Latest / First Love Revolution / One of Those People (Part 7): "Risk vs. Safety & Security" | November 13, 2023

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One of Those People (Part 7): "Risk vs. Safety & Security" | November 13, 2023 · First Love Revolution

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Revolution Church Message Series one of those people.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: You can find the entire series in video and podcast format, as well as other messages, at firstloverevolutioncom.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Here's Pastor Shane with today's message.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to our weekend series.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: If you're visiting with us, announcements don't usually take that long, don't worry, but we're in a new weekend series called One of those People.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: We've been looking to the Scripture to learn about passion like how do we grow and become these passionate people?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We've been looking at the kindlers and the killers of passion.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: What kindles the fires of passion?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: What kills the fires of passion?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Today, we're looking at another kindler and another killer combo.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It's one that, in my view, is wildly overlooked, and yet it's incredibly significant when it comes to passion for God and passion for the things of God.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And so let's just start where it all started for Jesus' disciples, when he called them to follow him.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We know that four out of the 12 were explicitly fishermen Maybe more, but for sure we know that four of them were.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: And when he called them, he says something specific to them Matthew 4, 19 to 22.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: He said to them follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Immediately, they left their nets and followed him.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Going on from there, jesus saw two other brothers, james, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them Immediately.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: They left the boat and their father and they followed him.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So, peter and Andrew, they leave their nets and follow him, and James and John leave their boats and their father and they follow him.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: They leave and they follow what they follow and then they leave eventually.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: In fact, the word leave it means to release.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: It's like saying they stopped gripping and they stopped grasping onto those things and then they let them go, to leave.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And they didn't just do it once.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Actually it's a participle, it's an ongoing activity, meaning they let them go and they kept letting them go.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Now, since we're not century fishermen I think that we're.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: You know, we aren't really hit by the significance of this passage whenever we read it, but just imagine that Peter and Andrew and James and John were businessmen and it said they left their companies and followed him.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Or if they were teachers and it said they left their schools and followed him.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: That would make the radical nature of what they did in response to Jesus' radical call of little clear.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Like they left and they followed.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: They left everything, everything that they depended on, everything that they relied on, everything that was their source of income.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: They left in order to follow him.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Now just compare that to how we talk about following Jesus today.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: If we're honest, today's call it doesn't really feel all that radical at all, does it?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And that's because Jesus has become an add-on.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: He's become an add-on.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: He's something that we add on to what we always had and what we always depended on and what we always trusted in.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: In short, today's gospel is one of incremental discipleship, like just start somewhere and then increasingly surrender as you go.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: And that might kind of sound good, it might even kind of sound noble.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: The problem is it just doesn't square with what Jesus actually said.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, to the rich young man, right, and of course his riches were the equivalent of the fisherman's nets.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: What did Jesus say?
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: He says sell it all, give it all away.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Then come and follow me.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: And if you remember, that man walked away sad because he had great wealth.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: And you know, I kind of think that people imagine that afterwards Jesus said hey, it's okay, guys.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's still a Christian, don't worry about it.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I know I'm not going to be kind of a part of this thing or whatever.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: No, that's not what Jesus said.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: He said how hard is it for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of heaven?
