Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 22, 2021 | Good Question - What Does it Look Like to Have a Relationship With God?

Transcript

August 22, 2021 | Good Question - What Does it Look Like to Have a Relationship With God? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Man, good morning, good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody else tired this morning?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I'm tired.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful for that song though.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: It wakes me up every time.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thankful for the worship team who orients our hearts to the right place.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful for the people who show up early and brew coffee because I wouldn't be standing here without them this morning.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just thankful all around.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: But my name is Alex Wolfe.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know me, I'm the young adults pastor here at TBC.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that you may or may not know about me, by the way, I'm not gonna go 15 minutes over this week.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know some of you guys, some of y'all's hearts just dropped when you saw me walk up here again.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, uh-oh, 15 minutes late.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna try to keep it short this week.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see what happens.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But um uh but one thing you may or may not know about me is my wife and I have been married for nine years.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and in that nine years, we have moved five times to four different states, and we've lived together in six different homes.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Which sounds crazy as I say it out loud, but as much as I love adventure and as much as I love variety, um, I have noticed that each one of those moves has gotten increasingly more difficult emotionally.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the first move we made, we were super confident, right?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: We, you know, we were like, oh, we're gonna keep in touch with everybody, we're gonna maintain these great relationships, it's gonna be fine, you know, and we move a thousand miles away, and you know, two and a half years later, and you realize, wow, that was a lot harder than I thought it would be, right?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: That that I'm not as good at calling my family as I thought I would be, and and so uh we build new relationships, however, uh, and then a few years later we'd move again to somewhere else, and and it we would be saying the same things, right?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: That, well, I'll call, I'll keep in touch, it won't be that bad, but each time is a little more difficult because you remember the difficulties over the last few years.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: That it actually was really hard to keep in touch.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It really was hard to build a relationship and to maintain a growing relationship over thousands of miles and lack of interpersonal communication, and uh and so it it only got worse as there was more and more moves.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you've ever noticed this.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um I certainly have, but relationships are just hard in general, aren't they?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: People are hard in general, and uh I have a hard enough time nurturing my relationship with my wife, who I see and talk to every single day, and then you add some out-of-side, out of sight, out of mind thousand miles away into the mix, and it gets even that much harder.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought about the idea that this is sort of what we're up against when we're dealing with our relationship with God?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That the challenge for many of us, if we're honest, is that God is invisible.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: We can't see him, and the Son, Jesus, who is visible, is at the right hand in heaven far away, and heaven has not yet come to earth, which is a challenge.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we've never seen him before, we've never heard him speak audibly to us, and at first glance it can seem that we have very little to go on for building a strong relationship with God.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the task can seem very daunting because of these challenges, but uh, you know, I thought a thousand miles away with, you know, FaceTime was difficult.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And now we have none of that, but the God of the universe, I want to make the point, has thought this through.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: That He being gracious and desiring a relationship with us has given us great ways to flourish in our relationship with him despite the seeming shortcomings of our circumstances.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I want to talk about today.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And today we'll be dealing, uh, or be continuing on our good question, let's talk about it series, which is kind of our summer series in a way.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you believe summer's almost over?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness, I've been praying for it to cool down, and that's not been working, so I decided to take on a pagan practice and manifest it in my life by wearing uh flannel.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I say that?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have said that on stage.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Woof.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not pagan, promise.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm hoping fall comes soon, nonetheless.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I say any of that?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um today I'll be working with the question um, what does it look like to have a growing relationship with the invisible God?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've had this question in various forms over the years, from college students, from young adults, from people all over the place, that it's popped up in various formats, but this is kind of what I've sort of discerned from those questions, is the fact that it's kind of hard to build a relationship with a God you can't see, and that doesn't necessarily talk back in the way that we're used to in our everyday relationships.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what does it look like to have a growing and thriving relationship with a God who is invisible?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's what we're gonna be dealing with today.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to give a little bit of background or uh uh heads up what to expect in this sermon, we're gonna be talking about, or I'm gonna be suggesting, three aspects of our of our relationship with God that we're going to be breaking down one by one and sort of looking at deeper.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the way I've chosen to do it.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be looking at the status of the race relationship, which asks the question, does a relationship exist?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the second, we're gonna look at the nature of the relationship, which asks the question, what should that relationship look like?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then the state of the relationship asks the question, now what does it look like, and are we doing it well?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so to give like a to give a short illustration from John himself in his gospel, uh, the book of John, or not, you don't, no need to turn there for now, but um in the book of John, Jesus says he's sent from the Father, with a message from the Father, with words from the Father to his disciples.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the point is that he is going to take the words of the Father and He's going to pass them on to the disciples.