Urban Legends – week 2 – God wants you happy

Welcome to week 2 of Urban Legends.  Last week I started off by giving you a little public service announcement for the flu, which some of you fell for.  Today I want to show you some pictures and you can tell me it they are real or fake.  This should be fun.

(Couldn’t post pictures here)

So here we are on our second week of urban legends.  What we started off saying last week is that there are all kinds of urban legends in our culture.  They are everywhere.  And some of them are clearly false, but often times, many of the urban legends that we run into are sort-of believable.  They sound like they could be true, and the reason why is that they do contain some truth, like those pictures we just looked at.  There was authenticity in each of those pictures.  Some of them were just photo-shopped.

But we also discovered that there are such things as Spiritual Urban Legends.  We said last week that a spiritual urban legend is just like a secular urban legend.  It’s a belief, story, assumption or truism that gets passed around as fact.  The source can be a friend, Bible study or even a sermon.  And because they sound so plausible and come from a trusted and reliable source, spiritual urban legends are often accepted without question.  Eventually, they begin to take on a life of their own, and it’s difficult to refute them because “everybody” knows they are true and anyone who questions their truth gets attacked.

But what we’ve said so far is that believing spiritual urban legends is dangerous.  Believing spiritual urban legends can harm are faith. and as we’re going to see today, believing spiritual urban legends can end up destroying us.

Today, I want to talk to you about a spiritual urban legend that I think is one of the most dangerous, and yet, one of the most common spiritual urban legends in the American church today.  It’s actually an Urban Legend that strikes at the very heart of what it means to be an American.  That’s why it’s so prevalent.  We hear people talk about this all the time.  You will hear it on TV today with TV preachers.  You’ll read books about it, and you will hear it over and over and over again, and it is a message that feels very good.  Here is the urban legend.  It goes something like this.  God wants you happy.  Or it’s said in other ways:  God has good things in store for you.  God wants you to enjoy your life.  God wants you to prosper in every single way.  The bottom line is, God wants you happy.

It is very subtle, and yet very seductive.  And it’s believable.  And it’s everywhere.  We read it in the declaration of Independence where it states:  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  You can see it even permeating our children’s stories.  Read any fairy tale, any story to a kid, and you will always hear it close out with the same famous line … “And they all lived,” what?  Say it with me, “And they all lived happily ever after.”  But is that true?  Check this out:

[Video, Jonathan with children starting in the middle of the story]  Papa bear said, “Who’s been eating my porridge?”  And mama bear said, “Who’s been sitting in my chair?”  And baby bear said, “Hey, somebody’s sleeping in my bed.  It’s a little girl.”  Well, papa bear had had a really bad day, because his house taxes went up, and because his boss was mad at him.  So, papa bear lost his cool and went to the little girl and grabbed her with his paws.  Then mama bear grabbed the little girl and pawed her across the face, and blood shot on the wall.  And the little girl screamed, “Help me.  Help me.  I’m only a little girl.  Somebody save me!”  But mama bear and papa bear showed no mercy.  They clawed the little girl, and threw her little blonde head up against the wall like a rag doll until the little girl slowly bled to death, and baby bear went up to the girl and said, “That’ll teach you to sleep in my bed.”  And baby bear ate the little girl for dinner, and the three little bears lived happily ever after.  The end.

For those of you who wonder what kind of parents we are, in my wife’s defense, she was at work when we shot that, and she’s seeing the video for the first time today.  She was wondering all week long why Levi started to freak out every time we sat down to read a story, so … anyway, the truth is, sometimes, stories don’t have a happy ending, but yet, the positive message that God wants you happy, it just feels so good, and it is so right.

What I would love to tell you is that if you just come to God, you will have the best year ever!  Everything will work out and you will always be happy.  Because God wants you happy, God only has good things in store for you.  The problem is, though, that’s an urban legend.  It’s not true.  And not only is it not true, it’s dangerous.

There is serious danger in believing this urban legend.  One of the dangers is that it elevates us to the point where God is there to serve us, rather than the truth, and that is that we are here to serve Him.  The last part of Colossians 1:16 says, all things were created by him and for him.  In other words, you and I exist for him.  God doesn’t exist for or revolve around us.  We exist for him.

When we believe that God revolves around us, we reduce a holy God of the universe into a cosmic Coke machine.  What we do is, we put our quarters in, and we say our little prayer, and we press the button choosing which we want, and we expect God to deliver.  And if what we pray for doesn’t come out of a slot, we blame God, because there’s something wrong if God wants me happy, and yet, I’m not.  Therein lies the danger of this very subtle and very seductive urban legend that God wants you happy.

If God wants me happy, and I’m not, then God failed.  If God really desires for me to be happy, but I am miserable, then God didn’t deliver.  God didn’t do what I needed Him to do to make me happy.  So, as much as everyone I know wants to believe, “God wants me happy,” and as often as you will hear, “God wants you happy.  God wants you prosperous.”  As often as you will hear that, today I want us to see what the Bible really says.

I think a lot of the confusion comes because we misread a very popular verse.  In fact, most urban legends come from the misreading or partial reading of select verses, but they leave out the whole of Scripture.  It’s very dangerous to take one verse out of context and to have it say what we want it to say.  That’s what happens with this urban legend.  People take one sentence that Jesus said and get from it that God wants us to be happy.  Let me show you the verse.  Jesus is talking here in John 10:10 and he says this:  ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Now let’s talk through this verse for a minute.  This verse comes in the middle of a teaching that Jesus is giving about who he is.  He says things like he’s the good shepherd.  He says that his sheep hear his voice and follow him.  He says that he is the gate and the only way to salvation, which we’ll talk about in a couple of weeks.  But then we come to this very familiar verse which seems to imply or say that God wants us to be happy.

First, notice that it says there’s a thief and the thief comes to do three things.  What are they?  He comes to steal and to kill and to destroy.  Jesus is describing a real enemy that’s out to steal, kill and destroy.  I just want to say that there is an enemy who is out to destroy you.  There is an enemy that’s out to destroy your family.  There is an enemy that’s out to destroy your faith.  There is an enemy that’s out to destroy Hub City Church.  And the easiest way for him to destroy us is by getting us to believe the urban legends, by getting us to trade the truth for a lie.  And he has destroyed many people by convincing them that God wants them to be happy, because then when they’re not happy, they end up getting mad at God and turning their back on God because he didn’t do what they thought he should do.  And the enemy wins.

But it’s the last part of the verse that gets manipulated into the urban legend that God wants us to be happy.  I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  Some of your translations might use the word abundant, or to have life more abundantly.  Let’s talk about that for a minute because that’s where the confusion comes from.

Now in our selfish little world, when we hear that, when we hear, life to the full or life more abundantly, we think about being happy, having all of our needs, wants and wishes met.  But is that what this verse is saying?

That phrase, have it to the full, or abundant, means way beyond what is necessary, or life beyond what we can imagine.  What Jesus is primarily talking about here is a life that happens after we die.  It’s a life that’s beyond what’s necessary in this one life in that it’s an eternal life, an everlasting life.  See, we believe that this life isn’t all there is.  We believe in life after death.  And for those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus that life after death is what Jesus is talking about here.

And yes, I do think that following Jesus, being a disciple of Jesus does help us to fulfill our purpose during this life, but that’s a long way from saying that God wants us to be happy.  It means that God wants something more for us than our happiness.

But there’s another problem with focusing just on that verse.  It leaves out a lot of other things Jesus said.  Later on, in this same book of John, Jesus said this in 16:33 –  ³³“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Does that sound like God wants you to be happy?  Not at all.  It sounds like Jesus is being realistic.  Life is hard.  You will have trouble.  But what Jesus wants for us is not happiness.  It’s peace in the midst of trouble.  And that comes from placing our trust in the one who overcomes.  Jesus says, in me is peace.  We’re never promised a life without problems or without pain.  We’re not promised a life of happiness.  But what we are promised is a God who will be with us through the problems or pain if we’ll just trust in him.

Or think about the beatitudes for a minute.  Have you ever read through those?  Here are just a few:  ³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  ⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  ¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Does that sound like God wants you to be happy?  Not really.  Nowhere in the beatitudes does it imply that God wants you happy.  It sounds, however, like God might want something more for you than happiness.  So if that’s the case, what does God want for you?  What does God what for you?

God wants for you to want him more than he wants for you to want happiness. We see this all throughout the Bible.  God wants for us to want him more than he wants for us to want happiness, or anything else for that matter.  That’s what the first and second of the Ten Commandments is all about.  Exodus 20:3-4 – ³ “You shall have no other gods before me.  ⁴“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. Wanting something more than God is called idolatry.  God wants us to want him more than anything else, including happiness.

That’s also what Jesus was getting at in the great commandment found in Matthew 22:37-38 – Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment.  God want us to want him more than he wants for us to want happiness or anything.

But here’s the really cool thing.  Flowing out of this idea, that God wants you to want him more than he wants you to want and pursue happiness, is a reward.  It’s that if we’ll want him first, he’ll give us something or we’ll receive something better than happiness.  1 Timothy 6:6 says, But Godliness with contentment is great gain.  The reward is contentment.  And here’s how the equation works.  We want God more than we want happiness.  God, through that relationship, grows us in Godliness, and as a result of that Godliness we find contentment.  Repeat.

You know what it means to be content don’t you?  It means to be satisfied with what you have, to be satisfied with your life, to not want more.

Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, who most of us would put on a pedestal as a super Christian wrote something else about contentment in Philippians 4:12 – I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

The secret of being content is to want him more than you want happiness or anything else.

Does that describe you?  Too often it doesn’t describe me.  You can’t be content without making Jesus your priority.  I heard Rob Bell say one time that when you’re obedient to God you won’t want anybody else’s life.  When you’re pursuing God more than anything else then you’ll find contentment.

So let me ask you:  Have you bought into this urban legend and been burned by the lie?  Has believing the urban legend that God wants you to be happy distorted your view of God?  Do you feel like God owes you happiness?  Have you become so disgruntled with life because it really hasn’t turned out like you thought it should turn out?  God wants you to want him more than he wants you to want happiness.

A way we often see this played out in this part of the country is the thing where people hop from church to church to church.  They think that the church is supposed to meet their needs and make them happy, and when the church doesn’t deliver they leave in search of the perfect church.  I hate to break the news to you, but there’s no such thing as a perfect church.  But here’s the deal:  Church is like a family.  And when I think about my family, my job as a parent is not to make my kids happy.  I love it when they’re happy.  They are much easier to live with when they’re happy, but my job isn’t to make them happy.  My job is to give them a relational environment that loves, accepts and disciplines them so that they can be all that God created them to be, so they can grow into healthy, productive contributors to society.  The same is true with our church family.  God didn’t make the church so you could be happy.  We don’t exist to make you happy, but to help you grow into the disciple who makes disciples that God created you to be.  Buying into the urban legend that God wants you happy will keep you from growing into a disciple who makes disciples.

Now I want to ask you another question for you that may be hard to answer, but I want you to be just gut-level honest.  Are you pursuing happiness more than you are pursuing God?  Remember, God wants you to want him more than he wants you to want happiness.  So, are you pursuing happiness more than you are pursuing God?  Now, I will be really, really honest with you.  I’d like to say, “Man, I’m just, you know, I’m pursuing God, and all that kind of stuff, but when I’m really honest and I look at my life, I’d have to tell you that there are more seasons and longer seasons of my life where I’m honestly pursuing things, and what I want, and happiness more than I am pursuing God, and I want that to change.  If you relate and you are being really honest and say, “Man, I am.  I am off track here, and God, I want You to forgive me.  I want to pursue You more than anything else.”  If that is you today, I want you to lift your hand.  Just lift them high, and there are hands going up all over the place, maybe more hands than I’ve ever seen before.  “God, I ask that You would forgive us for being so easily distracted and pursuing the selfish things that are temporary and don’t matter to You.  God, we pray that we would be more focused on You than ever before, that we would put You first.  God, the moment we start to drift, and that would probably about five minutes from now, and later on today, and tomorrow and every day, bring us back, God.  We pray that You would bless us with whatever it takes to keep us close to You, even if it’s the very thing that we never want.  God, do whatever it takes to keep us close to You.  God, we want to know You intimately.  We want to serve You.  We want it to be about You.  We want to worship You.  We want to put You first, in every single way.”

 

Urban Legends – Week 1 – Everything happens for a reason

Subject: Fwd: Fw: ONIONS FOR COLLECTING THE FLU VIRUS

In 1919 when the flu killed 40 million people there was this Doctor that visited the many farmers to see if he could help them combat the flu. Many of the farmers and their family had contracted it and many died.

The doctor came upon this one farmer and to his surprise, everyone was very healthy. When the doctor asked what the farmer was doing that was different the wife replied that she had placed an unpeeled onion in a dish in the rooms of the home, (probably only two rooms back then). The doctor couldn’t believe it and asked if he could have one of the onions and placed it under the microscope. She gave him one and when he did this, he did find the flu virus in the onion. It obviously absorbed the virus, therefore, keeping the family healthy.

Now, I heard this story from my hairdresser in AZ. She said that several years ago many of her employees were coming down with the flu and so were many of her customers. The next year she placed several bowls with onions around in her shop. To her surprise, none of her staff got sick. It must work.. (And no, she is not in the onion business.)

The moral of the story is, buy some onions and place them in bowls around your home. If you work at a desk, place one or two in your office or under your desk or even on top somewhere. Try it and see what happens. We did it last year and we never got the flu.

If this helps you and your loved ones from getting sick, all the better. If you do get the flu, it just might be a mild case..

Whatever, what have you to lose? Just a few bucks on onions!

Now, I want to begin today’s sermon by asking you a question:  How many of you, by show of hands, believed the story I just told?  Come on, don’t be ashamed.  I hate to tell you, it’s not true.  It’s a folk remedy, and urban legend.  It’s a story that’s been passed around on the internet as truth, but it’s not true.  A raw onion sitting out in your house won’t keep you from getting the flu.  It’s a myth, an urban legend.

Our culture is full of urban legends.  We’ll share some of them throughout this series.  Some will be obviously false, others, well, you just might find out that you’ve been suckered into believing something that wasn’t completely true.

You know what an urban legend is, right?  It’s a story that seems true, that’s pretty believable, that supposedly happened to a real person.  They get passed along by second hand witnesses until they are widely known and believed.  We tell them around campfires.  They get passed along through the internet.

Well, I don’t know if you know this or not, but there are such things as spiritual urban legends.

A spiritual urban legend is just like a secular urban legend.  It’s a belief, story, assumption or truism that gets passed around as fact.  The source can be a friend, Bible study or even a sermon.  And because they sound so plausible and come from a trusted and reputable source, spiritual urban legends are often accepted without question and then quickly passed on.  Eventually, they begin to take on a life of their own, and it’s difficult to refute them because “everybody” knows they are true and anyone who questions their truth gets attacked.

Now, some spiritual urban legends aren’t all that harmful.  Like is someone mistakenly believes that the Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves, or a penny saved is a penny earned or that Jesus was some sort of efeminite, white guy who walked from town to town in an old bathrobe with a blue sash hanging off of his sleeve.  These things might throw us off a small bit but they aren’t going to destroy our faith.

But, as we’re going to discover over the next few weeks, far too often, the consequences of believing spiritual urban legends can be devastating.  They can destroy our faith.  They can lead us to being mad at God.  They can hurt us.

My hope, over the next four weeks, is that you’ll start to question everything you hear, and test everything you believe against the actual words and teachings of the Bible.  Question what you hear me say and test it against what the Bible says.

Today, I want us to look at an urban legend that when you hear it, especially if you’ve grown up in the church or have any church background, you’re going to say, “that’s not an urban legend.  That’s true, and I have proof.”  But is it really true?  Let’s see.

This urban legend is one that usually comes up in the midst of a tragedy, a difficult time, a death or a loss, a breakup or a divorce.  Like have you ever had something bad happen to you and people come up to you, and they’re well intentioned, they mean good, they’re trying to be helpful, and they say things like:

-          God must be up to something.

-          God doesn’t make mistakes.

-          You must be very special for God to trust you with this.