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: That's what he said.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, it couldn't be clearer.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: His refusal to sell all and follow it prohibited him from following at all.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: It prohibited him from entrance into the kingdom of God.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: We think that we can have a saving faith in Jesus as Lord without actually surrendering all to Jesus as our Lord.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: But Jesus never thought that and he never taught that Partial was not acceptable for Jesus.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Jesus made surrendering all a condition of following him.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It was a requirement.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Today's version of the gospel that incremental discipleship is cool with Jesus, as long as you're just taking steps in the right direction.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I mean it's absolutely unbiblical.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: You can't find it there.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: It's leaving many people thinking they are disciples of Jesus when they absolutely are not disciples of Jesus, not by any definition Jesus ever gave to be a disciple of his.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: We need a revolution that returns to its roots, that revives what's dying in us as the people of God passion in place of complacency.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: But this safety, loving, risk averse, incremental discipleship it will never get us there.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It's the problem.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: You know how to spell the death of your soul S-A-F-E-T-Y.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: We're alternately spelled S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: You see, passion is found in this place of surrendering all.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: It's a trust.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Fall into loving arms of Jesus.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: It's a full risk.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Trust Jesus with your life.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: That's consistently how Christ called people to follow him and be disciples of him.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Luke 9, 57 to 62 says as they were walking along the road, a man said to Jesus I'll follow you wherever you go.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And Jesus replied Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay his head.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: In other words, will you follow me if it means you being homeless, because that's what I am?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Verse 59,.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: He said to another man follow me.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: But he replied, lord, first let me go and bury my father.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Jesus said to him let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Still another said to Jesus I'll follow you, lord, but let me first go back and say goodbye to my family.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Jesus replied no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So people read this and they think like Jesus, man, were you being harsh or was he being just kind of hard, kind of insensitive?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Did he have a bad day?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: But what if Jesus actually wasn't any of those things?
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: What if, actually, he knew?
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: What if Jesus understood that us holding on to competing values and competing priorities and competing sources of safety and security would actually rob us of the life that he actually intended for us?
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: What if Jesus knew what we fail to perceive?
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: The other sources of safety and security are passion killers, suppressors of the raging fire in our souls.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: So many people want the passion and the adventure of a life of a biblical disciple.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: It's like man they got to see God stuff.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: They got to be used by God for God stuff.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: They lived this lifetime of watching God do miracles over and over again.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So many want that.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But then they also want to avoid risk.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: They want to avoid this and want to avoid consequence.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And when forced to make a choice, they choose security.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And then they wonder where'd the passion go?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Where'd the adventure go?
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Where's that life of seeing and experiencing the God stuff gone?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: What if Jesus knew that a life of seeking safety and security was a passion killer that would keep his disciples from everything that he had for them.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Then, with kindness, he would have said to the fishermen, that's to the rich young man, sell everything.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: And to those who wanted to bury the dead as their top priority, let the dead bury their dead into the one who wanted to say goodbye, you're not fit for service.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: You see, that's who Jesus was.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: And do you know what Jesus hasn't changed?
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: We've tried to change Jesus and we keep putting the same name tag on this new Jesus that we've created of our own making.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: But his call today, it's no less radical to Austin, it was to them.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: The life he has for us in him, it is no less today than what he had for them.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: And so, as we're assessing our own hearts and our own passion, if we're finding that it's lacking, one of the things that we do need to search for is the presence of seeking safety and security in something other than him.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Why are we so driven by seeking safety and security?
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think in part it's obvious.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: We look around the danger in the world, we look around at the brokenness in this world, the violence in the world, the callousness and the harshness of this world, and we've all been raised to know look, if we don't make it happen.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: We don't take care of ourselves, we're going to go without, as if God's grace and his provision and his protection only actually applies to, like, the salvation of our souls, but not to the whole of our lives.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: But if that was the case, he would not have told the fishermen to drop their nets, he would not have taught us to pray the Lord's prayer give us this day our daily bread.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: So I want us to talk about safety and security and our sources of it for a moment, because there's such a seductive pull to safety and security but nobody realizes how much risk there is in their sources of safety and security.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: You see, the disciples nets were literally their safety nets.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Some of you wonder if we were going to pray for a resurrection this morning, but no, it's not that.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: They're nets where there's safety nets.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Right, like we don't rely on literal nets today, but we do all have our safety nets and what Jesus understood is that what has been lost in the western version of the gospel is that our safety nets can become our nets of captivity.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: He understood that While we have our safety nets, we often fail to realize what they do to our hearts.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I kind of picture it like that it's just constraining and restricting our very hearts.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: We think of that thing as a net of safety.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: It's actually a net of captivity.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And here's how this works Like if I consider my home you know my house as my safety net.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: What's going to happen?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: And, to be honest with you, you know, if the Lord told me, hey, shane, I want you to sell everything but your house and I want you to give it away, you know I'd be like, okay, well, you know, I hope he provides a mattress soon because my back's getting kind of old.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: But you know like I'd be kind of cool with it.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I mean sadly, I mean my cars aren't worth that much, my possessions aren't worth that much.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: But I think I'd be like, all right, we can do that.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: But if God said I want you to sell the house and give all the proceeds away, it would be tough.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I mean it'd be tough for anybody, but for me it would be tough, specifically because I perceive our home to be a place of safety for the family.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I don't mean just shelter, like safety from the cold, I mean like a place of constancy and continuity for my family through turbulent times, like a shelter for our children, that sort of thing.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing, because I know it's the thing I least likely at least want to hear God say tell me to sell and give it.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: All the way.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I regularly stop and I just ask the Lord it's all yours anyways.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: God, is this?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: What do you want us to sell this?
