Latest / Harvest After Sunday / A "Go" Mindset: Digging Deeper
Transcript
- Harvest Media: Well To the Harvest After Sunday podcast. I'm Natalie and I'm here with Stefan, our pastor of preaching and teaching. And today we're gonna be digging deeper into Sunday's sermon, A Go Mindset. And we've been talking about Mission Go throughout the last couple months. and I'm glad that we can dig deeper. Here's my notes from the sermon on Sunday. I was not only taking note of what was up on the screen, but my kind of questions and reactions, and so As always, I'm excited to kind of bring them here and hopefully it will be helpful and illuminating for the people listening too. I'm gonna start off with an admission or a confession. Okay. In full transparency, and maybe I'm the only one and maybe there will be other people listening that relate to this as well, but when I hear mission, especially paired with go, my mind immediately goes to like mission trip. I'm thinking get on a plane, go to the To another country, at least get in a van, go downtown, maybe. We're doing a project, we're going, it's service-oriented, it's kind of occasional. and what I overall really appreciated, as we've talked about it throughout the course of the year, and especially this Sunday, is really emphasizing that this is about a mindset. And when we say mission, we're talking about purpose. Yeah. I don't know if there's other people that relate to that kind of idea where we automatically assume mission trip, kind of like I do. Maybe it's the context and churches I grew up in where it's most often used, but really thinking about what motivates us and what activates us. And I wondered, you know, if you could ground us a little bit as we move forward in this conversation about the biblical principle that what we think and what we believe if not determines, definitely directs what we do. Yeah, totally. So I was actually having a very similar conversation with somebody after church on Sunday, and Romans twelve, one and two, we've come back to a few times in this podcast in previous episodes because Paul talks about the renewal of your mind. Well, in the in the verse before that, so that's in verse two, in verse one, he says, and I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer yourselves, to offer your bodies as as a living sacrifice. And the ESV says, which is your spiritual worship. It's an interesting translation that they where they decided to go with spiritual worship because in Greek it's which is your rational service. So what Paul's really saying is okay, I've unpacked Romans 1 through 11 for you. I have given you the whole scope of the gospel and God's plan for salvation and and the finished work of Christ and justification through faith and no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Like I've I've unpacked all that for you. Now Chapter twelve, verse one. The most rational response from you is to present your whole body, your whole self, your whole life as a living sacrifice, to lay down your life for the cause of Christ in this world, in your own life, and then in how you relate to the people around you. That is the rational outworking of if you have believed Romans one through eleven. And that's going to happen then, verse two, by not being conformed to the patterns of this world. But through the renewal of your mind, so that you may be able to discern the will of God, what is good and pure and pleasing, that I will be able to know how the Lord wants me to live in this world when my mind is renewed through his word, and I'm gonna submit myself to that renewal of my mind because I am offering myself as a sacrifice to the Lord, as a living sacrifice. So my life. Life is the sacrifice and how I live. you know, being an actual physical sacrifice where I die, but in a sense, I'm giving up myself so that my life is the sacrifice as the rational response to the whole of what God has been doing. So it it really that that's why I mentioned in the at the beginning of the sermon that we're not we're not Christians who add the mission to our Christian life. Right. Or we cheer on a few who are who are actually doing the mission. It's I will be a part of God's mission in the world as as just the logical outworking of believing what God has been doing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I wrote down like mindset kind of determines motivation, what motivates me and then action. And when I think about motivation and what are we motivated? I I go to when I open my eyes in the morning, you know, what what motivates me to to get out of bed, how I orient my day, my hours and my days and my weeks, because that that reveals what motivates me for life really. And so I think, you know This reflecting on what is my mindset, what motivates me, what motivates anyone. it can be clear by what people start doing right away. And again, I'm zooming in on like just in the morning, if I am motivated by financial security, financial gain, you know, I'm opening, I'm looking at my my accounts, I'm looking at the stock market, I'm spending the day thinking about how I can control money from pouring out or get or if I'm I'm motivated by how I appear in the world or vanity, then I'm I'm orienting my day around what I eat and working out. And and again, none of those things are individually or wrong, but are they driving me? Are they mastering me? Because my mindset is that is the most important thing. And I as you worked through the sermon points, I mean, man, pillars of truth that if we are anchored in these truths about God, the reality that He is sovereign, the reality of our own state, which is hopeless apart from him, that Christ is sufficient. Like the these things anchored in our mind turn into motivations that then determine our actions for daily living, daily living, not occasional trips or service projects. Right. and so it really like I was recalculating honestly my whole mindset, as you said, during the sermon and since then. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I th I think that those four truths that I talked about on Sunday are they are reorienting because each one confronts kind of a default mode that we all fall into. God is sovereign, confronts the default mode that I'm in control of my life. Like that's just our default way of thinking, and that truth confronts it. Like, no, actually. It's not that everything is is it just throws. And we're gonna see how it falls, or that it's up to me to make things happen. No, God's sovereign. So my confidence can't be in myself, it needs to be in the Lord. Mankind being hopeless is a it confronts our default setting of thinking that we just have to look within to find the solution to the issues that we're facing. the default mode of today, especially is I am sufficient for whatever's gonna come my way. Like that's the the that phrase that you hear so often is you just need to remember that you are enough. Yeah. And the truth that Christ is sufficient confronts that and says, no, you are not. Christ is enough. He's more than enough and he's what we need. And then that worship is the goal, that confronts our default mode that that my glory is the goal Or my own financial gain or my own status, that's the goal. They all confront those things. And when I let them confront those things, then I think that it becomes very clear as we'll just like meditate on those ideas, it becomes very clear just what in my life I have allowed to take primacy that really should take a back seat, and where in my life I've let the mission of God take a back seat where really it needs to be the primary thing driving me. Yeah, we've talked a couple of times about how we can have a tendency, because of our own pride, to kind of tack on Christian principles. Are living to our lives, we're we're really ruled by our own desires, but we'll add in some service projects, a mission trip. you know, even worship. Okay, I'll I'll go and worship on Sunday, instead of letting those things be the anchor that transforms our mindset and our lives and our our entire life from the moment we open our eyes in the morning is worship. because we understand that it's the glory of Christ that motivates. us, not our own glory, as you mentioned. maybe do tell us briefly how with this idea of anchoring our mindset in truth, we ended up in Revelation. Yeah. Maybe not the most obvious choice to some of us. So tell us how we got there. Yeah. So I th I I joked with our team before the service, just letting them know where we were going to be and what the sermon was was going to be about. And I said we're going to be in Revelation. And I said, depending on your background, that might scare you when the the pastor says open up to Revelation. Like you don't things could get weird. but if we have a if we have a right view of the book of Revelation, we will be able to be the benefactors of the blessing that that book is supposed to be. So In in the opening chapter of Revelation, we're told that he who reads this book will be blessed. Now that is written in the first century, and that is a truth that is for every generation that ever since it was written. So in the reading of Revelation, we are meant to see what is in that book as a blessing. Now, a lot of people, especially today, because of kind of theological developments over the last two hundred years or so, think that Revelation is strictly a future oriented book. or or the vast majority of vast majority of it is pointing to the future. And it's not wrong that there is future oriented content in Revelation. but it is not only about the future. And the if you if you look back at kind of the the the name of revelation through the kind of the the last few hundred years in English, it hasn't always been called revelation. really? It is the apocalypse according to the according to John. Okay, apocalypse. We we think like, okay, that's the end of the world because that's the way that we use it. So apocalyptic writing in the in the early centuries and around the time that the New Testament was written, apocalyptic writing was was used to refer to writings where the author was giving us a glimpse of things that we had not seen before. So it's like an apocalypse is kind of pulling the curtain back to look and see what's going on that we don't see from our perspective. Ezekiel is an apocalyptic book, right? All the imagery in Ezekiel where he sees all these things, and you read it and you're like, My