-          Won’t it be great to see how God uses this?

-          Isn’t it good to know that everything happens for a reason?

Basically each of these statements contain this Urban Legend:  Everything happens for a reason.  Everything happens for a reason.

Now on the surface that sounds good, doesn’t it.  It’s supposed to bring comfort when bad things happen.  Actually, that’s usually when we hear this statement.  Your dad dies:  Everything happens for a reason.  Your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you:  Everything happens for a reason.  Your dog runs away:  Everything happens for a reason.

This is a statement made by well-meaning and well-intentioned people who are trying to help you make sense out of the difficult time you find yourself in.  But is that really true?  Does everything really happen for a reason?

Now, in one sense, when people say these things to us they are absolutely right.  No matter what happens, God is in control.  He is the King of the universe.  He’s a good God.

But that in no way, shape or form means that he’s the direct cause of everything that happens.  It doesn’t mean that everything that happens in our lives is something that he wants to happen.  It certainly doesn’t mean that everything that he allows to happen is good.

Think about it:  God did not cause Satan to rebel.  God did not cause Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.  God did not cause David to sleep with Bathsheba.  God did not force the Roman soldiers to kill Jesus.  Or think about this: When the Nazi’s killed 6 million Jews, did that happen for a reason?  When the Tsunami killed 150,000 Indonesians, did that happen for a reason?  Did 911 happen for a reason?

Let’s make it more personal.  Did you’re parents getting a divorce happen for a reason?  Did your breakup with your boyfriend or girlfriend happen for a reason?  Did the abuse that happened to you when you were a kid happen for a reason?  Was God behind all of that?  Does everything that happens happen for a reason?

Now I know what some of you are thinking.  There’s a verse that’s in your head right now that you’ve got as proof for saying that everything happens for a reason.  This verse is really the basis of this Urban Legend.  It’s found in Romans 8:28.  This is a verse that is used in funerals, or when tragedy strikes, to bring comfort to those who are suffering.  But does it really say that everything happens for a reason?

I believe that this verse gets misquoted all the time when it comes to working our way through life’s difficulties.  Christians and non-Christians who have just a little bit of Bible knowledge quote this verse.  It’s on coffee mugs, t-shirts and all kinds of other stuff that you can buy at a Christian bookstore.

But Romans 8:28 doesn’t say or mean what most people think it does.  In fact, as we’re going to see, it doesn’t even apply to a large percentage of those who turn to it for comfort.

I think that some of the confusion comes because most people who quote Romans 8:28, quote the old King James version of the verse.  It says,  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Isn’t that a great verse?  On the surface this seems to imply that everything that happens is part of God’s greater plan.  It appears to say that, in time, everything that happens prove to be good or necessary.

But the KJV translation is more confusing than accurate.  A more accurate translation of Romans 8:28 is, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Now look at those two translations for a minute.  Do you see the difference?  It doesn’t say that everything that happens is good.  It simply says that God is at work in all things.  In other words, what Romans 8:28 says is that there is nothing that can thwart God’s ultimate plan.  God can and will accomplish his good purposes no matter what.  But that’s a big difference from saying that everything that happens is good or necessary.

Think about it:  If every disaster, death, financial problem, infideltity, hurt or abuse that comes our way are sent directly from God, then what does that say about God?  If these are a reflection of God’s goodness then we would have seen them in the garden of Eden or in the descriptions of a perfect heaven.  But that is not the case.

Notice something else from the verse that gets overlooked.  Let’s read it again.  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  This verse is not a promise for everyone.  It’s not even a promise for every Christian.  It’s a promise for a specific kind of person.  It’s a person who’s supposed to meet two important criteria.  What are they?  They are to be someone who (1) Loves God, and (2) has been called according to his purpose.

Now who is that?  Who are those people?

Jesus is pretty clear about what a person who loves God is.  Look at this verse in John 14:15, this is Jesus talking:   If you love me, you will obey what I command.  So you tell me, what characterizes somebody who loves God?  Obedience.  So first, this verse applies to those who are obedient, because that’s what it means to love God.

Second, that phrase, who have been called according to his purpose, refers to those people who have become followers or disciples of Jesus.

That leaves out a lot of people.  That may leave you out.

It leaves out the person you work with who has no interest in spiritual things but just found out she had her third miscarriage.  God loves her, yes.  God has a preferred future for her if and when she turns to Jesus.  But Romans 8:28 has nothing to say to her present heartache.

These conditions also leave out the really nice guy who lives next door to you, who you’ve been trying to witness to, you’ve been inviting him to church, who lost his job a month ago and may have to foreclose on his house.  When you tell him that God must have something better for him, it might make both him and you feel better, but it’s wishful thinking.  God doesn’t promise that to those who aren’t followers of Jesus, no matter how nice they are.

Some Christians are even left out of this.  Like, if you are living in deliberate disobedience to God in some area of your life, God doesn’t promise that he’s going to step in and fix the mess that your disobedience has created.

Think about David and Bathsheba.  Sure, David was forgiven for sleeping with another man’s wife and killing her husband.  Sure, God used David in an incredible way to write Scripture after his sin.  And eventually God brought some good out of David’s union with Bathsheba with the birth of Solomon.  But things would have been a lot better if he’d never laid eyes on her.  Their firstborn died in infancy.  David spent the rest of his life at war.  His family was the poster family for dysfunction.  None of these things really sounds as if it qualifies for God’s wonderful plan for his life.

I know this sounds harsh.  It is kind of harsh, but it’s what the verse says.  And remember, like we said at the beginning.  Believing spiritual urban legends can destroy your faith.  I’d rather you get upset with the truth than to be destroyed by a lie.

There is beauty and promise in Romans 8:28, but it’s not that everything that happens to us is good and is from God.  It’s that no matter what happens to us or how bad things get that God’s ultimate and eternal purposes won’t be foiled.  And for those who love God, who are obedient to him, and who have been called according to his purpose, God can take tragedy and bad things and overcome them.

I think the real issue we struggle with is between what God causes and what he allows.  The Bible does have instances where God does cause difficulty, tragedy and hard times, but the Bible is clear that there are a number of times where dark, difficult and hard times have nothing to do with God’s wonderful plan for our lives.  I’ve come up with a few:

Sinful choices – Sometimes the trials and hardships we face are the result of sinful choices.  That’s not God’s doing.  That’s our doing.

Life in a fallen world – Sometimes bad things happen because we live in a fallen world.  All of us are suffering from the consequences of Adam’s sin.  You’ve got bad people doing bad things that hurt people.  You’ve got mother nature who seems to always have a bad case of PMS somewhere in the world.  You’ve got Murphy’s law which says that if something can go wrong it will go wrong.  We all live under the consequence of the fall and when it comes to its consequences, none of us are immune.

Foolish decisions – Think about it, sometime we just make dumb decisions.  They don’t even have to be sinful, just foolish, dumb decisions.  It’s crazy to blame God for every idiotic decision that we make.

Sometimes difficulties come as the result of sinful choices, or because we live in a fallen world, or because we make foolish decisions.

Well, so what?  Why is this urban legend all that important?  I want to tell you why believing the right thing in this area is so important.  The reason this is important is because wrong beliefs are dangerous.  They can lead down paths that produce great spiritual harm.

Think about it, if everything is God’s fault, then what’s your first emotional response to that?  I’ll tell you what mine is.  It’s anger.  If it’s God’s fault that all these bad thing are happening to me, then he can’t be that good of a God.  He’s just a jerk.  Most of us know someone who wants nothing to do with Jesus or God because of some tragedy that happened in their life for which they blamed God.  But if everything happens for a reason and God’s behind everything, then they have a right to be angry.  Wrong beliefs about this can lead us to a distorted view of God.  That can be damaging to our faith.

Another unintended consequence of assuming that there’s a God-ordained reason behind everything is that we can begin to gloss over sin.  To say sin’s not that big of a deal because God’s causing everything anyway.  It would be like saying it was ok to have an affair because it resulted in a happy marriage or that it was ok to split a church because a new church was birthed or that it was ok that the guy committed murder because he came to know Jesus while in prison.  Most of us would say that kind of thinking is crazy, and you’d be right, because it is.  God never, ever, never approves of our sin.  He doesn’t cause it.  He doesn’t even use it.  He overcomes it.  That’s grace!  We’ll come back to that in a minute.  But it’s dangerous if we start to gloss over sin.  That will lead us down a path that none of us want to be on.

All of this leads to a big question:  If the statement, everything happens for a reason, is an urban legend, then can a bad thing ever be a good thing?  Can a bad thing ever be a good thing?  There are situations in the Bible where God takes something bad and uses it for good.  My favorite example is the story of Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery, but who eventually became the number 2 man in charge of Egypt.  But here’s the thing about that story:  I’m not sure we can blame God for causing Joseph to be enslaved.  What we do discover, however, is that God used it for good.  God overcame what happened to Joseph.

And that leads us to the most important thing we need to remember.  What’s important to remember in the midst of difficulty is not that God causes everything that comes in our lives, but that he can overcome it.  And the key to his overcoming is our obedience.  It goes back to what we learned from Romans 8:28.  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  God works for our good when we live in obedience to him.

So I’ve got to ask:  Do you qualify?  Do you love God?  Are you living in obedience to Jesus’ commands?  To do that you need to know what he says.  Spend time in this book.  There is incredible value to that.  One being that you will know the truth, that you won’t fall for the Urban Legends, and that the truth can set you free.  Another being that obedience opens the door for God to bring good out of the bad.

Next, are you called according to his purpose?  Are you a follower of Jesus?  If not, you can do something about that today.  Just say, “God, I’m a sinner.  I need your forgiveness.  I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sin and rose from the dead.  I want my life to be lived for you and your purposes.  Save me.”

 

Fool Proof – week 6 – The Best Decision Ever

Let’s be honest, none of us wants to make a mess out of our lives.  None of us wants to get to the end of our life and look back with regret.  None of us want to get to the end of the year and look back with regret.  All of us want to get the most out of life.  All of us want to get the most out of our relationships, out of our finances, out of our jobs, out of our time.  Each of us wants to get to the end of our lives and have something worth looking back on.

But the problem is, if we’re honest, if we look at our lives, all of us live with some kind of regret.  We all live with some kind of baggage that we wish we could go back and change, that we wish we could go back and undo.

Well the goal of this series is to try and figure out a way that we might be able to foolproof our life.  To discover if there’s a way to live a life with little or no regret.  And we have said that the way to fool proof our life is to ask the best question ever about every decision, every opportunity, every invitation.  And we said that the best question ever is:  What is the wise thing to do?  In light of my past experience, in light of my current circumstance, in light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?  That really is the best question ever.

Well, this morning I want to talk about what comes before you get to the best question ever.  Asking the best question ever is one thing, but before you get to the best question ever you need to make the best decision ever.  And this is really a principle that you might push back against at first, but I believe it’s a principle that we all follow on a daily basis so that we can get the most out of life.  The principle is this:  To make wise decisions I have to acknowledge and submit to the body of knowledge that allows me to make wise decisions.  Now let me explain that, in all of life there are laws or rules that govern how things work.  If you’re not aware of the rules or the laws it is impossible for you to make the wisest choice.  So, to make wise decisions each of us has to acknowledge and submit to the body of knowledge, the rules, the laws that allows us to make wise decisions.

Now, if you’re like me, when you hear the word “rules” a wall starts to go up.  I’m not a big rule person and I especially don’t like dumb rules.  You know what I’m talking about.  Dumb rules, stupid rules.  Rules that are useless and a waste of time:  Take your shoes off before you play on the playground in McDonalds (go ahead, get a fungus), I don’t like dumb rules.

But even though I don’t like dumb rules I am really a rule person.  I am a stickler about following the rules that aren’t dumb rules.  I know that makes me a subjective rule follower, but I think that we should follow good rules.  Don’t you?

But the interesting thing is that, no matter if you like rules, or laws or principles or not, each of us intentionally submits ourselves to rules, laws, principles on a regular basis because of the benefit that it brings us.  Let me illustrate it this way:

Each of the past 8 years, around March, I have taken all of my income statements to my accountant and I say, “Steve, here’s the stuff.  Prepare my tax return.”  And the reason I’ve given that stuff to Steve is because Steve knows the rules.  Steve knows the laws and Steve understands accounting.  And there are a lot of decisions that need to be made and I know that he will make those decisions better than me because the wisest decisions that are made in that context are made by people who understand tax rules and understand the boundaries.

I have renovated and re-roofed a number of houses in my life.  And when I’m in those situations I submit to the coordinators who are in charge because they understand, they know the codes.  They know how to put a roof on the right way.  They know what tools we need to use.  They know how the job should be done.  If I were to step in and start making suggestions they would probably throw me off the roof, because I don’t have training, I have no idea what I’m doing.  See, I differ to their judgment because the people who make the wisest decisions when it comes to construction are the people who understand the principles of construction.

These people are drawing from a body of knowledge that I don’t have.  They know the rules.  They know the limits.  They know the principles.  They understand the context in which they need to make decisions.

The same is true in medicine.  The same is true in art.  The same is true in music.  The same is true where you work.  You have the education or training so that you know the laws or rules, and as you draw from those you are able to make wise decisions in whatever area or arena that you work.

This is true in sports as well.  The people who are champions, the teams that win, are the teams that know the rules, the regulations, the options of their particular sport, so that they know what is best to do in whatever situation they are in so that they might possibly win.

It’s true in every arena of life.

Now the interesting thing about this principle, and we’re all impacted by it every single day in whatever we do and wherever we work and in whatever kind of family you have, the interesting thing about this is that knowing the limits and knowing the laws and knowing the rules of any particular arena or any job or wherever, does not make the decisions for you.  What it does is it narrows the scope of the decisions.  Simply knowing the rules, knowing the laws, understanding the contexts of any area, it doesn’t automatically make decisions for you, but what it does is it limits the options.  You know immediately what can and can’t be done.  You know that there aren’t ten options, there are only three options.  You know there are things where there’s no point in even trying because you know better than to try those things.

This is a principle that works for us or against us all the time.  Many of us, isn’t this true, have tried to make decisions without knowing the rules and the laws, and have paid for it, haven’t we?  Have you ever tried fixing your car or trying to fix a leaky pipe?  After trying to be the hero and failing miserably you go find a mechanic or a plumber because you realize you weren’t an expert and you realize that they know something that you don’t know.  There’s a body of knowledge, there’s some rules, some ideas, some principles that they are able to draw from that I don’t have.  So we say to other people, “You fix my car.  You repair my plumbing.  I’m going to trust you to make those decisions for me because you know the rules.”

There are always options in any of those arenas, but by understanding the principles, the laws, the rules of any arena you understand how many options there are and you know what things aren’t options.  Are you with me so far?  This is somewhat common sense.  These things impact our lives everyday.

Let’s take it one step farther.  It’s not just a matter of being aware of the rules, the laws, the limits in whatever discipline you work in or whatever field you work in.  Being aware of the rules, being aware of the principles is not enough.  What we do, even though we don’t use this word, in order to make wise decisions in any arena of life, not only are we aware of the principles and the values and the laws, but we submit ourselves to them.  When the surgeon walks in to the operating room to perform surgery, it’s not that he’s just aware of how the body works.  They’re not simply aware of how medicine works.  They’re not simply aware of how to do surgery.  They actually submit themselves to all that knowledge.  They submit themselves to those principles and rules, and by submitting themselves they are able to make a wise decision.  The same is true in fixing cars, the same is true in teaching, the same is true in engineering.  It’s not simply a matter of what we know, it’s a matter of are we willing to submit ourselves to what we know, to make decisions under the umbrella of that authority.  When we do that, our ability to make wise decisions is enhanced significantly.

Here’s what’s really puzzling to me.  That even though, every day of my life and every day of your life, we are constantly submitting ourselves to all kinds of authority and man made rules to get things done.  Even though most of us acknowledge that there’s a creator out there somewhere who’s given us the laws of physics and given us an understanding of how the body works.  Even though that happens every single day, all the time, there is still something in me as there is something in you that resists the notion of surrendering in total to the God who’s behind all of that.

