amount in the family of 5 to a few hundred bucks of coins. And then as a family, we would separate all the coins, pennies, nickels, dimes,5:33 quarters. We'd roll all the coins. We'd we'd we'd take it to the bank. It was really funny. 1 time we took it to the bank just to get cash, and this guy says, what's that for? And and my kids told him what the plan was.5:44 And he pulled out as well. He's like, I want to contribute. So that 1 year, we had 50 extra bucks for the single bomb, with kids. But then what we would do is I would go with my kids,5:56 and then when they got older, I would send them out. And then they would go and buy presents and wrap them. And then this is the cool thing. This is the secret thing. This is the stealth thing. We6:08 would go to the house or apartment that, the family lived in, the mom and the children, and, we would do what we call here in6:20 America a ding dong ditch. We would press the doorbell, ding dong, and then we ditch it. But on the porch, we would leave bags6:31 of presents and cards and food and so forth for the mom. And then we would go to our hide spot, and then we would we would we would6:43 watch the reaction. And the whole idea is that that person, and to this day, they still never know. That person would never know that,6:56 that it was us, and that's the way we wanted it. And you know who got all the glory? Do you know who was praised and thanked in that7:08 moment? It was, man, getting emotional. God alone. God alone. And so that's that's just a little window into, what we're gonna talk about a little7:20 later today. The big idea is God has a plan and that that plan involves his glory and it also involves my private life that he7:32 sees and knows, and it involves the private lives of others that he also sees and that he also knows. And we get a little window into7:44 this in first Samuel chapter 16. If you have the downloaded notes, let's let's look at those. But we get a window into God's man, Samuel's, hidden life, the 17:56 that no man sees. We we get a look into his private turmoil, and God is with him, and God is working, and it involves Samuel's8:08 private life, and it also involves the private lives of others. So let's roll a film in first Samuel 16. The context is that8:20 Samuel has been told by God that King Saul has is is not the man that God wants as king over God's people. So8:31 let's roll the film. First Samuel 16, it says this. The Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul since I have rejected him as8:43 king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. I'm sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen 1 of his sons to be king. And when they arrived,8:55 Samuel saw Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord. But the Lord said to Samuel,9:07 do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at9:19 the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Maybe this is 1 of your favorite verses like it is mine, first Samuel sixteen:seven. If it's not, it should be9:31 because it really drives home some basic points. But let's just make some simple observations by what we see. First observation. Samuel is9:43 privately mourning. Okay, so Samuel is sad that the king he anointed is being rejected by God. He he loved9:55 Saul. He tried to coach up Saul. He tried to make Saul a good king. But Saul did not have the inner stuff.10:06 Saul was fearful of men after the flesh, and that was not the type of king God wanted for his people. So we see the private10:19 mourning of a man, and then let's look at God. God is privately interrupting Saul's private10:31 mourning. Right? I mean, he is, he's saying, hey, all right, this isn't fatal and final. I know you poured into the guy,10:43 but there's a job to do. You're the judge over Israel. The judge over Israel is responsible for king transitions among my people, so fill your10:54 horn. That means get ready to anoint a new king and be on your way. And so God is interrupting11:07 Samuel's private mourning because his plan has to go forward. You know? You just think back on your life where, whatever, trauma,11:19 loss, great pain, depression, sadness, grief, and God sees that. It's very11:31 real, but God also has a plan in the midst of it that is moving forward. And and I think some of you needed to hear that. Maybe11:42 you're like Samuel in this moment, and there's fracture, separation, sadness in a part of your life. But there is a God of perfect11:54 knowledge of that, perfect understanding, constant presence, who fully accept you, and he loves you so much not to leave you there.12:06 Just like he loved Samuel so much, he wasn't gonna leave him in his grief, He says, fill your horn. Maybe some of you sort of