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to take the character of the Father, namely his love, and he's going to reflect it to the disciples.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so in choosing his disciples, he has entered into the stat the relationship status, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That in picking them out and going with them, the point is that the relationship exists.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's walking with them throughout his time and he's teaching them the revelation of God.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's teaching them what God is like, what God is doing, uh, when his kingdom is going to come, how to enact his character and show mercy and all these great things.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in the upper room discourse, he's giving these all these instructions on what to do in his absence when he leaves.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's establishing the nature of their relationship.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's telling them what he expects of their relationship now and moving forward.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then in John chapter 15, uh, verses 9 through 13, he says this to his disciples.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Abide in my love.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you keep my commands, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right, so the point is Jesus has entered into a relationship with them.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's established the nature of the relationship, namely, his job is to give them the words of the Father, give them the character of the Father, and then he lays out right here how do you continue to build the relationship?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus wants them to abide or remain in what he has taught them.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is how they were to complete Jesus' joy, to make him happy in the relationship, to have a good relationship with him, complete my joy by continuing on in my words, by continuing on in loving one another.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question is: did they do it?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Did they continue to build a good relationship with God?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is yes, in 1 John, you know, the apostle John is writing to his church, and he's uh he's telling them that, you know, Jesus has given us these words, and we saw him, and we touched him, and we heard him, and now we're giving you these words, and so we're making his joy complete, and we want you to abide in us and make our joy complete, and so it passes on, so on and so forth.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he encourages us towards brotherly love just as Jesus did for him.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so they are continuing to build that relationship, and they pass the torch to us.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is sort of the illustration we're gonna be working with as we look at our relationship with God.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first aspect of the relationship I want to look at is the status of the relationship.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the status of the relationship asks the question: does a relationship exist?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have a relationship with God?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I will argue that the answer to that question is if you believe in Christ, that he is the Son of God and died for your sins and is coming again to bring the hope of humanity, then yes, you have a relationship with God.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 3, 26 says, for you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've entered into a relationship with him through faith, then yes, you have a relationship with him.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I know the question that I've posed is what does it look like to have a dynamic, growing relationship with God?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But before we jump into the dynamic aspects of our relationship, I think, and I want, I want to just highlight a few things that happen in our relationship with God the moment that we believe in him.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing that, one thing that happens in our relationship with God when we believe is that we are adopted into his family as sons.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: The moment you believe, he says, relationship.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: This relationship status, adopted in my family.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Galatians 4, 4 through 7 says, but when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the idea that God has taken you from another family and placed you standing-wise, positionally, into his family as an adult, that you are considered a full adult in the family, a full heir of the inheritance of God.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this is irrevocable.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a relationship with him, this is your relationship status.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: You are adopted, you are in his family, period.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But that's our positional aspect, but there's also a practical aspect to our entering into God's family.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also presented in a different way rather than being adopted as adults into the family.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It says we are reborn into the family of God as infants.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: John 1, 12 through 13 illustrates this best.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: He says, But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who are born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's an aspect in which we've been adopted, and positionally we are full adult sons, heirs with Christ.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's this kind of other aspect in which we enter into his family as infants, as young children.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so even though our placement is as a full adult, John says that we got there by being reborn into the family of God.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we are new to the family.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as young children adopted into the new family, the point is that we have need to grow and develop in our understanding of and practice within the family.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the believing sinner in his position is one of full privilege.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's fixed firmly in the family of God.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: His practice, however, as an infant involves growth in grace and knowledge of Christ.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But that growth, I want to make the point throughout this sermon, needs correct input and output.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not fixed like our position with God.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where we're going to focus the rest of our sermon for now.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: But before that, I would just want to sort of make this point, uh, or explain why I make this point.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why, if I'm talking about a growing relationship with God, why emphasize this?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: The reason is because I believe that we must have the relationship status with God settled in our minds before we can move on to nurturing the relationship to a healthy one.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is, we have to be able to hold our position with God and our practice as infants together.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you struggle with assurance of faith, uh that is, if you can't believe for some reason that you are in the family of God, my question for you is how will you be able to grow in your understanding of him as father if you haven't even decided whether or not he is your father?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to trust his word on this one, is what I'm suggesting.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have to let God deal with the legal issues of our adoption and trust him that we are in his family if we believe.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sin, flaws, and all.