In other words, there’s a God behind physics, there’s a God behind gravity, there’s a God who’s created the people who’ve created the systems that we follow.  And even though I’m willing to submit myself to many of those people, and even though I’m willing to follow the rules in all kinds of other areas.  When it comes down to it, that even though I believe there’s a God behind all of that, even though there’s a creator behind the creation, for some reason is it so hard for me to submit to his authority.  When it comes down to submitting to the one who created all of that, I resist.  There’s something that’s scary about saying, “I surrender all of my life to God and I’m going to submit to his authority.”

Think about it this way:  Whenever I go to a doctor I trust that the doctor to knows everything he or she could possibly know about the human body, that God created by the way.  I trust them to know the body inside and out.  I trust that they have explored and read up on and have been educated in all the latest techniques and how the body works and how certain medicines impact certain chemicals.  And I trust that when they’re telling me I need medicine that I am getting the best advice possible.  And as a result of trusting them, I am willing to submit myself to their counsel, their authority.  But at the same time I resist submitting myself to the counsel of the one who gives them counsel.  I resist submitting myself to the one that’s behind all that I’m submitting myself to when I come to them to fix me.

We’ll listen to our doctor, We’ll take all kinds of advice from a doctor, but when it comes to God telling us what we should do we resist, don’t we?

Is it any wonder that we make some of the dumb decisions that we make?  In other words, if there’s a God of all wisdom.  If there’s a God of creation.  If there’s a God who understands and knows the laws and the principles of life, not just medicine, not just business, not just law, not just art or music, but if there’s a God who knows, and who has created the rules and the principles and the context for all of life, and I am unwilling to acknowledge he is there and I am unwilling to submit to that body of knowledge that would inform my decisions and allow me to make wise decisions, is it any wonder that we do the dumb things that we do?  Is it any wonder that we get ourselves into trouble and say, “How did I get into this?”  Is it any wonder that we have regret?  Is it any wonder that we have guilt?

In all of life we understand this principle:  To make wise decisions I have to acknowledge and submit to the body of knowledge that allows me to make wise decisions.  But then when it comes to our lives and life in general, we ignore, we resist.  And we say to God, in so many terms, “Go ahead and do your own thing, but leave me alone.  I want to do what I want to do.  Granted, I need the wisdom of doctors, granted I need the wisdom of accountants, granted I need the wisdom of all these other people, but I don’t need your wisdom. Because I will call my own shots.  I will do my own thing.”

And what many of us are discovering, what many of us have discovered, that just as you lose in any arena of life where you ignore the context and the principles, you lose in life when you ignore the wisdom, and you refuse to submit to the father of all truth and all wisdom.

It was this principle that I just described, in part, that drove the author of the verse we’re going to look at today to write what he did.  He was said to be the wisest man in the world.  And if you know anything about Solomon you know that even though he was the wisest man in the world he laid aside that wisdom and sought satisfaction in sex, money, alcohol and really anything else he could think of under the sun.  And he came to the conclusion that all of that was meaningless.  In other words, there is no satisfaction in any of that stuff.  When he tried out everything in life and ignored the God who was behind it all he came to the conclusion that it was all vanity, meaningless, a waste.  There is no fulfillment, there is no satisfaction in life outside of the context of submission to the God who’s behind all that I have seen and all that I’ve experienced.  And so, with that in mind, look at what Solomon writes in Proverbs 9:10:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…  in other words, wisdom begins, wisdom begins, in terms of all of life just like wisdom begins in any arena.  God says that wisdom in general, wisdom in life begins with the fear of the lord.

Let me give you a definition for the fear of the Lord:  The fear of the Lord simply means recognition and reverence that leads to submission. The fear of the Lord is recognition and reverence that leads to submission.  That is:  I recognize the You’re God and I’m not, which means you’re always smarter than I am, which means that even when you ask me to do something that I don’t understand that there’s something behind it that I will understand, therefore, I’m going to say yes even before I understand.  And not only do I recognize You for who You are, I’m going to revere you, that is, I am going to reverence you and I’m going to do what anyone would do who recognizes that there is a God.

You know what you do when you come face to face with the fact that there is a God in heaven?  You know what the natural, ordinary, normal thing to do is if you really believe that there is a God who controls all things and is behind all things?  What else can you do but submit?  How do you resist God?  How do you say no to God?  How do you argue with God?  How do you try to outsmart God, or prove to God that he’s been illogical?  See, the natural thing to do when you come face to face with the fact that there is a God is to submit and surrender.  It’s just a natural response.  The fear of the Lord that is the beginning of all wisdom is to recognize that He is God and you are not.  And to respond like anyone would respond who recognized that there is a God and they are not him.  And that is simply to submit to Him as we submit every single day to all kinds of rules and regulations and laws for the sake of the result or the return we get from submitting.

And Solomon says, “I’m here to tell you:  the beginning of wisdom as it relates to all of life, the beginning is the submission to, the recognition of the fact that God is God and you are not.  That it’s not about what.  It’s about who.  It’s not about what he asks.  It’s about who is doing the asking.  That the beginning of wisdom is not consideration of God.  The beginning of wisdom is not contemplation of God’s will.  The beginning of wisdom is to say “Yes, yes, yes.  Now what is the question?”  To say, “God, because You’re God, I’m going to say yes regardless of what you say because, after all, you’re God.”  Solomon says that’s the beginning of wisdom.

He goes on to elaborate in the second half of the verse:  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.  That is literally, knowledge of God brings understanding to all of life.

Here’s what Solomon discovered:  As I feared the Lord, that is, as I have revered and submitted to God, I’ve gained great understanding.  All of a sudden I have these A-ha moments where I say, “No wonder you said that God, no wonder you require that God, no wonder you ask me to do that God, no wonder you said no to that God, no wonder your standards are so high God.  A-ha, now that I have submitted to You I am beginning to understand.”  Submission comes first, understanding comes later.

And he goes on to say that as your understanding of the Holy One increases it leads to wisdom.  Just like in any other arena, as you approach life you begin to understand God’s rules, God’s principles, God’s regulations, and as you understand and submit to them you are then liberated and freed up to know what your options are, and you’re liberated and freed up to make the wisest choices possible.  Because in your submission and your understanding, there you find wisdom for life.  Isn’t that powerful?

This takes us back to our premise:  That in every arena of life there are rules regulations and principles and if you discover and submit to them you are able to make wise decisions.  God says, “the same is true in the broadest sense of life, that if you come to me, and you submit to who I am, if you submit to what I want you to know, you will gain understanding, and from your understanding you will be freed up to make the wisest choice possible.

Isn’t it interesting, that for most of us, maybe all of us, but at least most of us, our greatest regrets were at a time when we were consciously running from God?  Isn’t it interesting that in those moments when you decided to move in, when you decided to say yes, when you decided to move, you decided to go there, you decided to stay late, whatever the deal was, isn’t it interesting that there was something in us that we think of as conscience, but for many of us it is more than conscience.  It was a God thing, and you decided, “I’m not going to listen.  I’m going to do my own thing.  God, the answer is no.”  And we look back and wonder why it didn’t work out.  We wonder why that’s the chapter in our lives where there was the most regret.  And it’s because of this principle.

And Solomon says, “I’m telling you, the beginning of wisdom isn’t experience.  The beginning of wisdom is when I say yes.  It’s when I submit to the God of all wisdom.

Can I tell you something?  Your heavenly father wants you to have a regret free life.  But you and I cannot create that on our own.  And if we’re honest, we all know that we have enough tears, enough scars, enough hurt to know that when we try to do things on our own and tell God to “stay out of my life, I’m going to do what I want.”  We don’t end up with the life that we hoped we’d get.  That’s because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

None of us in here this morning wants to end up with a life that’s a mess.  None of us wants to end up with a life that’s filled with regrets and disappointments.  But as long as we cling to our pride and say, “I’m going to do things my way.  And I’ll leverage your principles when they fit into my agenda.  And I’ll follow your principles when they get me to where I want to go.  And I’m willing to submit to all kinds of people that you’ve created.  And I’m willing to submit to all kinds of systems that have been established by people that you’ve created, but when it comes to just wholeheartedly selling out and submitting to you, forget it, because I’m going to do what I want to do.”

If that’s you, can you understand why your heavenly father’s heart breaks?  Why he’s not angry, but why he’s sorrowful?  Because He knows what together you could become, and he stands on the sidelines honoring your freedom, refusing to interfere, and watches instead what you’re becoming.

Now, everybody got a box of matches, I want you to get it out.  I want you to hold it just like this.  This is how we come into the world, isn’t it?  My life.  My money, my relationships, my morality, my evenings, my spring breaks, my college freshman year, my, my, my, my, my, my, my.  I want you to know, that as your pastor, my heart’s desire, and I believe the heart’s desire of our heavenly father, is I want us to be a community of people that says, “It’s yours.  I’ve seen what I can do on my own.  I’m ready to see what you can do as I submit and recognize who you are and give you the opportunity to guide and direct and protect me.”

See isn’t it true, and if you’ve been here for the past few weeks you know we’ve been talking about what is the wise thing to do?  In light of my past experience, in light of my current circumstances, in light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?  That I am a unique blend of past, present and future, so it’s not enough to say, “What is everybody else doing?”  It’s not enough to say, “What does the Law say?”  It’s not enough to say, “What’s moral?”  The best question of all is what is the wise thing for me to do?

Isn’t it true that at times when we try to apply this, the reason we don’t ask, what is the wise thing to do, is because I already know what the wise thing to do is.  My problem isn’t that I don’t know what to do in light of my past, present and future.  The problem is that I don’t want to ask what the wise thing to do is because I already know the answer.  That’s why this issue is the most important issue when it comes to wisdom.  The beginning of wisdom is not asking the question.  The beginning of wisdom is saying, “God, regardless of the answer, I’m available.  In light of my past experience, my current circumstances, my future hopes and dreams, I really do want to know what the wise thing to do is, and I have pre-decided to say yes to you my God and my king.  Now, what is the wise thing for me to do?”

The desire of your heavenly father is that you would foolproof your life.  The desire of your heavenly father is that you would ask the best question of all.  But the beginning is not the best question of all.  The beginning is the best decision of all. To pre-decide.  That is, you guide me in wisdom and I’m going to say yes, because I trust you.

Now I want you to hold on to your box of matches one more time.  Some of you have been a Christian for a while and I want to ask you this:  Who’s holding your life?  I know you believe in your head that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the grave.  You’ve got that knowledge in your head, but have you ever made the decision that whatever the question is the answer is yes?  Have you pre-decided to say yes?

Some of you who are Christians have done that.  You’ve made the best decision ever that the answer is yes, but you’re not sure what that means.  I mean, there are so many issues.  There are so many choices.  There are so many opinions out there.  So here’s my question for you:  Where are you going to find out what this means?  Here are two things you need to do:  One, you need to spend time praying and reading your Bible every day.  Two, you need to be in a Hub group.  Those two things, practiced consistently, will provide you with some handles for this.

Some of you have felt God kind of knocking on the door of your heart and you’ve been saying, “Ok, ok, ok, and today you’re sitting there like this.  You are so close to saying, “God, I’m just going to surrender control of my life to you.”  Well, in a moment we are going to close with a song and I want you to, in the quietness of your own heart, to say to God, today’s my day.  I’m surrendering control of my life to you.  The answer is yes, yes, yes.  I’m no longer afraid to ask what is the wise thing to do, because I’ve pre-decided to say yes, as I surrender to you.

Others of you, you’re not a Christian, you came for the free donuts, you thought you were coming to see Paranormal Activity and instead you got us, you’ve got questions, you’re still struggling with this whole God thing, if there is a God, who is God, and if you could just figure out if this whole God/Jesus thing is for real then you would want to want to open your hand.  You don’t want to, but you want to want to.   “I want to want to, but I don’t want to yet.”  Here’s what I want you to do.  As we sing in a minute, I want you to just tell your heavenly father that.  You don’t even have to believe that he’s there, but tell him honestly what’s going on in your mind.  Ask that he’d bring you to the place where you can make the best decision ever and then just see if he shows up.  Be honest and tell him what’s in your heart.  He can handle that.

In all of life we submit to rules, regulations, principles in order to make wise decisions.  In life in general the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.  Isn’t it time to submit to the God who wants to take your life and make it foolproof?



 

Fool Proof – week 5 – A little help from our friends

Here we are in part five of this series we’ve titled:  Fool Proof.  And a few weeks ago when we began this series we said there was one question we need to ask of every decision, every opportunity, every invitation that comes your way.  What we said was that this one question has the ability to fool proof your marriage, fool proof your finances, fool proof your career, fool proof your life.  We called this the best question of all, and I want you to say it with me:  What is the wise thing to do?

In light of my past experience, current circumstances and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?

This morning we’re going to take a little bit of a detour and ask this question:  What happens if you really are committed to doing the wise thing, but you don’t know what the wise thing is?  What if you’re at a point where you’re willing to say, “God, I really do want to do the wise thing, I’m ready to quit pretending, to quit playing games, I’m ready to quit deceiving myself and to quit doing what everybody else is doing, and asking where’s the line instead of asking, what is the wise thing to do?  I really do want to know what the wise thing to do is, but I don’t know what the wise thing to do is in this particular relationship.  I don’t know what the wise thing to do is in this particular arena of my finances.  I don’t know what the wise thing is to do professionally.  I don’t know what the wise thing to do is in light of what’s going on in my marriage.  I’m going to ask the question, but I’m not sure what the wise thing to do is.

I think there are two main areas where most of us struggle with figuring out what the wise thing to do is:  The first is in arenas where there’s a lot of emotion.  Emotion is like a fog in the decision-making process.

It can be a positive emotion like, “I’m in love.”  I mean, love is a fog, isn’t it?  “Five bedrooms.”  “No money down.”  There are all kinds of emotions that impact and fog our decision making process.  And when there’s a lot of high emotion it’s difficult to see straight and make wise decisions.  It’s difficult to know what the wise thing to do is.

It can be a negative emotion as well.  You’re really, really angry, or you’re jealous, or you’re very, very resentful, you’re not getting your way, and suddenly you find yourself about to make a decision, and even in those moments when you realize there’s all this stuff, uugghh, going on inside of you and you know you need to ask, what is the wise thing to do, but in that fog of emotion, it is very difficult to see straight.  It’s very difficult to discern, what is the wise thing to do.

In fact, I bet this, I bet your greatest regret, whether it was a night, or a season of life, or a marriage, or a weekend or a spring break or whatever it might be, I bet your greatest regret has to do with decisions you made when there was a lot of emotion.  It might have been anger.  It might have been lust.  It might have been somebody who was trying to sell you something and they pressured you into something.  See, your greatest regret, and mine, were unwise decisions that we made when our emotions were swirling around and we just couldn’t see straight.

A second environment where I have a hard time discerning what the wise thing to do is, and maybe you can relate to this, it’s when I’m asked to make a decision within a realm that I don’t really have enough expertise to make a decision in.  Maybe it’s a lack of education, training or experience.

Maybe it’s because I’m the leader or I’m the father, or whatever the situation is, I’m asked to make a decision and I just don’t have the background or the education or the experience to make a wise decision.

If you’re a leader, if you own your own company or you’re a manager you understand this, when you’re the point person you feel as if, “I’m supposed to know, and whether I know or not I need to at least look like I know.  And I need to say something intelligent,” so you ask them to give you a minute and you run to a back room and say, “Oh God, I don’t know what to do!”

But you’re supposed to know.  You’re the manager, you’re supposed to know.  You’re the dad, you’re supposed to know.  You’re the president, you’re the head of the student body, whatever, you’re supposed to know.  But when you don’t have the experience or the expertise or whatever, how do you make a wise decision in those realms where there’s a lot of emotion or where you don’t have the expertise you need?