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Do you want us to give this away?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: If I don't do that, I understand that.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I'm actually enslaved by that.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: You see, whatever is in the safety net.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: So let's just like, if I make my house my safety net like my house is now in the safety net, whatever that is, that I am unwilling to drop in order to follow him.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: What happens is now it becomes like a weight that's holding me back, cause now it's like this is my safety net.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: It becomes the weight that's holding me back.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So I've got my house in my safety net and now I'm tied to the thing and whatever's in the safety net that we won't leave.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It becomes this weight that now we're dragging around everywhere we go.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Now, obviously, a lot of different things could be the thing that's in our safety net.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Of course, money is a huge one.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: So, for example, if I look to my savings, if I look to, you know, whatever I have stored up in my silos, my storehouses, as my safety net, well, what's going to happen?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: It too becomes a weight.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Just one more thing in the safety net, and I'll just tell you this I've gotten very personal.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Wendy wasn't very happy with me last night, but I'm doing it again, I, wendy and I, when it comes to savings now, when it comes to debt like when you know we hate debt, we avoid debt anytime we can like.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: We don't even do car payments, we avoid credit card debt if at all possible and all that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: So we have never had any savings.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: We just have never had savings.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, we have a retirement account which you know I can access in some like 70,000 years or whatever, but other than that, we've just never had any savings ever.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: But I can tell you this we've never been without.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: We've never been without.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And I worry about my financial future less, and I'm not saying this to brag, it's not a statement of me, it's just that I've what I've seen the Lord do.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I worry about my financial future less than people who have a lot of money and their savings.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not against saving.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying I wouldn't save.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying there's something morally wrong with having savings?
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying we've just never had a savings goal.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: We've never had goals about possessions and things that you know we wanted in this world either.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: But we do have giving goals.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: We've just have given goals.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: We've had this goal for a long time that we want to grow in generosity.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Every single year we wanna give progressively a higher percentage of whatever God gives to us.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: We wanna return back to Him each year than the prior year.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: We have these lifetime giving goals of percent.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: We have lifetime giving goals of amount.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And why?
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: It's just because we actually believe that nothing kept here gets stored there.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: We just believe that that only what is given away here can be stored there.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, jesus said this stuff right Matthew 6, 19 to 21,.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, their heart, their, your heart will be also.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Now, I think it's kind of funny reading this, because just literally yesterday I know I'm starting a new fashion trend.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I got a lot of junk in my trunk.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: But yesterday I had to go outside on my honeydew list on my day off Friday's the day off and clean out the storage container in the backyard.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: So of course I, like anyone else, like well, I don't have enough room for all my tools and fun things and stuff in my garage.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: So now I have to buy a little shed thing and put it outside so I can stuff more stuff in there and store more stuff in there.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Well, little did we know that my storage container, this genius idea to create more space to store more stuff, became a colony of mice heaven.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Who got to go clean up the storage container yesterday?