goodness, like what is he talking about? Well, it's because he's describing things that he's seeing that are not from the perspective of of human history. And part of Daniel is apocalyptic. you have apocalyptic writing in Zechariah, it's throughout the Bible. And the purpose of it is always to give you the point of view of heaven on the things that are happening in the world. And the reason that God in his kindness gives that point of view is because it will give you confidence as you live in this world, because you got to peek behind the curtain and see, I see what's really going on. I see what God's actually doing. And we can't see it in the world, but because he revealed, right? Revelation, because he revealed this apocalypse, this view from behind the curtain to us, we can be confident. And so the blessing of revelation is. You can be confident in this life, as things get worse and as it looks like the world is winning, you can be confident it is not winning. The Lamb has conquered, he is returning, you can have confidence. So, some of what we read in Revelation is telling us about that future that gives us confidence. Some of Revelation is telling us about things that have already happened. That's why in the opening chapter he says, write these things down. I will show you the things that are and the things that are to come. So from John's point in history, some of the things that he's being shown are. the the kind of revealing of what's really going on right now and what's coming in the future. and so Revelation five, four and five actually go together, those two chapters are giving us a view of of The glory and majesty and supremacy of God seated on his throne and the fact that the Lamb has conquered. And those truths from chapters four and five now carry us through the rest of the book in the things that are and the things that are to come, because you know God is on the throne and the Lamb has conquered. So everything that comes now, you can be confident in. So if we're going to be talking about the mission of God in the world and our place in it, what we need to able my gosh. I mean, what a word. I'm like over here taking it in because man, the world feels really heavy. You hear people saying all the time the world's on fire, like all these negative things about the realities of our our world. And it doesn't take much looking around to feel overwhelmed and burdened by the truth of that. so wow, what hope and encouragement for and I'm thinking of Colossians 3, think about the realities of heaven, and I think about scripture saying be. ready to give an answer for the hope that's any like believers should be marked by hope. And how sad if we are just clouded clouded and burdened and discouraged, just like the rest of the world who has no hope by what we're seeing and experiencing in our broken world and in sinfulness. but we have hope. And if again we are anchored in those truths, it will absolutely change how we live day to day. And that is what we should be marked by as believers. Yeah. What an encouragement. Okay. The blessing of Revelation. I don't think I've ever heard those words together. So Yeah, because I mean you think about it. How do people talk about Revelation? Yeah. They often talk about it as this scary book. And it's confusing. The references. Even in this passage, I'm like, okay, horns, eyes, I'm writing down. I'm like So the key, the key to Revelation, it's twofold. One, the key to it is to not read it like a secret code. that you have to unlock because if you do What you're going to do is you're going to look around at what's going on in the world right now and and kind of like place things in the book and say, Okay, this this event in Revelation is this thing that's happening in the world right now, and and you're gonna come to the conclusion we are aut we must be in the last generation. Like Jesus is gonna come back tomorrow because these things are all happening. Okay, hold on. Every generation since Jesus ascended to heaven has thought they were the last generation. Every single one. Every single generation has thought they knew who the Antichrist was. Every single generation has had their own version of the mark of the beast. Every like they've all had their own versions of what nations are which kingdom and and they were all wrong. Because they approached the book as this is a secret code that I have to unlock and my my legend for unlocking the code is the events of my current time. So we don't do that. This the second prong to the key to understanding the book of Revelation is you cannot understand Revelation if you are not familiar with the Old Testament. Because John is an old testament scholar par excellence. I mean, his gospel is rooted in the Old Testament in wild ways. That just I mean, you read it when you're familiar with the Old Testament, you read John's gospel and you just think, Man, this guy we talk about Paul knowing a lot. Like, I'm not saying John knew more than Paul. I'm just saying, like, if we're impressed Paul, we need to be impressed by Matthew as just a as just a student of the Old Testament. Or did I say Matthew? It's because we're in Matthew. I mean John. John. John. John. Matthew's pretty impressive too. Yeah. But