I want to tell you a secret this morning.  This is the secret of all wise people.  Every wise person you know, knows this secret.  In fact, this is how they became wise.  In fact, when I tell you this secret you are going to realize that they weren’t as wise as you thought they were.  But they sure seem to be wise, because here’s what every wise person knows:  Wise people know when they don’t know, and they’re not afraid to go to those who know.  Wise people know when they don’t know.  That is they don’t deceive themselves, they don’t pretend, they don’t act like they’re smarter than they are.  Wise people know when they’ve reached the end of their knowledge.  Wise people know when there’s too much emotion.  Wise people know when they don’t know and they are courageous enough, they’re not afraid, and oohh, that takes a lot of security to say, “I’m in charge, and I have no idea.  I’m your father, and I don’t know either.  I’m your mother, we need to think about this.  I’m in charge, I’m the manager, I’m whatever.

Wise people know when they don’t know and they are not afraid to go to those who know.  Every wise person you know, the people you consider wise, you talk to them and they’ll probably say it in a different way, but here’s what they know:  Every wise person knows when they reach the end, when it’s not a good time to make a decision, when they don’t know and they are not afraid to go to people who know.  Wise people seek wise council.

Now that’s not intuitive, because you think, “If they’re wise then they don’t need wise counsel.”  That’s wrong.  They get counsel, that’s why they are wise.

The most amazing insights into the Bible is that the wisest person in the whole Bible, other than Jesus, the wisest man who ever lived was a king named Solomon.  And God gave him the gift of wisdom.  He had more wisdom than anyone who had ever lived.  He was the wisest man in the world.  And the wisest man who ever lived had more to say about seeking counsel than anyone else who wrote in the Bible.

Now you would think that the wisest man would say nothing about seeking counsel.  Why would the wisest man in the world say so much about seeking counsel?  Because, he’s the wisest man in the world.  Because wise people know when they don’t know, and they’re not afraid to go to those who know.

Let me just throw a few of these verses up on the screen.  A wise man will hear and increase in learning (that is, they will listen), and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel. Proverbs 1:5.  Now you say, “Wait a minute, they are a man of understanding or a woman of understanding, why would they aquire wise counsel?”  How do you think they became a man or a woman of understanding?  That even with all they know, they are not afraid to increase what they know by asking other people.  Look at this second one.

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes (that is, “I don’t need anyone telling me what to do.  I’ve got it all figured out.  I’m 18, I’m a freshman in college, I just graduated from college, I own my own company)  The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man (no age, no matter what age) is he who listens to counsel. Proverbs 12:15.  In other words, this is what characterizes wise people.  A wise person never gets so wise that they don’t need counsel.  A wise person is always listening out for wise counsel.  That’s how they became wise.

Wise men and women know when they don’t know and they’re not afraid to go to those who know.

Now let me tell you why this is so important and we’re going to look at an Old Testament story that illustrates this in a minute found in Genesis 41.  You can go ahead and find it, put your handout in there or something and we’ll come back to it in a minute, but here’s why this is so important.  These few insights could possibly change your whole perspective on getting counsel.  Here’s the deal, I’m going to make three statements:

First:  The decisions, in fact I would say many or most, many or most of the decisions that you make privately and independently, that is the decisions you made in the quietness of your own heart, independent of any outside advice, the decisions you make privately or independently will later on become public knowledge, right?  You privately decide to buy a house, before long everybody knows where you live.  You privately and independently decide to lease a car, everybody knows what you drive.  You privately and independently decide to ask here out, before long everybody knows you’ve asked her out.  You privately and independently decided to take this new job, before long everybody knows you have a new job.  Most of the decisions we make privately and independently eventually become public knowledge, right?

Secondly, and this is the tricky one, most, or at least many, of the decisions you make privately and independently are judged by the people around you.  I don’t know if this is just me, but Liz and I talk about our friends….  We do.  We just lost some of our friends with that statement…but we hear stuff and say, “Did you know that he just asked her out?  Did you know that they’re moving?  Did you see their new house?  Did you see, did you know?  Maybe it’s just us but we talk about the decisions our friends make.  Don’t you?

And isn’t it true, and maybe we’re not supposed to do this, but it’s just human nature, but isn’t it true that in some way, shape, or form you pass judgement on the decisions that your friends make.  “I can’t believe she’s doing that.  I can’t believe he’s marrying her.  I can’t believe they’re splitting up.  I can’t believe….  I mean I know we’re not supposed to judge, but isn’t it true, and if you’re a teenager you do this all the time, at every area of life, don’t we pass judgment on the decisions that people around us make?  I don’t mean we’re negative or critical, but we do this.

Well, the same is true of you.  You have a public.  It may be 20 or 200 people, but people are constantly passing judgment on the decisions you make privately and independently.

Third statement:  For many of us, the decisions that we make privately and independently are not only known by the public, not only judged by the public, but the decisions that we make privately and independently effect other people.  As a pastor, every decision I make about Hub City effects a lot of people.  I can make it privately and independently, but the effects are felt publicaly.  Every decision that I make as a father in our home, I may make it privately or independently, but the effects are felt by at least four other people.  The decisions that you make privately and independently, the effects or the results of those decisions are felt publicly.

So here’s the question:  If your decisions, as you’re trying to discern what’s the wise thing to do in a certain relationship, what’s the wise thing to do financially, what’s the wise thing to do professionally, what’s the wise thing to do here, if the results of those decisions are number one, going to be known publicly; number 2, are going to be judged publicly; and number three, are going to effect other people, then why not get other people in on the decision making process before the decision is made because it’s not going to be a secret after the decision is made?

That just makes sense.  This is how wise people end up making so many wise decisions.  Because they do not make big decisions independent of counsel.  And there’s a hesitancy about this, I understand that.  You say, “It’s really none of their business.”  Let me just give you a big clue, it will become their business, because they’re going to know, and they’re going to judge and they might even be effected.  You say, “But it’s still none of their business.”  That’s irrelevant.  They are going to know.  They are going to judge.  They might even be impacted.  Since that’s a reality, wouldn’t it make sense to involve wise people in on the front end of the decision making process?  Because what is done privately and independently eventually becomes known and is judged publicly.  See, wise people know when they don’t know, and they are not afraid, they are secure enough to go to people who know.

There are so many stories in the Bible about people who sought advice or got advice.  Some got bad advice, some got good advice.  I mean, there’s so much you could say about this, but this morning we’re going to look at a familiar Old Testament story in Genesis 41.

And it’s the story about a guy named Joseph.  He lived 1900 years before Jesus.  This is 1900 BC.  Joseph was the son of a guy named Jacob.  And just to give you kind of a big picuture, there was Abraham, who was the father of the Jewish nation, and he had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob and Jacob had a bunch of sons and one of them was named Joseph.  Well, Joseph gets sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt.  He spends some time in the house of this guy named Potiphar, who was the captain of the whole Egyptian army.  While serving there he gets accused of trying to rape Potiphar’s wife.  He didn’t do it.  He was innocent, but she accused him and he was put in prison in Egypt.

Now when we get to this story, Joseph has been in prison about 10 years.  He’s 30 years old and he’s in jail when this story begins.  This is an incredible story about listening to and seeking wise counsel.  And for all the men here today, this really slaps right up against our ego and pride issues.  Because one of the reasons we’ve made some really dumb decisions men, is because we would not listen.  We would not listen to our wives.  We would not listen to people who didn’t have the same expertise as we thought they should have in order for us to listen to them.  We get ourselves into trouble because we’re not wise enough to know what we don’t know, and even when we know what we don’t know we’re too afraid, we’re too proud to ask the people who know.

Here’s an amazing story about a king who had enough sense and security to listen to the most unlikely source of wisdom imaginable.  So here’s what happens:  Pharoah, who is in charge of Egypt, the power center of that part of the world, Pharoah has a dream.  Now you tell me, those of you who know anything about Egyptian history, Pharaoh was considered a what? – A god.  He was considered a god.  He was thought to have eternal life.  He did not have to keep the law, he was the law.  I mean, at 9:00 in the morning if something was illegal it was illegal.  At 10:30, if Pharaoh changed his mind, they erased that law and wrote a new one.  He was just the law in motion.

And when you were in the presence of Pharaoh you were very, very careful because if Pharaoh was having a bad day, that could be your last day.  He just had that much power.  His word was law because he was thought to be related to the sun god so he was god.

Now, 1900 BC, around that time, Pharaoh has a dream.  And he dreams something that he thinks has significance so he asks the people around him, “Hey can you interpret the dream?”  They all sheepishly said, “Uh uh.”  But he wants to know the interpretation of the dream and there’s this guy that serves Pharaoh his wine who says to him, “you know what, you may not remember this, but I was in prison for a while when you were mad at me, and while I was there I ran into a Jewish lad, and he interpreted a dream for me, in fact he predicted that you would restore me to this position.”

And Pharaoh says, “Let’s find him.”  So Pharaoh sends the people down into the dungeon to find this Jewish boy, who’s now 30 years old because he’s been there so long.  They shave him, they dress him up and they get all the prison smell off of him and bring him, in a presentable way, to Pharaoh.

Now you’ve got to understand.  Joseph isn’t even from their country.  They’ve never met before.  And Pharaoh says to Joseph, “Hey, what was his name again?  Joseph?  Hey Joseph, here’s my dream.”  And the idea is, I’m going to tell you my dream and you interpret it and then you’re out of here, back to prison.

So he tells Joseph the dream and Joseph interprets the dream.  And the interpretation of the dream was this:  “Oh Pharaoh, may Pharaoh live forever, there are going to be seven incredible years of plenty in the land of Egypt.  You’re going to have so much grain and such good crops you’re going to have extra.  After those seven years there’s going to be seven years of famine.  Everything is going to die.  And everybody who hasn’t saved grain from the seven previous years, they will die as well.”

So Joseph interprets this dream.  That’s all he’s there for.  And at that point, Joseph should shut his mouth, turn around and head down the hall.  But Joseph does an unthinkable thing that could have cost him his life.  Joseph decides to give some advice to Pharaoh/god/the law in motion/the most powerful man in the world.  And that’s where this story picks up.  And we can’t fully understand these circumstances, but this was way out there for anyone to do.  And look what Joseph does, verse 33 of chapter 41.

Joseph’s just finished interpreting this dream for Pharaoh and here’s where Joseph’s supposed to make his exit but he keeps going:  And now (dun-dun-du-nah.  And now for a little editorial comment on the dream interpretation.  I’m not finished yet.)  And now, let Pharaoh (Now, no-one’s ever said that before to Pharaoh.  No one’s ever told Pharaoh, “Now let me tell you what I think you should do.  After all, I’ve been in prison for 10 years.  I’m not even from this country.  We’ve only known each other for 20 minutes.  You’re the most powerful man in the world.  You think you’re god.  Let me tell you what you ought to do.)  Now let Pharaoh look for a discerning and wise man and put him in charge of the land of Egypt

Implication:  Pharaoh, this job’s too big for you.  You’re going to have to find somebody else to take over.  I know you’re supposedly god, and I saw you’re building out there, it’s neat and all.  But I’m telling you what Pharaoh, because I’m a Jewish guy from a different country and I’ve been in prison for ten years, this job’s too big for you.

Can you imagine?  I mean, isn’t it true, especially men, isn’t it true, doesn’t something, when somebody starts to tell you your business, let me tell you, when someone who doesn’t understand or work in my world starts to tell me how I ought to be starting a church, oohh, the walls start to go up.

Isn’t it true, in your business, especially if somebody doesn’t know your business, if somebody starts telling you what you need to do, or how you can improve, ooohhh.  How about if somebody tells you how to raise your kids, how to discipline your kids?  “You know, I realize I’m 16 years old, and I’ve never had kids, but I am your babysitter, and I’ve got a few suggestions.”  Aren’t you open, “Oh yeah, tell me.”  Isn’t it true, when somebody comes into our realm and they start speaking into our profession, into our world, into where we have authority to tell us what to do, don’t the walls just go up?

This is unbelievable, Pharaoh, for whatever reason, decides to listen to what Joseph has to say.  He says, verse 34, Let Pharaoh appoint commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance.  They should collect all the food of these good years that are coming and store up the grain under the authority of pharaoh, to be kept in the cities for food.

This is brilliant, if you’re in business you need to go back and read this in detail, but he gives them this unbelievable plan and the plan is this:  Over the next 7 years take 20% of everything that you get and store it.  Every year you store a fifth of it.  You keep storing it and storing it and storing it.  And Joseph tells pharaoh, I want you to store it in your name.  In other words, pharaoh, you claim authority, this grain belongs, not to the nation, this grain belongs to you.

Verse 36:  This food should be held in reserve for the country, to be used during the seven years of famine that will come upon Egypt, so that the country may not be ruined by the famine (In other words, during the good years save 20% and then when the bad years come, not only will you be fine, but you’ll be the only nation around that’s fine.)  The plan seemed good to pharaoh and all of his officials. You’ve got to understand, all of the officials are kind of looking at each other going, I can’t believe that pharaoh is listening to this guy an allowing this to go on.  So Pharaoh asked them, “Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?”  Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all of this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you.  You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders.  Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you.”  So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.  (Pause)  Then Pharaoh took a signet ring from his finger and put it on Joseph’s finger.  He dressed him in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck.

See, I would have thrown him out.  “Fine, fine, fine.  I know, you’re an economic genius.  I’m so sure you can tell me how to run the whole nation.”  But Pharaoh listened.  Wise people know when they don’t know, and they are not afraid to find and listen to people who know.  Wise people know when they are hearing what’s true, wise people aren’t afraid of hearing what’s true, and they don’t discount the source because they know truth when they hear it.

This plan was so brilliant, I just want to take a few seconds to tell you the details of the story.  Seven years of plenty come so now Pharaoh owns 20% of all the grain, so when seven bad years came and all the people in Egypt were out of grain and guess who owns all the grain?  Pharaoh.  So all the people in Egypt have to come to Pharaoh to buy grain, not from the nation, but from Pharaoh himself.  So at the end of the seven years Pharaoh is not only in charge of everything in Egypt, he owns everything and everybody in Egypt.  It’s unbelievable.  He owns all their cattle, all their land.  He personally owns it all.  And not only that, the surrounding nations had to come to Egypt to buy grain, so without ever firing a shot Pharaoh basically takes control of all the economies of all the surrounding nations.  Unbelievable!  Because he knew what he didn’t know, and he didn’t discount the source and he took the advice of a foreigner who was a slave in his own dungeon.

Three things I want us to pull from this story:

Number 1:  No one is so successful that he or she no longer needs wise counsel.  No one is so wise, no one is so successful that they no longer need wise counsel.  Nobody.  Solomon wasn’t too wise to listen.  Pharaoh wasn’t to powerful to listen.  If Pharaoh needed it, if Solomon needed it, then I need it and you need it.  No matter how successful you are.  No matter how educated you are.  No matter how much smarter or how much greater your IQ is.  No matter how much you own or how powerful you are.  Nobody ever gets to the place where they don’t need wise counsel.

And the temptation is to think, once I’m here, I am the wise counsel, people must come to me, I am the source of all things.  No one, no one, no one, because every wise person knows the end, every wise person knows the limit, every wise person knows when they don’t know and they are not afraid to find the people who know.

Number 2:  You will never reach your full potential without utilizing the wisdom of others.  You will never reach your full potential without utilizing the wisdom of others.  You just won’t.  You know when we think we will?  When we’re 16, and we think we will when we’re 17, and we think we will when we’re college freshmen because now we’re so much smarter than our parents, we knew we were smarter, but now we’re in college and they just haven’t been exposed to what we’ve been exposed to.  You know when else we think we will?  When we don’t have kids yet, but we know how to parent.  Or when our kids aren’t teenagers yet, but we know we’re going to have it together when they become teenagers.

And there’s something in all of us, in some realm, and is certain areas of life where we think all we need to know is what we already know and that we’re beyond getting the counsel of other people.  Here’s the deal:  You may do well, but you will never reach your full potential without outside input.  Tiger Woods has a coach, and I be he’s a better golfer than his coach.  But he knows you don’t reach your full potential without outside input.  Every professional athlete knows that.  But somehow, when it comes to parenting, somehow when it comes to running our business, somehow when it comes to our spiritual life, somehow when it comes to our dating relationships, somehow when it comes to our marriages, somehow we think, “I can be all I need to be, I don’t need anybody to tell me what to do.”  But every wise person knows when they don’t know and they are not afraid to go to the people who know.  You’ll never reach your full potential without going outside of what you know.