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, everything that could be chewed through, they chewed through it.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Everything they couldn't eat, they of course dropped their droppings all over.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I'm probably disease infested today.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't come near me, but anyways, I just thought about it.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: In the end, everything that's stored up here ends up like that.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: That's what happens and we just have to be aware of this.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I can just tell you what doesn't work is getting around to getting around to being generous to the things of God.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: It never works.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: So many people have this like well, I have this financial priority, but then I'm gonna make that thing my financial priority after.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: But what ends up happening is they just don't.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And they get to the end of their lives and they discover that they've been generous to all kinds of temporary things, but not to their king and not to eternal things.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe some at the very end like, well, I'm gonna put it in my will, I wanna give to the church or to the poor, or something in my will, and I think that's good.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: But it's worth saying I have a little confidence based on what I know of the God of the Bible.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I have little confidence that we can give something away after we're dead and still get rewarded in eternity for that.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, my suggestion was give it while you're still alive.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: But the point is safety nets, they become captivity nets.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So a testimony here whenever God told Winnie and I it's time, it is time to step out and continue the course that I have called you to under a different roof.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Well, now you know well, we didn't have any savings.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like we could support ourselves for a month or even two months or three, and so, without severance, without any savings, we stepped out and I can tell you we weren't afraid.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: We weren't afraid because we've always lived in a place of need.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: We live in a place of need and we don't need to live in a place of need.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: We put ourselves in a place of dependence when we wouldn't have to put ourselves in a place of dependence.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: We just always have and God has always supplied he always has and so we stepped out and we never missed a meal.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: In fact, someone literally showed up at our house.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: They say God told me that I was supposed to supply your whole first week salary and I don't know exactly how much you make.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: But boom, and they just handed over this cold, hard cash to supply our first week of salary as we had stepped out.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, of course he did.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, my computer and my iPad were a work computer.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't even have anything to like type of messages on.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Somebody supplied that the day it needed to be supplied, just as an aside to this value of inspiring generosity and the body of Christ.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: It's why we're setting up this, our ministry, to operate in this way where everybody's not just focused in but everybody's focused out, everybody's investing in things beyond their own walls, because churches can become inward looking and fixated and focused in a way that stifles the heart of a church.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Money is a safety net.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: It's just a captivity net.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Now I know people hear me say I can't believe you, wendy.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: You don't have savings, that's.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: That's not wise.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Look, I'm not against you guys having something in savings.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I'm only emphasizing it to make a point.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I think that that is what's not wise, completely unwise, not wise.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I would much rather live in a place of having no material safety net and rely on God's provision than the contrary, because I want to live free.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I want to be free.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I want to keep seeing God come through every time we are in a place of need.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Listen, every time something goes wrong in our lives.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: We don't have a backup option.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: We never have, we don't and without fail, every time something goes wrong, we've seen God come through.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: It's just like a lifetime of seeing God come through.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Now I get more people be probably more excited about having enough money in the bank to not need God to come through when they're in need.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: But just know this that comes at a cost.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: It comes at a cost.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: This bag of safety becomes this bag of weights on our souls, just weighing us down.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: You know when Jesus was training his disciples.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Pay attention to how he trained him.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Does it to operate out of excess and plenty, and make sure that you show up and have everything that you need before you even go.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: No, it was Luke 10.4.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Don't take a purse, don't take a bag, don't take sandals.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Why Jesus knew they need to learn to live in the place of dependence so they will see how God will provide for them, and that's how he raised up disciples.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: For some it's not money, for some it's not hall, maybe, for some it's like relationships.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just like this person that I can't walk away from Father, mother, brother, sister, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it is.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I can't, even for Christ's name's sake and for the gospel, because this is my safety net, they're my security place.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Like when Jesus' own family was tugging against the call of his father on his life, what did he say?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: He looked at those that were gathered around him and he said here is my brother, here's my mother, here are my sisters.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Mark 335,.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: God's not saying that relationships are bad.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: No, of course they're not.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: But when someone puts them above God and it limits what God can do in their life, how God can place a call on their life.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Well, what happens is they also become a part of the weight that's on them, part of that safety net.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: For others, it's honestly like their identity.