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: He knew who he was adopting.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: He knew he was adopting sinners.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's not surprised by this.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the book of Hebrews, I think this is illustrated pretty well.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a different point that he's making, but I think the point crosses over pretty well.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he says this in chapter 5, verse 11.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says, at about this that is about Christ, we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith towards God, and again of instruction about washing and laying on of hands, resurrection from the dead, eternal judgment.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so his point is for whatever reason, in the specific situation he's dealing with in Hebrews, they're stuck on these doctrines of salvation and how faith and works, and they can't get past this one issue.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the author of Hebrews is describing this as this is just milk.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: You ought to have moved on by now.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are stuck in this cycle, it's almost impossible to move on.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: If this is where you're stuck, I want to suggest to meet with a pastor here at CBC or somebody who can help you to feel confident in God's promises.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is that we're all going to fail in the things that I'm about to describe that build our relationship with God.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't worked this idea out in your mind, that failure that you experience will take you back to questioning your relationship status over and over and over again, and you'll just be in this continuous cycle.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: But those who are secure in this status, those who accept I'm in the family of God, though I fail, though I sin, though I experience the need for growth, right?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am a son of God or a daughter of God, and after that person falls or fails, they can get up, dust themselves off, and give it another go.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Again and again and again, because that's what it takes to build a relationship.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's failing and getting up over and over, trying again and again and again, and it's hard work.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if we're always worried about whether we're in the family of God or not, we can never move forward.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk now about what does it take to build a relationship with God, now that that is out of the way.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, first we had the status, right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: That do we have a relationship?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we do.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's leave that behind.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation is not what we're talking about now.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about now enjoying this relationship with God.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so the nature of the relationship asks the question: what should the relationship look like?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have Netflix, and there's this show, some of you may or may not be familiar with it.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Outer Banks, pretty popular these days.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh I'm kind of into it, it's a little stressful.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: We finished the new season, but this is John B.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: and Sarah, and they are uh kind of the main romantic characters in the story, right?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they have all these horrible issues.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um they're being their lives are in danger, to say the least.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they run away, you know, just escaping death in a lot of ways, and they're on this boat together.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna ruin too many, I'm not gonna give any spoilers because some of you probably are still watching it.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they're on this boat together, they've experienced all these horrible things together, which has brought them close together, and they're they're like 17 years old, and they decide we want to get married.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Except for they're driving the boat.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's no captain, there's nobody with them, so they decide the moon and the stars will be their witness.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so they get they sort of get married.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: They just say they're married, right?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and to make a long story short, they finally make their way back to their friends.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: They have this reunion with their friends, uh, and the problem is that Sarah's ex-boyfriend shows up on the scene.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, John B here, feeling a little bit, you know, territorial about his new wife, um, you know, says, Hey Sarah, why don't you tell your ex-boyfriend here about the nature of our relationship?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, thinking she'd be like, we're married, and he'd, you know, be all jealous and stuff.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what she says, she kind of gets red in the face and she goes, uh, we're together?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and this ex-boyfriend's like, oh, cool, you know, why'd you need to, you know, boast about that?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and this created this whole problem for John B.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: and Sarah.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: That they suddenly were not on the same page in their relationship status or their relation, the nature of their relationship.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so getting on the same page in a relationship, I think, is one of the first steps in a healthy, growing relationship.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so if one person in the relationship defines the nature of the relationship as something it isn't, the relationship will have a hard time flourishing.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you decide that your marriage is all about making you happy and fulfilling your life goals, that's gonna be a difficult relationship when you find out that that's not what it's there for.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the point.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to uh suggest that in our relationship with God, God defines the relationship.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: He DTRs in you know modern young people language, you know, that was like, define the relationship.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't know what it means, but God defines our relationship with him.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so I want to look at Romans 12 to illustrate this point.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: So Romans 12, 9 through 11, Paul is describing how God has adopted the nation of Israel, and later in 11, how Gentiles have been grafted in to participate in that adoption, and now he's going to apply it in chapter 12, telling them what to do in light of this new family, in light of this new position in Christ.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do now?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's sitting here saying that the first thing you need to do in this new relationship is reorient your mind.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: You came from an old family, you are now part of a new family, and you need to reorient your mind around what it means to be part of that new family.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: What is the family identity?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's the family crest?