parabolically,12:19 symbolically, God's saying the same thing to you. It's like, alright. It's time to fill your horn. It's time to get back on the bike. It's time to get in the saddle because I've got a plan, and12:30 you're a part of it. The third observation that we make is that Samuel, as he fills his horn and goes to Jesse's house, he's privately evaluating12:42 his next hire. Okay? So you see in the passage, you know, Samuel saw Eliab, 1 of Jesse's sons. Right? And he thought,12:54 oh, there he is. You know? And then God starts coaching his thinking, and that's God is privately now, as Samuel was privately13:06 evaluating, this is your next fill in, God is privately coaching his thinking. Alright? Where there's Samuel. He's saying, oh, yeah. There he is.13:18 You know, he's got son 1, son 2, son 3. Here's Eliab. And it's like, okay. Wow. This is it. And and and then God starts coaching him. And13:30 the Lord says to Samuel, I'm thinking to his mind, not out loud, don't look at how good looking he is.13:42 And just because he's, 6 2 6 3, don't look at that. He's not the guy. I don't look at what you look at. People look at the13:54 outward appearance. We're gonna talk a lot about that today. But the Lord looks at the heart, and it's important to know that the heart, biblically, is the14:06 inner man, the thoughts, the will, the affections, the desires, the character of the man. So his inner man, heart14:18 is comprehensive in the Bible. It's not the muscle. It's not looking at the heart muscle and if it's beating. It's a figurative term that means I'm looking at his insides.14:30 You're looking at his outsides. I'm examining his character, his thoughts, the real man. And you're evaluating him 1 way. I'm evaluating him this way.14:43 And just to reinforce how God looks at people, we see this when Jesus is evaluating religious14:55 men in his time. And he sees these very, very religious men on the outside, and people are doing the same thing Samuel does.15:06 They're evaluating them on the outside. Got the right hat on, got the right robe on, got the right beard, reciting Torah in synagogue,15:20 and able to speak scripture, followers of the rules and rituals. Listen to what Jesus says about them in Matthew 15 8. These people, okay, these religiously15:33 appearing people, honor me with their lips, but, what does it say? Their heart is far away from me. I mean, have15:45 you ever bumped into people like that? Where it was then confusing because of all the outward appearance, you know, the things that they carried around, the places that they put themselves15:57 in, the words that they said, and then something happens, right, that reveals who they really are. And there's the tip16:09 of the iceberg that's above the waterline, and then there's what's really going on in their real person underneath that man doesn't see and doesn't know, but that God knows.16:22 God knows their real thoughts, what they really think about people, why they're really doing things. And that's Jesus. He's I mean, you look at the gospels, the16:33 rich young ruler. You know? I've been moral. I kept the law. You know, what do I have to do? And then Jesus, instead of seeing the the tip of the iceberg, what the guy's saying, you know, I kept the law. I did all these16:45 things since I was little. I'm very moral. Jesus says, sell everything you have and goes right to his heart. And because Jesus sees the heart and knows that he has an attachment16:57 to material things. And the rich young ruler walks away, the Bible says, sad because he couldn't Jesus called him out for his his17:09 truest love, which wasn't God at all. It was stuff. And then when he said, you know, you're gonna have to give up loving stuff to love me, the rich young ruler, walked away. You see it in the Sermon on the17:21 Mount in Matthew 5 where Jesus says, you know, you've heard it said don't murder, but I say to you, it's the anger on the inside. You've heard it said don't commit adultery, but I say to you, it's the lust on the inside.17:33 So Jesus is the best heart cardiologist, so to speak. Spiritual heart cardiologist, where he looks past outward appearance, he looks past words,17:45 He looks past clothes. He looks past the brand, and he sees who the real person is. He also sees where the real issue lies. Murder,17:57 the active it, is a symptom of the heart issue of anger. Adultery, the outward action, is a symptom of the heart issue of lust on the18:09 inside. So Jesus is always dealing with the insides of people. Now, what's the headline here? Write this down. God says to his men and is saying to us now, don't get sucked into18:21 externalism. Okay? And I choose that word very carefully. Don't get sucked into the outward