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: So just got a mirror here.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: But it's just that it's when a believer is not identifying themselves as I'm his, I'm God's love son, I'm God's love daughter.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: But when they start taking on these other labels, such as I'm a fisherman, well, what happens then is then God comes and calls and it's like well, I'm not qualified for that.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't have the skill sets for that.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: That doesn't really fit my gifts and my you know whatever's.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I can't be a fisher of men, I'm a fisherman.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Well, what happens is they also end up being made captive by the thing that's in their safety net.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Career titles, believer are not a limitation for a son or daughter of God, our understanding of our strengths, of our qualifications, of our wirings, that they are not limitations when we belong to him, it's like we are his and so we're free to do whatever he says.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: We don't want our identity becoming a part of our captivity.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: For others, it's achievements.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I said it last night, I'm busting a sag like a 90s rapper up here at this point, but for some it's achievements.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It's like God, I've got stuff I need to get done, I've got this thing, I got to accomplish this first, and we just end up putting something above God, whether it's a degree like well, I got to get this degree done first, then I'll be free to do whatever you want me to do, or God, I've got this career path and that's going to take me off course from achieving.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: But you know, whenever I get to my retirement, okay, I can give you all my time and I can give you all my focus.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Then, a lot of times, for students, this is grades.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: It's just like I can't prioritize what God calls me to do gathering with the body, serving and building up the body of Christ, any of that kind of stuff because, well, my grades, that's how it's going to happen, they're my safety net.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: My grades are how I'm going to get that scholarship, and that scholarship that's how I'm going to get into that school with a reputation and that qualification.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: That's what's going to set me up for my whole life.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: So, god, I'll get around to you after all that.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Now, what's happened.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: One more thing in the safety net the achievements, my safety net.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Just a little quick testimony for you, by the way, on this achievement thing not being somebody's safety net.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So many of you recently met our new Colorado Springs campus pastor, moses George.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: So just a few weeks ago, after he said yes to this just a couple of weeks ago, he gets a call that was like the call of a lifetime, the call of the dream job, of his career path, the call he thought wouldn't come for years In Washington DC, and all of this.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: He's a military guy.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: He said no because he knows that God called him here.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: If his career was his safety net, he would not have been free to stay the course that God's called him on.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Aren't we grateful he's not tripped up in this net?
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: For some it's time.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It's just I'm really sagging here.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I don't have the time to get around to that thing.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: For some I think it can just be like fun.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: It's just like my fun, my activities.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I've got to protect my life of vitality and energy and great experience from God getting His grubby little pause on it and all of that.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I'm having to hold up my skirt here, but you get the idea.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: We could go on and on and on with all these different things.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: But here's the bottom line.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: We think that we're putting these things in a safety net and that it's bringing us safety and it's bringing us security.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: But with each thing that what we're putting in there, what we're doing is we're just putting a weight in there, it's something that slows us down and it's something that dragged us down.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And now we're walking around life but, man, we're clutching tight onto our nets.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I got my nets, I got my safety nets.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: We're wondering why is my heart feel stifled?
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Why do I feel so tired?
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Where's the passion in my relationship with God?
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But the one in the net in the end is us.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Our safety net had become our captivity net.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: So Jesus says to the disciples in Matthew 4, follow me.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: When we read Jesus calling the disciples here, I think that we assume that it's the first time that they had ever seen Jesus or met Jesus or heard from Jesus.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: But that's actually inaccurate.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Remember, these men first met him back in John 1.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: That's when John the Baptist said behold the Lamb of God.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And Andrew started following Jesus and he went and got his brother Peter and he introduced him to Jesus.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: If you were here at last Wednesday nights midweek service, you'll remember.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: In Luke 5, peter, he's over washing his nets.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: While Jesus is preaching to this big old crowd on the shore, he's over there washing his nets.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: The very next verse of Matthew 4, james and John, they're over there mending their nets.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: It's such a clear picture.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Like nets, nets, nets.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: These fishermen and their nets.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: The point is, it's like they knew who Jesus was.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, but they're doing the same thing that they had always done.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: They're pursuing the same priorities that they had always pursued.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: They're giving their life to the same activities that they had always had given them to.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: They were not free to pursue what he had for them, because they were consumed with what was providing for them their nets, their nets, their nets.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: And they got free when what?
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: They dropped their nets and they were free.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Do you want to be one of those people, one of those people that are passionate about God and passionate about the things of God?