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's the family creed?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: As people of God.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so God, uh, in other words, he's telling them to renew their understanding of their relationship with God.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: They have a newfound relationship with him, so they need to reorient their minds.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing is that God doesn't just leave them to this, but he hands us some great tools that are useful for this very thing called spiritual disciplines.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is, you know, God defines the relationship, but then he, through church history, has orchestrated these time-tested, time-proven disciplines that are useful in this very task of helping us orient ourselves to the definitions of God.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the spiritual disciplines help us get on the same page in our relationship with God.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, while spiritual disciplines surely aren't required for salvation, they are passed down to us as an effective means of getting on the same page.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to suggest that they're useful for many things, but one of the most powerful features, in my opinion, is their purpose in continually orienting ourselves to God's definition of our relationship with Him.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, thus, as He reveals who He is, who we are, how, you know, the nature of our relationship, I want to argue the spiritual disciplines help us to persevere in agreement with His revelation.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you really think about spiritual disciplines, each one of them, I think, is really an exercise in humility.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's why some of us, I think, are horrible at them, because maybe, you know, we need to work on that humility aspect.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as we do each of them, we recognize that we aren't in control, that we don't make the definitions, that we don't provide.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's all Him, and He is the source and the power in the relationship.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes humility to subject ourselves to that idea day after day, to recognize that He's God and we aren't.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: That He's in control and we aren't.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: So He says that He is our God and Father, maker of heaven and earth, who has adopted us into His family and desires for us to conform to His image and worship only Him forever.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says that He is provider, protector, source of life, joy, happiness.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: He says we are His children who are to submit to His will.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, do we agree?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do we believe Him?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are we on the same page that He is God and that we aren't, that He is in control, not us?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do we believe that?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what spiritual disciplines help us do, in my opinion.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: One way of looking at spiritual disciplines, in other words, is that they help us to agree with and grow in our understanding of God's role and our roles in this divine relationship.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so as this idea builds, it builds intimacy.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is, we begin to be in full agreement with God.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of sitting around and dreaming with your spouse about, you know, what do we want to make of our relationship?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, agreeing that this is the goal, these are the dreams, these are the visions of our of where we want to go.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a feeling of intimacy.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna look at some of these examples of spiritual disciplines that hopefully illustrate my point a little bit better.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: These is not an exhaustive list of spiritual disciplines, just some that I've chosen to illustrate.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, and so studying scripture, prayer, fasting, Sabbath practice, all these things are disciplines that have been passed down to us as helpful things in orienting our minds to God's, to our relationship with God.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so, for example, the studying of scripture, the hearing the Bible taught in the pulpit or being preached, right?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about this, this is a practice in listening to and subjecting ourselves to God's definitions of the world.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: He describes who he is, he describes who we are, he describes how we relate to him.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we read and as we adopt the worldview of the Bible, uh, we recognize that we don't define the world, he does.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a practice in humility.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a practice of subjecting ourselves to his authority.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer is the same thing, right?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: That we recognize that we aren't God when we pray, don't we?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: We continually humble ourselves as we pray.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about this, um, a lot of us start prayer out with thankfulness.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And thankfulness assumes that he's the source of blessing.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: We aren't.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: We often have repentance within our prayers.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And repentance assumes that we don't measure up to his character.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Assumes that we fell short of his standard.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have requests, and and the requests assume that he has the power to grant them and that we do not.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: That he, when we praise in our prayers, uh we recognize that he is God altogether worthy of praise, and that we are not.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: That all authority and power is his, not ours.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to point out fasting.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting is one that doesn't get brought up much these days.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's certainly not something that's absolutely necessary, but is helpful, I want to suggest, because fasting is the symbolic placing of faith in his provision and faith in the eternal food that sustains us.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So as we, you know, symbolically, or as we actually physically abstain from physical food that sustains our bodies, we're symbolically placing our trust in his providence to provide for us eternal food which will sustain us for eternity.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a it's a humility saying that he provides, I don't.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: He alone gives me the means to enter into eternity, not I don't get it by any means of self-justifying.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sabbath is a similar idea, right?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying there's a whole discussion about whether Sabbath is a you know necessary, commanded thing for Christians, and I'm not gonna get into all that, but I'm just going to say that I think it's a helpful practice.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: That uh good practi or it's always good practice to rest one day a week from all selfishly ambitious activities.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that's kind of harsh words.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe say uh rest one day a week from all gainful employment.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the intention was for Israel.