The third one is this:  Wise counsel may come from unlikely sources.  Wise counsel may come from very unlikely sources, and here’s the temptation:  The temptation is to say, “Well, if I’m here financially, or I’m here in terms of success, or I’m here in terms of being a parent, or I’m here, then the only people I can go to for wise counsel have to be ahead of me, above me or beyond me.  They have to be peers who have excelled more than I have.  And that is absolutely wrong.

And if anything comes from the story of Pharaoh and Joseph is this:  Pharaoh was wise enough to know that sometimes wisdom comes from unlikely sources.

Who knows the source that God wants to use to speak into your relationships, to speak into your marriage, to speak into your business, to speak into your finances.  Because wise people know when they don’t know and they are wide open.  They don’t think, “Well if you are going to speak into my life you’ve got to be a peer who’s a year ahead, or who’s financially ahead or professionally ahead.  Hey, I’m at the end, I am wide open”

Let me tell you when I struggle with this principle.  My tendency is to listen to the messenger and if there’s something in their life, or there’s something in their past, or there’s something that’s going on in their life right now, I have a tendency to use that as an excuse not to listen.  After all, if they’re so smart why didn’t they?  And I just by-pass that advice.  Hey, if they’re so wise then I wonder why they?  And I just by-pass that advice.  Maybe you’re a teenager and your parents are trying to give you some advice, and you say, “well they didn’t follow that advice.”  Maybe there’s someone who’s trying to speak some wisdom into your life and you allow something in their past or something in their life that you don’t agree with, you use that to discount what you know in your heart is good advice.  It’s a tragic, tragic mistake.

And fortunately for Pharaoh, and for the people of Egypt and for the whole world, Pharaoh understood:  It doesn’t matter how long he’s been in the dungeon, it doesn’t matter where he’s from, but there’s something wise in his counsel, so everybody, shut up and let the new guy talk.

Do not discount the unlikely sources of wisdom.  Wise people know better than to do that.

Now, part of this is just commons sense, I realize that, but do you know why we push back on this?  Part of the reason we push back is because we don’t really want to know what the wise thing to do is.  And you’ve got to deal with that, and hopefully at the end of this series you’ll deal once and for all with that.  But often times we don’t want to hear what other people have to say because we already know what they are going to say.  The other reason we push back is this excuse that it’s nobody else’s business, but you just remember this:  Your private, independent will become other people’s business because people know what we decide, so why not take advantage of their advice on the front end of the decision making process?

Let me ask you:  Are you in the midst of an emotionally intense situation where you’re trying to figure out what the wise thing to do is?  Maybe it’s love, maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s jealousy, maybe it’s something you’re about to buy; you’ve got your heart set on it, you’ve got your heart set on him, you’ve got your heart set on that.  Get somebody in the mix.  The emotions make it difficult oftentimes to discern what’s wise.  In the middle of making a decision where you’re really just out of your league, but people expect you to know, you’re the leader, you’re the dad, you’re the mom, you’re the CEO, you’re the whatever, but people expect you to know and you feel this internal pressure:  “I ought to know and if I don’t know I need to fake it and I need to confidently say here’s where we’re going and if people aren’t sure I’ll say it louder because if I say it loud enough people will say “he knows.””  But in your heart you know you don’t know.  Then the smart thing to do, what wise people do, don’t pretend.  Wise people know when they don’t know and they are not afraid to go to those who know.

And if you’re coming to the understanding that this really is the best question ever:  What is the wise thing to do?  Then when you don’t know, ask.  And that doesn’t mean you lack wisdom.  That is evidence of wisdom.

 

Fool Proof week 4: Managing your dead Presidents

When we began this series a few weeks ago we said that we’ve all done dumb things.  There are decisions we wish we’d never made.  Dates we wish we’d never gone on.  Money we wish we’d never spent.  We’ve all got something or some period in our past that we look back on with regret.

And the goal of this series is to figure out a way that we could live a life with no regret.  To figure out a way to foolproof our lives.  And the way we said to do that is not to ask where’s the line, where’s the ledge, what’s legal, what’s moral, what’s right?  The way to foolproof our lives is for us to begin asking of every decision, every opportunity the best question ever:  What is the wise thing to do?  What is the wise thing to do?

And we need to ask this question at three different levels:  In light of my past experience, what is the wise thing to do?  In light of my current circumstances, what is the wise thing to do?  And in light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?  And the reason this question is the best question ever is because no one has the unique past, present and future that you do.  So in light of your past, in light of your present and in light of your future, what is the wise thing for you to do?  Of every decision we make, we need to ask:  What is the wise thing to do?

And then last week we talked about our time.  And the question for us isn’t, what time is it?  The question for us is:  How are we spending our time?  Are we making the incremental investments of time into the things that will bring value to our lives in the long run?  What do we need to begin doing on a regular basis that over time would have cumulative value?  What do we need to stop doing because it’s not the wisest way for us to spend our time?  What is the wise thing to do when it comes to how we spend our time?

Now last week I asked you to take off your watches and hide them for the entire sermon to orient us to the fact that how we spend our time is important to God.  This morning I want to do something to make you more uncomfortable.  I want you to get out your wallet.  Go ahead, get it out.  Maybe you need to reach down to your purse and grab it or pull out your money clip.  Whatever it is that you have on you where you keep your cash, or wish you had cash or keep your credit cards, go ahead and get it out.  What I want you to do is, we’re going to pass a bucket around and I want you to put your wallet in that and after the service we’ll give it back.  Just kidding.

Now I know that freaked some of you out a bit because that’s one of your worst fears about coming to a church gathering.  The last thing you want us to be talking about today is money.  You were worried that people were going to hassle you about money and then you show up today and we’re talking about money and some of you are going to leave mad because we’re talking about money and I just want to acknowledge that here at the start, and get that out in the open.

Which leads me to these three chairs.  We talked about these two weeks ago and what they represented and I think it’s important to remind ourselves of what we talked about.  We said that if your not going to be wise in your decision making that you’re going to find yourself sitting in one of three chairs:  The Naïve, the fool and the scoffer.  Now, in light of us talking about money this morning, many of us in this room are sitting in one of these three chairs and you’re probably going to have one of these responses to what we talk about and I just wanted to acknowledge that up front.  Because remember, there’s a consequence for sitting in these chairs, not just for you, but for those who are closest to you.  So if you just blow me off, you’re going to reap something from that attitude.  If you just don’t care, there’s going to be a consequence.  If you get mad and want to cuss me out and never come back again, that’s cool, just remember, there’s a consequence.  And some of you could stand up and vouch for those consequences right now.

So let’s jump into this.  If you’re not a Christian you might not agree with this or think this is something weird about God, but we as Christians believe that the Bible teaches that God owns everything, including your money.  It’s all his.  And as a result of that, your Heavenly Father has entrusted you with some of his money.  Now, the question that most of us ask about money is how much money do you have in your account, or how much money do you make?  But that’s the wrong question.  The question I want you to focus on this morning is, are you being wise in how you manage the money that your Heavenly Father has entrusted to you?

Or, let’s ask it this way:  In light of your past financial experience, in light of your current financial circumstances and in light of your future financial hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do with God’s money?

Now, let me tell you what I know about you.  None of us wants somebody to tell us how to spend our money.  None of us wants somebody poking their head into our financial business, especially some preacher.  Because isn’t it true that when you think about a sermon on money you think of some TV preacher begging for money or some pastor begging for money so the church can stay in business, and just the thought of a sermon on money makes some of you want to check out of this sermon.  Some of you already have a wall up.  You don’t want to hear about money.  You’re already mad and have made up your mind never to come back again.

But let me tell you what you know about yourself:  You already know that you would have more money in the bank and greater peace of mind if you had managed your money more wisely.  You know that one of the greatest struggles you have is living with the money you have.

And chances are, if you had been evaluating your financial decisions through the grid of the best question ever, you might live in a slightly smaller or older house with slightly less expensive furniture.  You would be driving a slightly older car.  Your television wouldn’t be quite as big.  Your closet wouldn’t be quite as full.

On the postitive side, your 401(k) would be maxed out, your credit card balance would be zero at the end of the month, and you would feel free to generously support those organizations that are making a positive difference in the world.

Believe it or not, if you had been managing the money you’ve been given the way I am about to suggest, you would actually be richer and happier.  Not that you would be happier because you are rich, but you would be happier because you would be free from the unnecessary pressures that come with poor money management.

See, I want what’s best for you financially.  This morning I’m not going to ask for something from you.  This morning I am going to share with you what I want for you financially, and what I believe God wants for you financially, because I want what’s best for you financially and I believe that God wants what’s best for you financially.

Now I’m not saying that God wants you to be rich.  By international standards, you are rich.  The average college student in America makes $11,200 a year.  That’s more than 96% of the world’s population makes.  According to most of the world, we are rich.  But if I were to sit down one on one with you and ask you this question you would have a hard time answering, “How does it feel to be rich?”

You know why you would have a hard time answering that?  Because there is a difference between being rich and feeling rich.  The reason none of us feels rich is because we don’t actually have any extra cash.  It’s all spoken for.  You’re like me:  There’s more month than money at times.  There are more bills to pay than bills to pay them.  We don’t feel rich because we owe more money than we have in our checking account.  We don’t feel rich because, financially speaking, somehow we’ve gotten upside down.

Think about it.  If suddenly, something happened and you had to come up with all the cash to pay off everyone you owe, including your mortgage lender, you would be out on the street.  And as long as this is the case for each of us then we will never feel rich.

Instead, we’ll always feel stressed.  Let me say this again, as long as we are upside down financially, it won’t matter how much money we make.  We will never feel rich.  Never.   I mean the guy who makes $350,000 a year but spends $375,000 a year and has a bunch of debt will never feel as rich as the single woman who make $30,000 a year and lives on 75% of it with no debt.  She is free.  He is not.  She is wise.  He is foolish.

Now let me just say this:  Logically, of all the areas of life that require wisdom, the arena of our finances should be the easiest for us to get a handle on.  I mean, the other decisions that we make about career, relationships, and time requires us to use the subjective, intangibles of passion, fear and God’s calling.  But money is simple:  A certain amount comes in and you tell it what to do.  That’s it.  It’s simple.  A certain amount comes in and you tell it what to do.

See, your problem and my problem financially is not low income.  Your problem and my problem is poor financial management.  How do I know this?  Just look at the two biggest crisis that Americans face today:  Obesity and consumer debt.  We eat too much and we spend too much.  Neither of these problems is caused by earning too little.  We don’t see the poor people in Kenya struggling with these issues.  These problems are actually uniquely American and the result of us being one of the wealthiest nations on earth.

So what’s happening?  What’s our problem?  Why is it so easy for us to abandon common sense in the one arena of life where it is easiest to monitor and predict the outcomes?  Why do we spend so foolishly?  Why do we finance things that lose 10 to 20 percent of their value as soon as we leave the store or drive off the lot?  Why do we make ourselves slaves to financial institutions that don’t even know our names?  Why do we intentionally strap on the unnecessary pressure that comes from debt and then complain about it?

Are we greedy?  Maybe.  Are we stupid?  I don’t think so.  Are we all just consumed with keeping up with the people around us?  That may be part of it.  But I think there’s something else that keeps us on stressed out financially.  We have allowed the current of culture to influence the way we manage money by teaching us to ask all the wrong questions.  Can I afford it?  What will the monthly payment be?  How much can I borrow?  Is it on sale?  Is it cheaper to lease?  How long do I have to pay it off?

See, when it comes to spending money we all make assumptions:  The assumption is that if I can make it work financially, I should make it work.  If I can afford it, I should afford it.  If I can borrow it, I should borrow it.

The reason we so easily get upside down financially is because everybody who has anything to sell is working overtime to get us to buy, to get us to flip our financial world upside down.  The only person looking out for your best interest financially is you!  And if you are going flip your finances right side up you’ve got to ask a different set of questions.  The questions we listed out a minute ago are fine for conventional people, but you don’t want to be a conventional person, do you?  A conventional person is standard, typical, normal.  When you look at the normal, the typical, the standard people that you work with, that you live with, that you live next to, do you want to be like everybody else in America or, financially, do you want to live by a new standard?  Do you want to be enslaved to the typical way of doing things or do you want to experience financial freedom?

But what would happen if we began evaluating all of our financial decisions through the lens of the best question ever?  In light of your past financial experience, your current financial picture, and your future financial hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do with God’s money?

Just imagine.  Where would you be now if you had been asking and applying that question to all of your financial decisions?  The best question ever frees you from the conventional approach to finances, an approach that has robbed so many of us from the freedom that could be ours if we would simply live on what we make instead of what we can borrow.  Asking, what is the wise thing to do, allows us to be content with more of what we have and less of what we want.

But here’s the problem:  Asking the right question is one thing, but trying to discern the right answer is another thing altogether.  So how could this look for you and for me on a regular basis?  How does asking, what is the wise thing to do financially, really look?  It’s all about reordering our financial priorities.

There are basically three things we do with our money.  We’ve talked about this before, but basically we do three things:  We Live on money, save money and give money away.  There may be one or two or three other categories that you might come up with but all our money basically goes to three places:  we live on it, save it or give it.

And two things determine how much money goes into each of these categories:  Priorities and self control.

The problem with most of us is that this is usually our priority:  First we live, then if there is any left over we save some and occasionally, we reach into our wallets and give a little away.

Now you may be more intentional about saving and giving, but if you’re like most people you save and give from what’s left over.  But here’s why that’s a problem.  If saving and giving are afterthoughts for you, if saving and giving are you last priorities what that means is that you are robbing from your own future, and if you are a Christian, robbing from God’s kingdom.  Think about it.  When you put saving and giving last you hurt yourself in the future and withhold from God’s kingdom now.  Is that the wise thing to do with God’s money?

Let me just say something to Christians this morning, and this is really going to tick some of you off, but….  It’s bad enough to chip away at our family’s future financial security by refusing to prioritize saving, but to give God our leftovers is really insulting.  Liz, my wife, is an amazing cook.  I love good food, and Liz is always fixing good food.  Many times we have stuff left over.  I love eating leftovers from what Liz cooked.  I look forward to looking in the fridge at lunch time and seeing last night’s leftover’s there.  My insides scream, “YES” when I see leftovers.  In spite of that, Liz has never prepared an awesome meal the day before we had company with the intent of serving our guest leftovers.  She wouldn’t dream of doing that.  Instead, she pulls out all the stops and fixes some of her best dishes when we have guests.

Here’s the deal:  If we wouldn’t serve our guests leftovers, why would I give God my leftover money?  The same is true of you:  If you wouldn’t serve your guests leftovers, why would you give God your leftover money?  It’s like saying to God, “Um, sorry, Lord, I wish I could do more, but I can’t because I spent all of it on me.”  When we, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, refuse to prioritize giving, it’s like praying, “Heavenly Father, I don’t really need your involvement in my finances.  I can handle that arena all by myself.  Amen.”

On the other hand, when we give to God’s kingdom it is an invitation for God to involve himself in our finances.  Don’t take my word for it.  Throughout scripture God promises to respond to generous people.  Look at a few of these passages:

Jesus said, “Give and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38).

In Malachi 3:10 it states:  “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

God responds to generosity.  Now let me say this:  I’m not saying that if you give, God is going to make you rich.  I already said that I don’t think you being rich is really a priority to God, but giving is an invitation for God to become active in the world of our personal finances.

How we manage God’s money is also a heart issue.  That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 6:  ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So how does a wise person respond to this?  How does a wise person reorder/reprioritize their finances in light of this?  What is the wise thing for you to do with the money God has given you?  A wise person flips the order.

If you have your Bible’s open them up to Matthew 6.  This passage we’re going to look at this morning is part of what is called Jesus’ sermon on the mount.  In it Jesus gives really the basics of what it means to be his follower.  And if you’ve ever read this, Jesus’ expectations seem so unrealistic, so impractical.  We’re left asking, “How in the world can I live this way?  This is too hard Jesus.  Did you really mean this?”  But really, if you really believe God is who he said he is and that he will do all that he’s promised to do, then Jesus’ words make perfect sense.