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Risk is a passion kindler.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Safety and security are passion killers.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Our nets of security, they become our nets of captivity.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Hebrews 12-1,.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that's set before us.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: We often only pay attention to the part about sin entangling us.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But what about the every encumbrance?
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: In the Greek it's literally lay aside, every weight.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Those things are weights that keep us from running with passion, with perseverance, the race that's marked out for us.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: We need to drop our safety nets because a life of passion for Christ is what have actually following Christ and a life of following Christ.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, it's going to mean risk, risk and risk again, and steps of faith over and over and over again.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: But we can't be on fire for God while avoiding risk with God.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't go together.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: In response, I'm going to invite us to prayerfully respond, if you'd be willing to bow heads and close eyes, and I just want to encourage you, church, to come to the Lord and just ask Him God, what weight am I holding on to?
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: That's keeping me from you?
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: What do I need to surrender once and for all?
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: What practically do I need to do to let go and drop that net?
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: And I'm praying that he would speak to you so specifically that you could actually obey in this moment today, and as you're praying on that, I also want to speak to those of you that are here and you're like you know what I would like to have a relationship with God.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: If you're here, you're listening and you're someone that's saying I want to know that I have peace with God, that I've been made right with God, that I'm going to spend my eternity with Him.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I've got good news for you.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: The Bible is clear that there is a way.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: The problem is that we need to be forgiven of our sins.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: We absolutely need our sins to be removed, and the Bible tells us how to do that.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: It's through putting our faith in Jesus Christ who, being God, came and he died on the cross for our sins and he rose again, promising life in place of death for all who would trust Him, and Him alone, to be the one who would forgive their sins and be the Lord of their life.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: With this the Bible is clear we will all die in our sins, but if you're here and you want to receive the gift of forgiveness made available through Jesus Christ, the gift of eternal life in relationship with the God who is life, with heads bowed and eyes closed, no one's looking around.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: No one's going to do anything weird to you, but if that's you, I would encourage you just to raise your hand.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Just lift your hand as your way of saying God is willing to come and to die for me, sending His hand to rescue me, to forgive me.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: I want to extend my hand back up to Him and say yes, will you please save me, will you please forgive me?
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, we were praying before service and it just had a strong impression that there's someone here today, that there's a resistance to the good news of forgiveness and salvation available in Jesus Christ and that resistance is formed by anger.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: That there would be someone here today, that you have an anger toward God and it's keeping you from accepting what he's done for you.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I just want to encourage you would you be willing to lay down those charges against God?
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: He loves you, he's calm, he's died on the cross for your sins.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Is that you today?
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: If you're listening online, there's a place for you to indicate that this is the decision you'd like to make as well.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Is there anyone else With heads bowed and eyes closed?
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to lead you in a prayer.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: If that's you today, to come and say God, I want to know you, I want to be in a relationship with you.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be separated from you in this life.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I certainly do not want to be separated from you in the next, and I'm not too proud to admit that I've sinned and that I need to be forgiven.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: In Jesus, I believe that you being God, that you came, you paid the price for my sin on the cross and I believe that you rose, promising life in place of death for all who'd put their faith in you.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: That's why I've come to do that today.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I'm looking to you, jesus, to be the Lord of my life and the forgiver of my sins.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Would you please forgive me?
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Would you please save me from the consequence of my own sin?
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Would you give me life in place of death?
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you for dying for me, thank you for forgiving me and thank you for saving me In Jesus' name.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Amen, amen.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Hey, as we close, I want to encourage us just to stand.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: We're going to sing a closing chorus together Kind of an old song, but it's.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I Surrender All.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I was reflecting on this one time and I said to somebody you know, in truth, when I was a senior in high school and I came back to the Lord and I gave my life to the Lord.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I did surrender all.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: The problem is I didn't know what all meant, but I surrendered all to the extent that I knew what all meant.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: But every day since I've been learning that all means a little bit more than I thought it meant the day before.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: And so each day, as a Christian, I believe this we are always surrendering more, but it's still always all.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: It's all that we knew that God had called us to.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: And if you are someone who's saying, I want to say, like the first day I met him freshly, today, I surrender all.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just seeing this with you.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: I'm just seeing this with you.