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were to have a Sabbath where they rested from gainful employment.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were to have a Sabbath year where they rested from all gainful employment for a whole year, where they didn't plant any crops or do anything that got them ahead.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the idea with the Sabbath.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Resting from things that get you ahead today in order to put yourself under the providence of God and trust Him to provide for you that day.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know how hard that is?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're someone like Lindsay and I, we have our own businesses and we could, you know, work them every day and we could make more income, you know, on Sundays or whatever day we chose to practice Sabbath, it's totally countercultural to say, I'm not going to increase my wealth today.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to trust God will provide.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a helpful idea.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it's not just for that, as we saw last week, it's also for the idea of showing mercy and showing God's character, and even that is an acceptance that his character is better than ours.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these things are really just means to place ourselves and to subject ourselves to what he has said is the nature of our relationship, to recognize that he is God, he is the Father, and we are not.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we are to abide in his words, in his definitions.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so the interesting thing to me is that this is where many are tempted to stop.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: That uh spiritual disciplines are often abused because they give the appearance of spirituality.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Spiritual disciplines, uh, they they look, they make you look like you have a real deep relationship with God.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're practicing them, many of them are outward practices, and it's like, oh, he's really spiritual.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: He prays every day, oh, he's really spiritual.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: He must have a deep relationship with God.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: He reads his Bible every day.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem with that is that the disciplines were never the end goal of spirituality.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were only the beginning of the bigger equation of having a relationship with God.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're the, you know, you get married at the covenant, and then you sit around and you dream about the relationship, but then you have your whole relationship to live out.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Shoulder to shoulder, in communion with one another, actually putting the rubber to the road, if you will.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so to illustrate this, I like to tell the story of two seas.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you may have heard this before.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit of an overused analogy, but I think it's good, so I'm going to go ahead and use it anyways.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: The tale of two seas uh looks at the two inland seas of the land of Israel, namely the Sea of Galilee, it's kind of small, it's way up here, and the Dead Sea, which is way down here.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing about these two seas is that they are both fed from the same source.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: They are both fed from the Jordan River.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And now, if you've ever been there, uh the differences cannot be overstated.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: One is, you know, teeming with life and activity everywhere.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's fish, and you can go have a you know, St.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Peter fish and all this fun stuff today if you go to Israel.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then you go to the Dead Sea and it couldn't be more opposite.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's dead, nothing can live in it.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's mostly deserted except for some tourist sites.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's very toxic, right?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the interesting thing uh is that it's fed from the same water source.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's fed from the Jordan River.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is, what makes them so different or so different?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is that the Sea of Galilee receives from the Jordan up in the mountains as all the snow comes down and the rain comes down, fresh water into the Sea of Galilee.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: But then the Sea of Galilee pours out.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the water coming down to the south towards this Dead Sea goes into the Dead Sea, uh, but it doesn't go out.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the water cycling in the Sea of Galilee sort of makes sure that the toxin content in the sea remains at a livable level.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the Dead Sea, on the other hand, it only receives from the Jordan.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: It has no outlet.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: It takes, but it doesn't give back out.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And even though being filled by a good source, uh, if it does not give back out, the water becomes stagnant or toxic.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the Dead Sea, the interesting thing is that it may look very glamorous for its spa benefits and its sparkly crystal rocks, you know, uh salt.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I brought this big old, I should have brought it, this big old rock covered in this crystal salt from the Dead Sea.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: It looks really cool.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but don't be deceived, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: It it one, you know, big gulp of that stuff would wreak major ha havoc on you internally.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's very, very toxic.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is with those, I want to argue, who stop with the disciplines in their relationship with God.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh who practice spiritual disciplines as a spiritual end.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: They have the appearance, the appearance of glamour.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: You look really spiritual, but because what they take in has no outlet, the information becomes stagnant or even toxic.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is illustrated, I think, best by the Pharisee.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, look at Mr.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Pharisee over there, and uh, oh wait, I have to say this.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: One see is full of flow, the other is full of woe.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't come up with that rhyme, but I thought I had a rhyme in my last sermon, so I thought I should do it again.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I saw it.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not the point.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the Pharisee over there in Luke 18.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus tells the parable.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: We looked at it briefly last week.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisee's standing over there, and he's, guess what he's saying?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: I pray, I tithe, you know, I keep the law, I do the spiritual disciplines.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: He sure looks spiritual.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else thinks he's spiritual.