What Jesus talks about in this passage we’re going to read is a different perspective on money.  And let me warn you, this might be hard to swallow.  But if we take what Jesus says seriously, then I believe these words have the ability to completely reorder our thinking about money, our finances and our pursuit of wealth.

Our Heavenly Father, your Heavenly Father, the one who loves you and made you and wants to have an intimate relationship with you cares very much about our needs and our desires.  In fact, what we’re about to read shows that God is committed to meeting our practical earthly needs.

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Be honest.  Your tendency and my tendency is to worry.  We worry about finances and paying bills and getting this or that.  We worry about money.  Did you know that worry stems from a lack of trust in God?  Worry and trust are polar opposites.  You can’t worry and trust God at the same time.  It’s not possible.  And when we worry about money it’s like we’re saying,  “I know you’re God and I’m supposed to trust you, and I do to go to heaven, or I do want you to keep me safe, but about money…I just can’t.”  And so we worry because we don’t trust God.  This lack of trust shows itself in the way we prioritize our finances.  So what we do is we live first, save second and give third.  We prioritize our wants, wishes and needs and if there’s anything leftover we give it to God.  See, I think one of the reasons people get mad when we talk about money is because we have a trust problem.  We trust our ability to handle our finances instead of trusting God to meet our needs.  But Jesus says, “do not worry.”  And then come some examples:

²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Worrying isn’t going to help you any.

²⁸“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear? Now check this out, this is like a below the belt punch from Jesus:

³²For the pagans run after all these things, The pagans were those people who didn’t know God, they didn’t know that he made them and loves them and cares for them and wants to know them. and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But here’s Jesus prescription, here’s where we find the answer to “in light of my past financial experience, current financial situation and future financial hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do with God’s money?”: seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Did you catch that?  Seek first the Kingdom of God.  Jesus is telling us that we need to reverse our order.  Instead of putting the kingdom of God last, Jesus commands us to put it first, and if we do that, if we prioritize giving to God’s kingdom, he makes a promise, “and all these things will be given to you as well.”  Do you know what “all these things” are?  They are all the stuff of life that we pursue to the neglect of God’s kingdom.  “All these things” is what we eat, where we live, what we wear.  It’s all the stuff that consumes the majority of our financial resources.

Essentially, Jesus is offering you and offering me a deal.  He’ll take care of our needs if we’ll prioritize His kingdom.  If we transfer our concern to what’s important to him, he will take responsibility for what is important to us.  Can you see the significance here?  Seeking him first with our money is an invitation for his intervention and involvement in the financial arena of our lives.

So what does this look like?  If you’re here this morning and you want to experience financial freedom.  You want to be the recipient of Jesus’ promise that “all these things will be added to you as well.”  If you want to know, what is the wise thing to do as it relates to my finances?  Then here’s how you do that:  You need to flip the order of what you do with your money:  You need to give first, save second, and live third.

Number 1:  You need to give first.  Since giving to God’s kingdom invites God into your finances then the first check you ought to write after you get paid is to support God’s kingdom.  I call this priority giving.  The first check we write should be to God’s kingdom.  It should be a priority.  This is how you seek first his kingdom with your money.  When you give first it’s like saying, “Heavenly Father, I want to make sure your kingdom is fully funded so I’m going to give to you first and then I’m going to live on the leftovers.”

Give before you spend.  But you ask, “how much?”  Jesus never gives us a percentage, but Jesus came from a tradition where a percentage was expected.  That percentage was called a tithe.  A tithe is 10 %.  10 % is a small price to pay to get God in the mix, besides, as I said earlier, it’s all His anyway.  But let me say this, maybe your unsure or unconvinced about 10 % or you think it might be too much of a stretch.  Well, then pick a lower percentage, start off with 1%, but make sure you choose a percentage.  It’s important that we are percentage givers.

Now some of you in here right now are really struggling financially.  Every month you can barely make the minimum payment on your credit cards.  And what you’re wondering is:  Should I wait to begin giving until after I’ve paid off all my debts?  Here’s my answer to that question:  Do you want God to help you now, or after you’ve paid off all your debt?  Remember, being generous is an invitation for God to get involved in your finances.  And what if, what if you were to prioritize giving, what if you were to commit to giving a percentage, right off the bat?  What could God do with your debt?  Don’t you think that the God who created the heavens and the earth just might be able to help out in the realm of your finances?

Give first.  Make giving a priority.  Give a percentage.  Some of you can and should give more than 10%.  And if you think I’m just after your money, then here’s my challenge:  Don’t give to Hub City.  Pick another church.  But give first.

Second:  What’s the wise thing to do once you have funded God’s kingdom?  Fund your own.  Save.  The second check you need to write every month is a check to yourself.  Specifically, you need to put some money in savings.  Again I would tell you to pick a percentage, even if it’s just 2 or 3 percent.  Pay yourself second.  You know this, but when you put money into savings, you take it out of circulation.  Circulating, easy to get to money quickly evaporates.  That’s why we rarely have any money left over to save at the end of the month.  So what is the wise thing to do?  Fund your future at the beginning of the month.

Third:  Live.  Finally, we get to the item that we usually do first.  Once you have given and saved then you get to live off the leftovers.

Now before you start throwing things at me and before you decide you’re never coming back here again let me ask you this:  What if you had been prioritizing this way for the past five years?  Think about how much money you would have saved.  Think of the extra cash you would have if you weren’t constantly juggling credit card bills.  What I’m sharing with you isn’t the easy thing to do, but it is the wise thing to do.

In light of your past experience, in light of your current circumstances, in light of your future hopes and dreams, isn’t it time for us to reprioritize our finances?

Let me tell you what I want you to do.  Try it out for three months.  Just three months.  Write your first check to God’s kingdom.  Write your second check to yourself and then live on the rest.  Give it three months and at the end of three months evaluate the results.  If you do this I believe that you will discover that God is true to his promise.  If you seek first his kingdom, if you walk wisely, then all the other things we have a tendency to worry about will be taken care of.

 

Fool Proof – week 3 – Time Bandits

Here’s the sermon transcript from this past Sunday.  I want to give credit to Andy Stanley for first introducing me to the truths in this sermon.

Well, here we are in part three of Fool Proof and I’d like to begin by making some of you very uncomfortable, and if this is your first time in church and you’ve already decided, “No matter what this guy says, I’m not going to do it.”  Well, here’s your first test.  I would like for all of us to take off our watches.  Take your watch off and please play along.  If someone next to you isn’t doing it then look at them like, “What’s up with you?”  Let’s all take our watches off, and now, this is the really uncomfortable part, I want you to put it someplace where you can’t see it during the entire sermon.  Now if you think that’s scary, I’m going to put mine where I can’t see it for the entire sermon.  How about that?  I know some of you have your cell phones, put those away where you can’t check.

This is what I want you to do:  For the next few minutes I want you to trust me with some of your time.  Because, what we’re going to talk about today is how we spend our time.

Now during the message, if you’re like most people, at some point, out of habit you will look at your empty wrist and be frustrated and you’ll be trying to find your watch and trying to peek, and that’s understandable, but my point in making you do that is to focus us on this subject because there is something more important than knowing what time it is.  What’s more important is knowing how you’re spending your time.  Many, many times during the day we check to see what time it is, but not enough times do we check to see how we’re spending our time.  So, the question for us is, how are we spending our time?

Now in this series what we’ve said is this:  The goal is to fool proof our lives.  The goal is to live our lives in such a way that we look back with very little or no regret.  And we’ve said that one of the things that helps us do that is by asking the best question of all.  And the best question of all is:  What is the wise thing to do?  Not, what is everybody else doing, not what is the moral thing, not what is the legal thing, not where is the line.  The question is, for me, not for everybody because we’re all different, the question is what is the wise thing to do?  We need to ask this question of every invitation, every opportunity, every time we spend money, in our profession, when we’ve got ethical or moral decisions to make, what is the wise thing to do?

And we’ve said we need to ask this question at different levels.  We’re to ask it this way:  In light of my past experience, what is the wise thing for me to do?  In light of my current circumstances, what is the wise thing for me to do?  In light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?  Remember, nobody has this unique combination of past, present and future that you do.  Which means, this is the grid through which I need to evaluate all of my personal decisions because I am unique and so are you.  What is the wise thing to do?

Now I don’t think there is any other area where this is possibly more important than in the arena of our time, maybe money, but we’ll talk about that next week.  But in terms of general places to apply this principle I can’t think of any more critical or any more central arena than our time.  Because your time equals your life, right?

See if people would watch me or watch you from a different planet they may assume that money and stuff equals life, but we know better than that.  Really, our time equals our life.  You can run out of stuff, but still have some life left.  But you can’t run out of time and still have life left.  When your time is over, your life is over.  Therefore, our time equals our life.

And basically you’re like me, you look back at different stages of your life and you ask yourself, “What did I do with my time?” Liz and I look back and wonder, “What did we do with all of our time before we had kids?  What were we doing with all that extra time?  I should have a PhD.  We should have more money in the bank.  We could have had 3 jobs a piece.  I mean, if I could take all the time we spend on our kids and all the money we spend on our kids, I look back and think, “Where did all that time go?”  But I don’t have an answer for that.

Some of you are single, and I promise you you’re going to one day look back on this period of your life, and some of you are thinking I want to be looking back soon, but one day you’ll be looking back on this situation and think, “What did I do with my time?  I don’t think I’ve got anything to show for it.  I’ve got an education.  I may have saved a few bucks, and I downloaded a few thousand songs, but it seems to me when I look back at all that time, I should have done something with it.”

At some point we’re going to look back and wonder, “Where did it go?”  And essentially we’re asking this:  Where did my life go?  Where did my 20’s go?  Why don’t I have more to show from my 30’s?  Why don’t I have more to show from my 40’s?  What was I doing with my time/with my life?  That’s when we discover, looking back, that the most important question is not what time is it?  That’s easy.  The more important question would be:  What am I doing with my time?

And to help us figure that out we need to begin asking this question:  In light of my past experience, current circumstances and future hopes and dreams, what is the wisest way to spend, invest my time.

Now I want us to look at five statements about time this morning, and maybe you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, or you’re not religious, or you’ve got questions or you don’t know what you believe but you’re just here because somebody drug you here.  This is a great Sunday to be here because 80% of this sermon is somewhat intuitive and you’ll shake your head and go “yeah, I can agree with that,” then in a few minutes we’re going to look at an incredibly relevant verse of Scripture that says something about time that I think we’ll all be able to latch on to.  Because the good news is your heavenly father, who gave you the moments and minutes and hours and weeks and years that you live, you’re heavenly father, who’s given you an allotment of time, cares very much how you spend/waste/invest your time.

But I want you to fill in some blanks and take a few notes.  And the reason I did this is because I want you to have something that you can take home and review.  This is something you can teach in your office and will go “Wow, he’s smart, or she was really helpful.”  I learned this from somebody else.  You can take credit for it, in fact, you can improve it and take credit for it.  Now I’m going to give you some statements so we can figure out how to make wise use of our time. So here we go:

Number 1:  There is a cumulative value in investing small amounts of time in certain activities over a long period. The most obvious illustration of this is in the realm of exercise, right?  There is a cumulative value in exercising for twenty minutes a day or every other day.  That at the end of six months or a year you can look back and go, wow.  No  one 20 minute period of time made that much of a difference, but the cumulative value of all of those periods of exercise stretched over months or stretched over years, boy there’s incredible value to that.

The same is true in terms of practicing something.  If you’re trying to learn an instrument, or you’re trying to perfect your golf swing.  You know that a little bit of time every week or every few days for six months or a year drastically improves your ability in that certain area.  There is a cumulative value to little bits of time invested along the way over a period of time.

Same is true in your marriage:  That a little bit of investment every day, in terms of time, over time there’s a cumulative value.  Same with kids, investing a few minutes a day with your kids.  In your spiritual life, a few minutes a day with your heavenly father, a few minutes a day in prayer, being involved in a Hub group every week, serving on a regular basis, there is a cumulative value to certain things in life.  That at the end six months, at the end of a year, at the end of three or four years our lives have been enriched.  Not because of any one event.  Not because of any one hour of time, but because of the cumulative value over a period of time.

Now the interesting thing about this is that there is actually very little value at all in any one of those deposits, right?  I mean, exercising one time is only going to make you sore.  Eating dinner with your family once in a week and then ignoring them for three or four months, there’s no cumulative value in that one dinner.  The same is true having one quiet time or going to church only once a year.  In fact, if you are a once or twice a year church person, I can understand why you wouldn’t come back because if you only come once or twice a year then there’s not really much to take from one or two church visits a year.

Number 1:  There is a cumulative value in investing small amounts of time in certain activities over a long period.

Number 2:  Neglect has a cumulative effect as well. Isn’t that true?  Neglect has a cumulative effect as well.  If you set a goal to neglect your marriage for a year, you write on a card, “I will neglect my marriage every day, well there may be some exceptions, but at least five days a week, I will neglect my marriage.”  If that was your goal, neglect has a cumulative effect as well.  At the end of three months or six months, possibly six days, there would be an effect, right?  It’s not a value, it’s not something we want, but there’s an effect.

If you decide, “I’m going to ignore my health for a solid year.  That’s my New Year’s resolution.  I’m just going to neglect my health completely.”  At the end of that year you would have something to show for it, wouldn’t you?  There would be an effect.  Now this is very important.  We are going somewhere with this.  Neglect your children.  At the end of the year there would be an effect.  If you’re in college:  Neglect your school work and at the end of the semester there is going to be an effect.  The point is this:  Neglecting any of the important arenas of life, that is, not giving them those time deposits over a long period of time, there is an effect there as well.  It wouldn’t necessarily be something we value, but at the end of that time you would have something to show for it.  There would be something there or there would be something missing.

Number 3:  There are rarely immediate consequences for neglecting single installments of time in any particular arena of life. And this is what’s so deceiving:  There are rarely any immediate consequences for neglecting single installments of time.  This is why it’s so easy for us to miss our exercise routine, right?  “Oh, I’m not going to run tomorrow.  I’m not going to work out this morning.”  And you know what, you don’t work out one day, it’s no big deal.  You get off your diet one day, no big deal.  You skip one class, no big deal.  You miss one dinner with your family because you have to work late, no big deal.  Any single installment of time isn’t that big of a deal.  Unless it’s a birthday or an anniversary, this one thing isn’t really all that important.  Nothing comes apart.  The wheels don’t fall off.  Your marriage doesn’t fall apart.  There is no one event that is so strategic that if we miss it there’s a huge consequence.

But this is how we talk ourselves out of things all the time, isn’t it?  “Oh, that doesn’t matter.  It’s just once, it’s no big deal.”

Number 4:  Here’s where this principle starts to get really focused and we can begin to understand the significance of this.  Number 4:  There is no cumulative value in the urgent things we allow to interfere with what’s most important. Here’s what I mean by that:  For all of you who decided last year or last week that you were going to exercise regularly, and you haven’t.  I mean, you signed up at the gym.  You bought a treadmill.  You got the whole library of PX90 on DVD.  You announced to everyone what you were going to do.  I mean, this was your year.  The year of health.  Your remember that?  You’re going, “Yeah, why did you bring that up?”  But you remember that.  And you haven’t done it.  If I were to sit down with you one on one and ask you this question it would be hard for you to answer.  What if I asked, “What did you do instead?”  “Um, I don’t know, I just didn’t.  All I know is what I didn’t do, not what I did do.”  “Well think about it.  Did you sleep in a few mornings?”  “Yeah, that’s it.  I got a few extra hours of sleep.  Well, actually I didn’t because I stayed up two extra hours, so I really lost an hour of sleep.”  “Well, what else did you do?”  “I read the newspaper.”  Good.  What else did you do?  “Um, on a few mornings I had breakfast with some friends.”  So here’s the point:  You stack up over here all the stuff that you did instead of exercising, and if you add it all up you know what you end up with?  It all adds up to zero.  There is no and there is never any cumulative value to all the things we do instead of things we know are important.