John in his gospel, he uses the seven miracles of Jesus, seven signs that Jesus performs in the Gospel of John, and lines them up with seven feasts of the Old Testament that the feasts anticipated the divine reality that was behind the miracle that Jesus performed. And he links them together to say this is this is the one who was to come. This is him. And it's not just some person, it's God. And it's so incredible. So you come to Revelation, and every page of Revelation is filled with Old Testament imagery. Because he is John is through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit communicating to us truths for God's people throughout all time, and he's communicating them in ways that those familiar with the Old Testament will be able to recognize. Yes, that okay, I I get that. I can I can see because of what it says in Daniel or Ezekiel or because of what Moses says to the people of Israel, I can see why John uses this. Image because it links us back to that to say the God who was sovereign over that is sovereign over this. The truth that that that was revealing about God is being revealed here. So a lot of times people come to Revelation scary, doom and gloom, it's a secret code. Well If it if if that's what it is, then the book can only be a blessing to the people who are alive when those events actually happen. Yes. It can't be a blessing to everybody who's ever read it. And it sounds like, again, the key is it's about God, not about us. I mean, you hear the pride sneaking back in. We've talked about pride and humility a couple of times already. but even this, like, I can figure it out, it's a secret code, I can unlock it, I can, you know, anticipate. What's coming. it all starts with knowledge, pride, fitting it into my life, my where I am in the world right now. but even hearing you describe the connections with the old testament, the thread there was the character of God. That's right. And truths about God. And so just again, for people that are listening, a reminder and an encouragement, pause and reflect where in your life are you not starting with the truths about God? Yeah. because it that is the only thing renewing our mind is the only thing that will change our heart and change our motivations and and actually have us living for the glory of God and not our own glory. Right. and I want to zoom in a little bit on so in verse nine, you gave us a definition of ransom. So it says your blood has ransomed people for God. And you said ransom means purchased and repurposed. Yeah. and I think this goes along with what we were just saying. There is not just a sense of relief. Okay, I'm saved from my sin, and now I can go on living my life. Thank goodness I'm not going to hell because Jesus loved me, he saved me. Still about me, me, me, me. Now I feel good. Now I can go on living my life for me. My Thank goodness he took care of me. And I just wrote down an underline, and I have been meditating on this idea of repurposed. What changes everything about the purpose of my life. It doesn't just save me to then go on and live my life for me. Right. And we get that, I mean, I think again, maybe this is I'm just being transparent and compassionate. Like that is a tendency for me. It has been a tendency for years, even as a believer. And I need this reminder daily that my whole life's purpose is for God. It's changed because He saved me. Right. Yeah. The the thing that That we a lot of times like to s we we speak like it's true is I once was a slave to sin, and now I'm set free to be my own person. Well, you were set free from sin, but unto what? And here's the truth that scripture, especially Paul in Romans, makes really clear: you are a slave to something. You are never actually free in the autonomous sense. You are a slave to something. And when God ransomed us through the blood of Jesus, he took us from being slaves to sin and has now made us slaves of righteousness. Now we don't like that word slave for legitimate reasons because of historical events, especially in our country. But if we just will un unshackle the word from the baggage that it often carries with just human slavery, if we just look at the word itself. It means that you exist to do the bidding of another. When I was a slave to sin, I could do no other than the bidding of the sinful nature and the power of sin over me. I was subject to its power. Now I have been set free from being a slave to sin, and I have been transferred into the kingdom of God, which means I'm now a slave unto him. But he's not a harsh taskmaster. He is a good father, but I am still bound to him. And so it isn't that, okay. I can live however I want, and I've got this kind of free pass. We were made for God. And we were then we then became slaves to sin. So being set free from sin simply sets me free to what I was supposed to be, which was for God. And of course we wanna separate it from the unhelpful, sinful baggage of actual slavery that we're familiar with, like you're saying, however if there's still some remaining discomfort for people about the idea of their purpose is for God. They are slaves for God, not for themselves, they might I wanna encourage people to sit with a little bit of discomfort there. Sure. and