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else thinks he has this great dynamic relationship with God, but meanwhile, he's cursing his poor brother, and he's rotten to the core because he's taken in, but he's not giving out.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's receiving, but he never gives.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's become very greedy and he's become very rotten.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Jesus says in those moments, that a Pharisee walks away, and that relationship with God is not good.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And our relationship with God is similar.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: If we only ever take in through the spiritual disciplines, but we never pour out, I think we've missed the point.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, we risk turning our relationship with God toxic.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so the main point of the disciplines, again, is to orient us to his purpose for our relationship.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Namely, to orient us to the fact that he wants to build his character in us.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: So then the next logical step is to further represent that character.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna look at the third point, which is uh the state of the relationship.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we looked at the uh the status of the relationship, which said, you are indeed in a relationship with God, for better or for worse.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're inheriting the promises.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: It might not be the best relationship in the world, but you have one.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next step in this is that sort of intimacy, that dreaming period where you're looking at each other and you're becoming in agreement on the nature of your relationship, on the goals, the hopes, the dreams of the relationship.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's where Jesus is giving the disciples all his words.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And now the big question is: will you actually carry that out?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Will the disciples actually do what Jesus said to do?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Will our relationship, you know, in our marriage we laid there and we dreamt, will we actually do any of those things?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Will we actually carry out the purpose?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the state of the relationship asks the question, how is it going?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: How's the relationship actually doing in its practical everyday outworkings?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if I were to uh uh illustrate this with my marriage, I would say that disciplines is the practice, you know, of listening to my wife's desire for me to do the dishes, and then agreeing with her that yes, I probably should help you with the dishes.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: But then what we're talking about now is actually doing them, right?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you know, carrying out the dishes or not, and see how that actually affects the relationship.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And both are necessary, but here is where I'm showing her that I love her, not just saying it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so before the relationship can be determined as a good or bad one, again, we need to first know what his intention for the relationship was.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the disciplines really help.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: And through our disciplines, we should have seen, let me say this, because God defines the relationship, the state of the relationship is determined by how well we conform to that purpose.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so the disciplines help us to discover that purpose.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as we're reading our Bibles and submitting to his definitions, we find one, that he created us to represent him.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: He created us in his image to carry out his character in the world.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then if we keep reading, we find out what his character is like, namely, that he's compassionate, that he's gracious, that he's slow to anger, he's abounding in loyal love.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if we continue on, we learn that by faith, he has imputed that very character to us to help us with the task of representing his character.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then we continue to read that he has given us the spirit to help us live out this character of God within community.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, he's gifted us so that we can help that community also live out the character of God.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this is how he has defined the relationship.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the point is that God's purpose for us in our relationship with him is to look more like him, to reflect more of his character.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right, to sort of be a mirror for him to see his reflection in us.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we're kind of this mirror, and and he's given us the church as the proving grounds to polish that mirror to better reflect his image back to himself.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's where I think it really gets fun, personally, because this is where you start, you know, working through the logic of this.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's this that God has a really good long-distance plan.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has long-distance plans anymore, everybody has unlimited everything, right?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I think back in the day, I remember my family had a long-distance plan, and God's got a really good one.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Since Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, he's got something in place.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and specifically, by imputing the character of Christ to us, the church, we have become the physical representation of him as the church on earth.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, even though Christ isn't here, his body, his representation is here.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so the point that I want to make is that the state of your relationship with God today is most easily seen in the state of your relationship with his son's body.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you follow none of the logic that I just presented, that's fine.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh even the point is pretty simple.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: The state of your relationship with God, you want to know how your relationship with God's doing?
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your relationship with his body.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your relationship with his church, because the body is his physical representation of him on earth while he's at the right hand.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it actually does make some logical sense, makes a lot of logical sense, actually, that because his goal for our relationship is formed character, to reflect his character, the best way to grow in our character is to be in relationship with humans, specifically flawed humans.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And here's how this works: uh, if we think about it, you can't show God mercy because God can't sin against you.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can't show him mercy.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can't show God grace because grace is unmerited favor, and God merits all favor.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the nature of who he is.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can't show mercy to God.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a challenge if he's created you to show mercy.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if God wants us to show mercy and grace and be slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, the best way is to be in relationship with people who are flawed.