This is true for spending time with your kids.  The same is true in dating your wife if you’re married.  The same is true in practicing to learn an instrument or a sport.  Instead of all the time practicing, what did you do instead of practice?  “I don’t know.  I don’t even know what I did.  The time’s gone, but I don’t have anything to show for the time.  If I spend 30 minutes a day or four hours a week I would have something to show for the time.  But you see, there is no cumulative value to the urgent things that take the place of the important things.

This is why all of us look back on some period of our life and ask, “Where did it go?  Why don’t I have anything to show for it?”  Did you know that there is incredible cumulative value to spending time daily in this book and praying?  There is incredible cumulative value in that.  For those of you who want to start having a quiet time or start reading your Bible or start spending some time alone with God, but you haven’t.  If I were to ask you what you did instead and you were to add up all the what you did instead, there’s nothing to show for that, especially when compared to what could be true inside of you if in fact that had been the five or ten or fifteen minute habit of every morning of your life.  There is often no cumulative value in the urgent things that replace the important things.  That’s why we look back with regret.

All of our time gets spent.  You can’t save up your time.  It all gets spent, but it hasn’t been used in such a way as to bring maximum value to our life.

There is no cumulative value when we let the urgent things replace the important things.  That’s just a principle.  It’s true whether you believe it or not.  That why how we use our time is so incredibly important.

Number 5:  In the critical arenas of life, you cannot make up for lost time. In the critical arenas of life, you cannot make up for lost time.  Whereas in school you can pull an all nighter and pass a test, in the critical arenas of life there are no all-nighters.  You cannot cram for a relationship with your kids.  You cannot cram for a relationship with your spouse.  You cannot cram for a relationship with your heavenly father.  You cannot cram and be in shape physically and healthy.  You just can’t.  The important areas of life require small deposits all along the way and if you miss those opportunities you cannot make up for them.

We’ve all done this physically at one time or another.  You ever been through one of those seasons when you haven’t exercised for a long time and you’re going to make up for it?  So you have like a four hour workout.  And you’re smart enough to know, this isn’t the way to do this.  But there’s something in you that causes you think, “I’m going to punish myself for all those weeks I missed and somehow I’m going to run so far, do twice the amount of weights, run 12 miles, I’m going to go so hard that my body is somehow going to make up for that lost time.  How dumb?  We end up hurting ourselves.  We can’t move for days.  So you miss more days of exercise.  Then you think, “I don’t even like exercise.  It hurts.”

But isn’t it true that there’s something in us that thinks:  I can make up for lost time.  But here’s the truth:  In the key, important arenas of life you cannot make up for lost time.

If you neglect your marriage for 5 or 6 months or longer, a weekend a way will not make up for it.  I don’t care how many flowers you bring.  I don’t care how much romance you intend.  You just can’t make up for lost time relationally.  You say, “Well I haven’t been to church in three months, so after we’re done here today I’m going to go to three different church services.

Now I know I’m being silly, but this is why this is so critical:  All of us are at a stage in our life, you may be a teenager, you may be a college student, you may be single, you may be a newlywed, you may be married with young kids, you may be married with teenagers, you could be divorced and remarried with a blended family, but we’re in all different stages and these stages are temporary.  They’re all temporary.  So here’s the deal:  If we are not making the daily, every other day, weekly deposits, then we cannot make up for the cumulative value we lose in the future.  It is gone forever.  And yes, you can always start and do the from-here-on-out.  That’s important.  Hopefully, today will be a for-here-on-out for some of you in certain arenas of life.  But you cannot make up for lost time in key areas.  It’s worth trying sometime.  It’s worth sending more flowers and writing more letters and doing double duty from here on out.  But that’s all an investment in the future.  You can’t really make up for lost time because in the key areas of life there is a cumulative value in small weekly, daily, monthly deposits along the way.

Now probably nobody here would argue with that.  Maybe my applications don’t suit you, but you don’t have to be a spiritual person or a Christian to agree with what I’ve said.  It’s like “duh”.  But here’s the deal.  We as Christians believe that the Bible teaches that God has numbered our days.  In other words, there are a certain number of days that I get and I don’t know what it is.  And in these numbers of days God wants me to get maximum impact out of my life because he wants me to live my life in a way that reflects well on him.  And wasting my time, throwing my time away and chasing all the urgent things in life is not a way to maximize my life and maximize my time and it’s not for you.  And none of us want to do that anyway.

Since your heavenly father knows that your days are numbered and wants you to get maximum impact relationally and spiritually and professionally out of your life.  What would you expect him to say in light of this truth that we’ve just unpacked about time and the way we use our time?  You would expect him to be pretty direct.  And so, in fact, he is.

And so today, I want us to look back at the passage that we began this series with.

Ephesians 5:15  This is what the Apostle Paul says and we’ll put it up on the screen for you in case you didn’t bring a Bible.  And it’s so interesting, of all the areas that Paul could have chosen to apply this whole idea of wisdom, he chose to apply it to this specific arena of our time.  Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, (And then look at his application.  He could have gone to morality.  He could have gone to parenting.  He could have gone to our spiritual lives.  But look what he says.) making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

That little phrase, making the most of every opportunity, literally means to “redeem the time” which means to get maximum value.  It’s a word that’s used in accounting contexts in the first century.  Get maximum value, that is:  Squeeze everything you can out of every moment you live.  Get maximum value out of your time.  Take every opportunity to wring value out of your time.  And if you’re not wise, the implication is, that won’t happen.  Remember the phrase, because the days are evil.  That is, you and I live in a time, and we talked about this a few weeks ago, but we live in a day and age where if we allow it to, the urgency of life will steal our time.  We’ll spend all of our time doing all of the urgent things and we’ll miss the opportunity to invest in those things that are most important.  We’ll miss the opportunity to give the daily, the weekly, the 10 minute, the 30 minute deposits of time to the relationships that are most important and we’ll miss out on the potential cumulative value of getting to the end of our 20’s or our 30’s or our 40’s or our 50’s and saying, “Wow, look how richer I am relationally, look at how much richer I am spiritually, look at how much richer I am professionally, not because of a day, not because of a moment, not because of a 4 hour workout, but because I made the incremental deposits all along the way.

Redeem the time.  Get maximum value.  Take advantage of every opportunity.  Because if you don’t, we live in a day and age, we live in evil times when the urgency of things around us will steal our time and will use it all up.  We will just be very, very busy and not have anything to show for it.  Redeem the time.

So think about the best question ever:  What is the wise thing for you to do with your time?  In light of your past, your present and your future hopes and dreams, what’s the wise way to invest your time?  In light of your past, your present and your future, what do you need to stop doing?  Not because it’s bad, that’s why this whole principle is so valuable, not because it’s bad, but because it’s robbing from you the opportunity to make those incremental investments into what is most important.  It’s robbing you of the cumulative value of doing the right thing, the right number of times.

What’s the wise thing to do?  In light of your past experience, let’s talk about that:  In light of your past experience what is the wise thing to do?  Some of you grew up in homes that were incredible homes.  Your family was perfect growing up.  Everything was kind-of wonderful and you look back on your family life, you look back on how your parents prioritized, and you are reaping the results of the cumulative value of those deposits of time, but as you look at the way you are conducting your family and your marriage you realize that you’re not following in their example.  And in light of your past experience you know how you ought to be conducting yourself.  You know how you should be conducting relationships.  In light of your past….  Some of you came out of homes that were highly dysfunctional.  Everybody’s gone.  Everybody’s fragmented.  Everybody’s off in 20 different directions, and you look at your own family and realize that is how it is with you.  And you know where that leads.  You know that’s not the kind of family you want to have.  You know that doesn’t lead to the kind of relationships that you want to have.  You’ve seen where that goes.  You know what that does to you on the inside.  So in light of your past experience, what’s the wise thing to do now with how you allot your time?

Let’s ask it about now?  In light of what’s going on right now, how do you need to spend your time?  In light of what’s going on right now in your current responsibilities what do you need to stop doing?  What do you need to begin doing on a daily basis, a monthly basis?  What do you need to do to begin to develop that investment into things that matter for a lifetime?  Cause here’s the deal, you’re at a specific stage of life, you won’t always be in college, you won’t always be a newlywed, you won’t always have kids in diapers, you won’t always have teenagers, in other words, whatever stage of life you are in right now, this is a very narrow stage of life.  So in light of what you have going on right now, what’s the wisest way to spend your time?  Where do you need to make incremental investments so there is value down the road?  In light of what’s going on right now, I have to ask and you have to ask, what is the wise thing to do in how we spend our time?  What needs to be taken out, what needs to be put in?  What will we look back and wish we had done?  What will we look back and never regret?

And then there’s the future, in light of your future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do with your time?  In light of where you want to be relationally, in light of where you want to be spiritually, in light of where you want to be professionally, in light of where you want to be financially, in light of where you want to be physically, in light of the picture that you have in your mind of what you want the future to look like, what is the wise thing to do with your time?

As you evaluate what you want in the future, what has the potential to rob you of the cumulative value so that now, because of the future, the answer is no.  Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s really not the wise thing for me to do with my time.

Remember, there are some chunks of time, there are some investments, there are some areas of neglect that you can’t ever go back and make up completely for.

Let’s go ahead and get our watches back.  And as you’re putting your watch on I want you to remember that it’s not important what time it is, it’s important what you do with your time.

Here’s what I want you to do.  I’m going to put four words on the screen and in your notes there are five lines under the fill in the blank thing that you did.  I want you to write these words as small as you can because I’m going to ask you to add something to it in a minute.  I want you to write these four words:  Physically, relationally, professionally, spiritually.  And as you’re writing them down let me give you your assignment.  As we end I’m going to give you exactly one minute to write down one thing you could begin doing in each of these areas.  One thing you could begin doing in each of these areas that you believe would have a positive cumulative effect on your future.

In other words, what could you do physically, that if you’d just do it every day, every few days, every week, that in six months or a year you would look back and say “that was a great investment of my time.”  What could you begin doing relationally?  It could be with the person you date, it could be a best friend, a child, a spouse.  What could you begin doing on a regular basis, just a small investment of time daily, weekly, monthly that you believe would have cumulative value in the future?  What could you do in the same way professionally?  And then what could you do spiritually?  Or it might be what could you continue doing, because some of you look at these and go, “I’ve got two of these right, but I’m struggling with the other two.”  And some of you look at these and go, “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”  What could you do in each of these areas that if you were to do it consistently there would be cumulative value over an extended period of time?

Remember this, the big question isn’t what time is it?  It’s what are you doing with your time?  And would you have the courage to ask, “Heavenly father, give me the wisdom to know how to invest my time.”

 

Fool Proof Week 2: Musical Chairs

We started this series a two weeks ago that we’re calling Fool Proof and we said that the one thing we all have in common, no matter what our backgrounds, the one thing we all have in common is that we’ve all done some dumb stuff.  Money we shouldn’t have borrowed, people we shouldn’t have gotten into a relationship with, somebody you shouldn’t have married, leased things we should have ever leased, a car you shouldn’t have ever bought, jobs you should have never taken… we look back and wonder, how could I have been so stupid, how could I have been such a fool?

And we said that since that’s the case and all of us wish we could go back and unmake or remake certain chapters in our lives, that if there’s a God, and I believe there is, then in some way shape or form he should address this whole idea of decision making.  And we discovered that he has.  Our God, who loves us enough to send his son to die for us, has given us a way to fool proof our lives.

We discovered that the way to fool proof our lives is to ask the best question ever.  A question that, if we would ask at every level and arena of life, a question that if we would ask over every invitation, opportunity and relationship, it’s a question that has the potential to fool proof our lives: The way we parent our kids, the way we handle our money, the way we date, the way we do our marriage the way we manage our time, this question has the potential to fool proof our life.  And the question is:  What is the, not the right thing, not the moral thing, not the permissible thing, not the legal thing, not the culturally relevant thing, but what for me, not for everybody, but for me, what is the wise thing to do?

In light of my past experience, what is the wise thing to do?  In light of my current circumstances, what is the wise thing to do?  In light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?  In light of my past experience, current circumstances, future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do relationally?  What’s the wise thing to do financially?  What’s the wise thing to do with how I date?  What’s the wise thing to do with how I parent?  What is the wise thing to do?

And we discovered that this question has the potential to penetrate through the lies we tell ourselves.  This question has the potential to penetrate through the lies we’re fed by culture.  This question has the potential to become a grid through which we can evaluate all of life.

And most of us know that if we’d been asking that question all along, most of our lives would be different and our lives would be better!  So instead of asking what is moral, what is permissible, what is legal, instead I want you to ask the best question of all:  What is the wise thing to do?

In light of my past experience, current circumstances, in light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing, not for everybody, but what is the wise thing for me to do?

That’s different from asking is it wrong.  That’s different from asking is it right.

Think about it: What is the wise thing to do when it comes to spending money?  What is the wise thing to do when it comes to using credit cards or financing that 42” flat screen?  What is the wise thing to do when it comes to your dating relationships?  Like, when you think about how far is too far and going just far enough to still be safe, in that you didn’t actually go all the way, is that the wise thing to do?

Now, when I asked those questions about the money thing and the sex thing you probably had one of three responses.  I brought those questions up to kind of provoke you a little bit, because you had one of these three responses.

One response is:  I don’t really want to talk about that.  It’s all going to work out.  I’m not going to file for bankruptsy, I’m not going to get anyone pregnant, it’s no big deal.  You’re over reacting.  That’s one response.

The other response is:  Jonathan, I hear what you’re saying, and I’m old enough and smart enough to know you’re right that I need to ask this question, but I’ve just got to be honest with you this morning.  I just don’t care.  I’m not going to argue with you because no matter what you say I’m going to do what I want to do.  And Jonathan, I’d acknowledge that some of the stuff I’m doing probably isn’t leading me in the right direction, and I even realize that there might be some consequences.  But I’ve got to tell you that right now, I don’t really care.  I know where this may go, but I don’t really care.

Then there’s a third category, and there’s probably not too many of these people here because these people don’t normally go to church on a Sunday morning and they say this:  “You know what, that’s exactly what I would expect from a preacher who’s hogging the microphone.  You are so narrow minded and people like you are dangerous to this country because you want to impose your morality and your standards on everybody else, so I’m telling you to keep your nose out of my bedroom and my wallet.”  See, it’s not enough for you to say, “I’m going to do what I want to do.”  There’s something in you that wants to preach me a little sermon.  There’s something that you’ve just got to say because not only do you think I’m narrow minded, you think I’m stupid for even asking the question.

Now here’s the amazing thing, this book that some of us read, this book that was written by 40 different people over several thousand years of time, this book gives in detail a description of the three types of people that I’ve just described.  In other words, this book says, “If you’re not going to ask what is the wise thing to do, then you’re going to find yourself in one of three chairs this morning.”

In the book of Proverbs, Solomon says that other than the wise person there are three other types of people.  There’s the naïve, the fool and the scoffer.  The naïve, the fool and the scoffer.  And throughout the book he talks about what to expect from them, what to do to them, how they act, and what ultimately happens for those that continue to sit in one of these three seats:  the naïve, and the other word for naïve is simple, the fool, and the scoffer, or in your translation maybe it says the mocker.

So this morning I want to talk about these three and then I’m going to ask you, “where do you sit?”  Now I’ll just let you know, if you sit in this middle one you don’t really care.  And if you sit in this seat you’re going to get really mad and you’re going to want to write me an email and express yourself.  And if you’re sitting in this high chair you’re going to think I’m an overreactive parent.  Now all of us have sat in each of these seats at one time or another as we’re going to see, so don’t freak out.