appearances. Okay?18:32 Your personal outward appearance. Okay? Because God sees your secret person. He sees who you really are. Don't get sucked into the outward appearances of people.18:45 Okay? We all know people who could check all the boxes religiously, and then we see in the headlines, and then we might see privately, or we might be totally shocked to find18:56 out that they were someone else on the inside, and eventually your insides are acted out. Right? But God is warning us. He's coaching Samuel. He's coaching us.19:08 Jesus is highlighting that God is not into the outward appearance. He sees the person for who they really are. He sees our secret life. He sees19:20 the inner person, the inner motives, the inner thoughts that is the real you and the real me. Okay. Real important. Because, you know, if you're Samuel,19:33 I mean, you should have learned this lesson because Saul, the King God, has rejected. He really looked the part. Right? But he didn't have the heart19:45 of a king for God's people, the kind of heart that he should have had. In fact, it says in Acts 13 verse 22, it says after19:56 removing Saul, he made David their king, a man after his own heart, I'm at my own heart, he will do everything I want him to do. And so, you know, keep20:08 that scripture up there. It's so cool. After removing Saul, he made David their king, and he testifies concerning him. I found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He'll do everything I want him to20:20 do. So it's that God is looking for a man, as revealed in scripture, who will say yes before God even asks. Like God's saying, you20:32 know, there's Saul. He's kind of creature of the moment, and his faith sort of goes with circumstances. You know, when things aren't tough, he's super loyal, but when20:44 there's pressure, he caves and he follows what men think or he pleases people or he pleases his own flesh. David20:56 will not be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but David, when he needs to repent after doing something wrong, which is what God wants him to do, David21:08 will repent. Saul made excuses. David repented. And so it's important to see as a man of God that God does not expect perfection.21:19 Right? What is a man after God's own heart? Clearly, David didn't have some linear path that had no bumps in it in terms of being the man after God's own21:31 heart. But God saw his heart, and he saw that when David would fall to the bottom, that when confronted with the truth, David would repent.21:43 So we can't get stuck on the externals, guys. God is looking at our hearts. He's not expecting perfection. He knows our frame. He's mindful that that we're very fragile or as the Bible says21:55 that we're we're we're like dust blown by the wind. We can we can blow it at any time. But when we're evaluating others or evaluating ourselves,22:07 don't get stuck in externalism. I love what what the Scottish theologian William Blakey said. He said, the world is full of idolatries, but I question if any22:19 idolatry has been more extensively practiced than the idolatry of outward appearance. Wow. I mean, you think about it in our culture. We covet22:30 outward appearance. We compare ourselves outwardly to people. How they look, what they drive, how much money in the bank, where they go on vacation. Right? We assign value, and22:42 we actually assign intellect and character. Like by some mystical osmosis, if someone's all put together on the outside, if someone has a big bank account, if somebody drives an22:54 expensive luxury car, that somehow that outward order, appearance, and engineering by mystical osmosis is how they're made up on the inside. Right? That's what I call23:06 the osmosis effect. We assume that the qualities of their outer life translate to their inner life. But as God is showing us in scripture, and we see it in23:18 in Saul, we see it in his his adjustment of talking about, talking to Samuel. We see it in Jesus, especially in Matthew 23 if you're taking notes about,23:31 him talking about religious men. And you see now that leads us now to go, okay, don't don't judge people on the outside.23:44 Outward appearance. Don't try to project an outward appearance while living a private secret different reality. Now what we need to do, and this is where we're going in sessions23:56 2 through 5. We're gonna start answering the question, how does the secret life and my relationship with God, how do those things, you know, connect? And so we're gonnaShow more In this video 0:00 The Secret Life: Known Only to God1:59 God's Plan and Our Secret Lives24:00 The Call to Secret Generosity
Comments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
Comments
Keep it kind. Comments are public.