• 41:32
  unknown: Right?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Who offend us.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting idea.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: But then as we suffer through the injustice of showing mercy to those who offend us, we get to experience on a small level what it's like to be God showing mercy to us.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: To give something away entirely sacrificially.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And thus we grow in our understanding of his character, in the practical outworkings of how it works.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know it's crazy, but it gets even more fun because it doesn't stop there.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Again, God's long distance plan is pretty cool because he says that because the flawed people in the church also have his imputed character, that as we show mercy to people in the church who also are imputed into the image of God, who are exist to reflect the character of God, when you do show that person mercy, it's as if you are showing mercy to Christ Himself by association.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: You remember that story in Matthew 25, right, where the disciples come into the Jesus' presence in the judgment seat, and he's giving them rewards, and they're like, What are these for?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, you know, you clothed me when I needed clothes and you gave me food when I needed food.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, When did we do any of this?
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, You did it to me when you did it to the least of my brothers.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, when you showed mercy to those who bear my image, you showed mercy to me.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is a whole cool idea, right?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: That we're in these relationships with flawed people, so we can reflect his mercy because we can't reflect it, we can't show mercy to God, but it just so happens those people also have his character, so by association, we're showing it to God.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a kind of a difficult concept to wrap your mind around, but I think it's cool.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um there it is.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's the really the main point.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: The state of your relationship with God is largely dependent upon your participation with his designated relationship program.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is the church, that is his body.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so how how do we apply this?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: We we saw we have a relationship with God, we saw how he's defining the relationship, and now the question is if you want a good relationship with God, are you going to do it?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are you actually gonna participate in how he's laid out for us to participate with him in the relationship?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question is, what can you do in this local body to grow your relationship with God?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: How can you show mercy or compassion to people here?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: How can you show loyalty to people here?
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to list just a few things and then we'll be done.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to suggest one that you can exercise your spiritual gift, wherever it may be, to build up the body.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: The cool thing is that God's given each of us a spiritual gift for the building up of the body in love, for the mutual encouraging of people to enact the character of God.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody has your specific gift.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: You have a unique ability to help.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: You like to teach, then go teach.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a mechanic?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: You like to fix cars?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Fix cars.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what are some ways we could do this?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever considered assisting in one of our children's or adult education classes?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: We have classes meeting all around here on Sundays and throughout the week that I'm sure could use participation and even help.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've never considered working with an outreach ministry at TBC.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Just this last week, our young adults community helped with this program called Illuminate Topeka, where we put together some 300 bags of food for elementary age kids who don't have secure food sources for the weekend.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you could participate with that.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, we're having an outreach to Washburn University here in a handful of weeks where we're gonna go be neighborly to our neighbors.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you could participate in that.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can serve widows in the church.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe fixing things in their homes or fixing their cars or helping them with errands.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: There are single parents in the church who could use some time alone.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you could take their kids to the park for a few hours while they get some things done that they desperately need to do.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can write an encouraging thank you note to somebody.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be surprised how far just a few encouraging words can go in building up the body.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: We could go here and list for hours things to do, but the point is that you don't have to wait around for the perfect opportunity.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: God wants you to start building your relationship with Him now.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the best kind of person is not the most talented person, best kind of person is the most available person.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the holistic picture of your relationship with God is that you have one by faith.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that relationship has grown by reorienting your definitions of what that relationship looks like and then participating with him in the body of Christ.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: So my encouragement to you today is twofold.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: Plug into the spiritual disciplines in order to renew your mind around what God says your relationship should look like.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then go deeper in your relationship with God by going deeper in the church.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for this time together.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: We are so glad to come and to participate in this local body as an opportunity to deepen our relationship with you, to deepen our understanding of you and our ability to relate to your character.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: God, we just ask that you would help us, that you would uh encourage us to participate with these things.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: You would encourage us to come and to uh plug into your body as it's your physical representation on earth.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Lord, we know that even if we're faithless, even if we fail, you will be faithful in this relationship.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we trust you with that.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we love you.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: Praise you.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all have a great morning.