and ask why. because again, our our threat of this whole conversation, it may very well reveal unbelief about God. Yeah. Or or at least, or at least A still wanting to hold on to some sense of autonomy. And The that's why that's that's one of the reasons why when we're talking about being on the having a a mission mindset or a go mindset is to to c work out of our mind the idea that I can I can be on mission for God if I want to be. But if I don't want to be, like I can I can still enjoy all the blessings and benefits of the kingdom, but not participate in that thing, because that's just not for me. And the reality that we have to come to grips with is no no being a part of the mission. Is what it means to belong to God. And so That feels like I don't get to have a say about what I do with my life. And just speaking bluntly, it's because you you don't really get a say in that sense. God in his kindness does not call us to things that are going to be miserable in every sense of the word. Will there be suffering? Yes. Will there be discomfort? Yes. But will it be proven to be the right and best way for me to live? Absolutely. Because it's the way he intended me to live in the first place. And I've said in like sermons in the past, I haven't said it in this series yet. I think I may have said it when I prayed at the end of the sermon, but the mission of God is to assemble a people in his presence who reflect him for his glory for all eternity. It started in the garden. Then because of sin. They were no longer in his presence. The reflection was distorted. They stole glory for themselves. So the God didn't change the mission. He simply did what had to be done to fulfill the mission that he started, that he would assemble in his presence a people who reflect him for his glory for all eternity. Well, if you and I belong to him, then we're part of that. We're part of that assembly, which we call the church. And we are part of the mission of assembling more until the day that we're all assembled together in the new heavens and new earth. If you follow Jesus by faith, you're a part of that mission. Because we now have been transferred fr as slaves to sin to the kingdom of God, and we now serve as Slaves, servants, whatever word we want to use, submitted to his purposes, and his purpose is his mission. So it's gotta be ours as well. Absolutely. I wrote down at the end of the sermon, Does my life say he is worthy? Mm-hmm. and I've been reflecting on that and I wanna invite people listening to really reflect on their mindset about their life and their purpose, their mission. and if it is not in line with what you outlined for us on Sunday, Which I can understand. I mean, if we're not wrestling with these truths, then maybe we're not really listening in and taking the time because these are significant truths about God and we do experience many things in the realities of life because of things that happen to us, because of our own sin that should cause us to pause and wrestle and say, Do I am I really believing this? That God is sovereign. Does that rule my thinking? the reality that mankind is hopeless. Christ is sufficient and worship is the goal. And I I thought of many different ways and and things that people might struggle with in those areas and and we won't list them all out now, but I I just want to invite people to continue to reflect on those and ask God to work and illuminate those in your mind. And if you have questions, maybe because of things you've experienced in life and you cannot reconcile the idea that God would be sovereign over something extremely painful that has happened. And you can't quite work that out, go to a pastor or a small group leader this week. if you recognize where you are living for your own glory and not God's glory, confession is called for. And talk to your spouse, talk to your D group, talk to your small group. if you don't understand man's state of hopelessness and how Christ is sufficient, maybe that's the first time someone's really hearing. That and you want to know more and talk about that and understand. We are praying for you. Write that down on a connect card. A pastor will reach out. I I want people to engage, engage their mind and heart, ask the Holy Spirit to work and move and convict and teach and correct, and then move towards other people in our church family to talk about those things and confess where appropriate. work towards looking at God's word together to correct your thinking, renewing our minds together with the truth of God's word so that our lives are transformed and they reflect Christ and that He is glorified and magnified in our lives, in the people of Harvest in our church family. And that is what I'm praying for. And so we just want to invite people to do that as they listen. And as always, if you have further questions or things that you Want us to talk a little bit more about in this setting, you can fill out the form that's now under each of the podcast episode on whatever platform you're listening on. and we just want to thank you for joining us for the Harvest After Sunday podcast, where we help you grow into the image of Christ by applying the truths of his word for his mission. We'll see you Sunday.