Let’s talk about the naïve person first.  Now, if you’re a naïve person you will not admit it.  I’ve never met anyone who says, “You know my problem?  I’m just naïve.”  Because by the time you figure it out you won’t be it anymore.  So this is a difficult category to talk about, but let me tell you who you are.  If you’re in school, specifically middle school or high school or you’re a freshman in college, you’re naïve.  And I know it sounds like an insult to say that you’re naïve, it’s not an insult.  Everybody comes into this world naïve.  According to the Bible, what the naïve person lacks is experience.  You can’t have but so much experience by the time you’re 17 years old.  This is not a put down.  But it sounds so much like a put down that very few people are willing to look in the mirror and admit that they are naïve and respond accordingly.  The naïve person lacks experience, so consequently they think they can figure life out on their own.  The naïve person just lacks experience, and when some wise person speaks into your life you think they’re way overreacting.

The passage that is clearest about the naïve person is found in Proverbs 7, but let me tell you about these verses for a minute.  This is a passage where a wise man is standing at the window of his house and he sees a naïve person walking down the street and he knows the direction this naïve person is walking in.  This naïve person is walking to that part of town where the prostitutes come out at night.  And this wise man is watching this, and he knows what is going to happen, but he knows the naïve person doesn’t know what’s going to happen.  The naïve guy is thinking to himself, “this is going to be great.  This is going to be something I cherish.  This is something that I’ll just love to have in my past.”  And the wise man is looking out the window saying you are naïve.

⁶ At the window of my house I looked out through the lattice.  ⁷ I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who lacked judgment.  ⁸ He was going down the street near her corner, walking along in the direction of her house…

And he goes on and describes what happens, but you can read it later.  It’s kind of an R-rated part of the Bible.  But the naïve guy is thinking this is going to be great, but the wise man is thinking, “you have no idea,” and at the end of the passage is says, Like an ox to the slaughter he goes.

You know why?  Because at certain times in our lives we lack experience, we lack judgement.  This is why college freshman get so many credit card applications in the mail.  Because credit card companies know that they will fill them out.  And the reason that they will fill them out is because they are naïve in the ways of credit.  An 18, 19, 20 year old has never woken up one day to understand they have 20 or 30 or 40 thousand dollars of debt.  They’ve never known what it was like to declare bankrupsy.  And the credit card companies know that, so they bombard them with credit card applications.  They are naïve.  It’s just part of being young.  It’s not a putdown.

We’re all born naïve.  That’s why we sometimes think that sleeping around or having sex before your married is ok.  Or you’re not going to have sex but get as close as you can without actually doing the deal.  And here’s why you think that.  You’re naïve.  You’ve never been 30 years old before and looked back on a bunch of memories you wish you could erase.  You’ve never met the guy you want to spend the rest of your life with and hope he doesn’t ask too many questions.  You’ve never met the girl you want to spend the rest of your life with and have to lie to her in order to kick that relationship off.  You’ve never looked into the eyes of your kids when they ask, “when you were 17…?”  You’ve never had that experience.  So of course you would be naïve.  You can’t help it.  But it’s because of our naivete that we don’t listen and we think everyone else is overreacting.

Now you know what the solution to the naïve person is?  It’s difficult, but there’s a solution.  Here’s the solution:  It’s to say to your heavenly father, “Even though I don’t understand, and even though I don’t agree, and even though I think you’re overreacting, I’m going to trust you.  And even if everybody else thinks I’m an idiot, I believe that you’re God and that you’re smarter than me, and I’m going to trust you.

And any naïve person who has the courage to say that will have God as their coach and their tutor through those years of being naïve.

The second category we’re going to talk about is the fool.  And I’ll sit here because I’ve sat here before.  The fool says “I know the difference between right and wrong, but to be honest with you, I just don’t care.  I read the warning label, but I don’t care.  I’ll just deal with the consequences.”

The Bible, in Proverbs 10 says that the fool finds pleasure in evil as if it’s a sport.  Look at this:  Proverbs 10:23 says A fool finds pleasure in evil conduct, but a man of understanding delights in wisdom.  That is, the fool finds that sitting in this chair and doing whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it, gives them such good pleasure that it’s almost like doing wrong is a sport.  “I don’t care, I can handle the consequences.”

The Bible says, and I know this is kind of gross, but it makes the point in an extreme way.  It says that a fool is like a dog that keeps coming back to its own vomit.  Have you ever seen your dog eat its own vomit?  Unfortunately I’ve seen that.  And the writer of proverbs says that, “As I have watched the fool, the best description I can come up with is this:  As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to his folly.  That is, he keeps doing the same things over and over and over and he knows there are consequences but they keep on doing it.

And if you try to discipline them or if you try to warn them they just ignore you.  The fool already knows what’s going to happen, but they just don’t care.

Do you know what the Bible says is the way for a fool to change?  The Bible says, that generally speaking, the only way for a fool to change is for them to face the full consequences of their decisions.  Warnings don’t work, threats don’t work.  It’s only when the wheels start to come off and things start to fall apart that they finally stand up and say, “I’ve had it.”  They have to learn the hard way.

And if you’re here today and you’re a fool, here’s what you’re thinking:  “You’re probably right.”

But let me say something to those of you who find yourselves sitting in this chair that you need to think about.  The Bible also says that the companion of fools suffers harm.  Not just the fool, the companion.  That is the wife, the husband, the kids, the partner, the employees, the friends, the companion of fools suffers harm.

So for a fool to continue to sit here and say “I understand, but I don’t care,” what you’re doing is you’re setting everybody who’s close to you up for a world of hurt.  And many of you have experienced this.  Maybe you came from a broken home and you grew up watching your mom or dad sit in this seat for years and years and they refused to change and refused to do anything and refused to dodge the consequences and you’re dealing with it as an adult today.  Because the companion, the wife, the husband, the kids, the roommate of the fool suffers harm.

That’s why, at the end of this message, if you say, “You know what, this is me in certain areas.”  Here’s what you need to understand.  At the end of the day, it’s not just you facing the consequences of your foolishness.  It’s everybody around you.  The companion of fools suffers harm.

The third category is the mocker or the scoffer.  The scoffer is just like the fool in that the scoffer knows the difference between right and wrong and like the fool they’ve chosen to do whatever they want to do.  The difference is that the scoffer has chosen to be critical of everyone who’s chosen to do the right thing.

This person is clueless (highchair).  This person could care-less (stool).  And this person is critical (thone).

And if you try to discipline a fool they’ll just ignore you, but if you try and discipline a scoffer they will hate you, and they will criticize you, and they will make fun of your standards and make fun of your Christianity and make fun of your morality and verbally assault you.  They see themselves as the judge and jury of everybody else in the world and they consider it their privilege and right to pass judgement on anyone who doesn’t agree with them.  And when you’re around a person like this you’re on pens and needles because you never know what they’re going to say.  You never know how they’re going to judge you.  If you’re in a relationship with someone like this then it is a miserable environment.  Because through their criticism they control the environement and keep everybody off balance.

The writer of Proverbs says there’s no cure for the mocker or scoffer.  And the only thing you can do with a person who sits in this chair is to drive them out of your midst.  You can’t discipline them.  You can reprove them, because they’ll prove you wrong.  They are oftentimes unapproachable.  And just like the fool, as they continue to face the consequences of their decisions they drag down and destroy those that are closest to them.

Now you may be asking, “What do you mean Jonathan, are you saying there’s no forgiveness or no grace?”  No way.  All I’m saying is this:  when you sit in one of these three chairs your propensity will be to discount wise counsel because you lack experience (highchair).  Your propensity will be to discount wise counsel because you don’t really care (stool).  It’s not that God doesn’t love you and that he’s not going to give you a second and third and fourth chance.  It’s just that you’re going to reject those chances because you just don’t care.  And it’s not the God doesn’t love and hasn’t sent his son to die for the mockers, it’s just that you don’t want any of that.  You don’t want to surrender to anybody.  And anybody that talks about that you’re just going to tear up because you have your mind made up.  It’s not that grace isn’t available, it’s that it’s almost impossible to receive grace as long as you sit in one of these three chairs.

But here’s the deal, eventually every one of these three people come to a place where they need wisdom.  But here’s the tragedy, because of the nature of each of these seats, when these people need wisdom the most, they will not be able to find it.  It will be invisible to them.  When they need wisdom the most, wisdom won’t be found.

And we’ve seen this.  Smart, gifted people make some of the dumbest decisions possible.

Let me read it to you the way Solomon wrote it.  Solomon personified wisdom as if wisdom were a woman who came to a town and walked through the streets of the town saying, “will anybody listen?”  Naïve, will you accept that maybe you don’t know everything?  Hey fool, would you accept the fact that the consequences you are facing aren’t something you can manage?  Scoffer, would you be quiet and just listen and acknowledge that you don’t have all the answers?  I’m walking the street.  Will anyone listen to me?  Here’s how he writes it.  Proverbs 1

²⁰ Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares;

²¹ at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech:

²² “How long will you simple ones love your simple ways?  How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?

²³ If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you.

²⁴ But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand,

²⁵ since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke,

²⁶ I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you-

²⁷ when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

²⁸ “Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me.

²⁹ Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD,

³⁰ since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke,

³¹ they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.

³² For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them;

³³ but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”

Where are you sitting this morning?  It may not be in every arena of life, but maybe in one or two areas… “nothing’s going to happen to me (highchair),” “it’ll happen, but I’ll just deal with it (stool),” “Don’t you bring it up again (throne).”  Where are you sitting?

You don’t have to allow it to destroy you.  You don’t have to face the full consequence.  And you don’t have to be so alienated from wisdom that you can’t find it when you need it.

It is very difficult to get up from any of these seats because none of us wants anybody telling us what to do.  But God says to us, if you quit trusting in your own heart then I will deliver you.  You know where it begins?  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  It begins by us acknowledging that God is God and you are not, that God is in charge and you are not, you’re smart, we’re not as smart.  First thing to do is confess:  I’m naïve, I’m a fool, I’m a scoffer.  And the second thing is to ask the question from this point on:  What is the wise thing to do?  In light of my past experience, current circumstance and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?  And third, you’ve got to do it.  Where do you sit?  Where do you want to sit?

 

Stories from Year One

Here’s a collection of stories from Year One at Hub City Church.  Stories are important to us.  These are stories that need to be told.  They tell about God working in the lives of his people.  Read, reflect, comment and let the story continue.

Jacob’s Story,

Indecisive… Give any of my friends one bad quality to apply to my personality and that’s what you will get. I am notorious for not being able to make everyday-not-a-big-deal decisions, much less important ones.
(I’m getting to how Hub City helped I promise
So me, the indecisive kid, comes to a pivotal and big decision making time in his life. That time right around 18 when you have to figure out what college you wanna go to, what you want to do with your life, you know the whole deal. So as I start trying to make these decisions I begin to realize that I can’t figure anything out. I have no clue what I want to do with my life, therefore I have no clue what major to choose, therefore I have no clue what college is ideal for me, therefore I can’t make a decision on a college, and therefore I envision myself being an indecisive 35 year old that still lives with his parents and owns, um lets say at least 8 cats; nothing crazy, just 8.
So now I have a lot of pressure on my shoulders and I start becoming very overwhelmed and feel helpless. I know that I love music and would love to use it for God’s glory but there’s no degree that could guarantee me a job doing that. If it was bound to happen it was bound to happen. College is really more of a practical thing; well maybe I can figure at least one thing out huh? :/
Okay so I’ve found myself at an overwhelming point of having no clue how loving music and not knowing what to major in is going to work out in my life. So God does his thing and brings along the church we’ve all come to love, Hub City.
God began using Hub City as kind of a guiding/ hope factor in my life. God used Hub City to begin speaking to me in various ways, and also began to show me how my love of music and not knowing what to do with it did not mean I was hopeless.
He placed me in a position to become a part of the praise band at Hub City. And to use my love of music to assist in bringing glory to him. Because of this I’ve learned that God does have a plan for us and there truly is a method to it if you step back and look at how it all has worked out.
So… in a nut shell, God has used Hub City Church to show me that my future is not hopeless, that I can be of some use in this world just by doing the things that I love, and ultimately that I have a good chance of NOT owning 8 cats and still holding residence with my parents at age 35.
So thank you Hub City for giving me that hope of not being a Cat Man. Ha-ha. I’ll let you know how my story all works out. The serious and even the funny parts of it.

A.J. Hicks

-  Well a couple of friends told me about it so I figured I would check it out.  I saw it was in a movie theater and was like Whoa! That’s different.  I found out it really was different.  I loved the service and really felt welcome.  I never really enjoyed going to my parent’s church because it was so huge and people had their own clicks/groups and never really branched out.  I battled cancer for 2 and a half years (only knowing about it during the last 6 months)  and had a fear that people would look at me differently…Hub City never did.  I have been able to grow so much in the Lord thanks to Hub City and love going every Sunday.  Thanks Hub City! You Rock!

Jaimee Holmes

So I should have been on here in the middle of the night last night blogging about the thoughts that were keeping me up… but now my brain is numb from the fatigue of having tried to fight off the circular thinking that refused to let me sleep. It just didn’t seem right somehow to be up writing at 2:30am, however now that I try to do it with the kids all dancing jigs around me… I do see some logic in the idea! So thanks God! Just maybe next time be a little more forceful? LoL

I was mostly thinking of how things were when we first came to Hub City Church last year… the events that brought us there and some of the changes that have taken place this last year. When I got to the point (around 4:00am) of thinking about what comes next… that’s when I got the Melatonin out and compelled myself to stop thinking!

You probably noticed that the title of my blog is “Scattered Seed” and that there is a scripture reference to the left with the passage about the scattered seed. There is a story behind that story for me, important enough for me to want to remind myself of it every time I get on here to type about my thoughts on life… It reminds me of where I have been and how I got to where I am.

The story from the Bible (in a very small nutshell) goes something like this: A farmer scatters some seed on the ground. Some lands on the road and is eaten by birds, some lands in the gravel and withered in the sun because it hadn’t put down roots, some fell in the weeds and was strangled before it produced anything, and some fell on the good soil and produced more than the farmer could have imagined. Then Jesus goes on to explain what that means: the seed is The Word. Some people are like the hard soil of the road… Satan picks up the seed before it has a chance to take root. Some are like the rocks… the soil is shallow and when difficult times come, they have nothing to show for it. Some are like the weeds and are choked out by the cares and worries of the world. But the seed sown in good dirt is those who hear the Word, embrace it and produce a great harvest.

At one of our very first Hub Group meetings, this was the story that was told. And the only question I remember was “What kind of soil do you identify with, and what is God telling you to do about it?” I think it was one of those times where we all just look around the room and hope nobody calls on us? I just had this overwhelming feeling that God wanted me to speak up, and for probably the first time ever, I did and was completely honest. Before I said anything, I told God that I would be open, on purpose, from that moment on, no matter what the outcome was. I can’t remember if I said my heart was like the hard soil or the rocks or the weeds… But I did not have an answer for what God wants me to do about it. I felt so hopeless. I had grown so calloused and closed off from The Church, and had not allowed myself to really learn from anyone or do anything to make myself vulnerable… it had affected not only how I related with other people, but it also had decreased my sensitivity to God. I had been living a life of trying to be good enough, trying to please God, and fearing the consequences if I didn’t. I didn’t have a real relationship with anyone, not even my husband, and saying out loud to this group of complete strangers who I didn’t know, didn’t trust… that my heart was not soft, not good soil, and that I had no idea what the heck I was supposed to do to change that… was the first step in coming back to God and The Church.

I feel kind of bad for not remembering what Jonathan’s response was…  I do remember feeling oddly accepted, even though I thought perhaps people were a little shocked that I was so open.  And I really felt God saying, “See?  It’s not so bad… You’re in the right place and you are responding to Me!”

Those first months of attending Hub Groups were rough.  I had some major nerves each week when it came time to go… I really did not want to!  And we were already effectively avoiding “The Gathering,” which to me sounded more like a horror movie than a church service, but each week, I got a call from Liz saying, “We missed you this morning!  We’re looking forward to seeing you tonight at Hub Group!”  It was definitely not easy to fall through the cracks!  I knew God wanted us there, but it was so, so hard to open up, not knowing if these people could be trusted, or if Hub City Church would end up just another name on the ever-growing list of churches/”Christians” who had hurt or taken advantage of us.

When we first came to Hub City, mostly out of curiosity and just a little desperation, we had been out of church for about 6 months, and during that time had decided that there would probably never be a reason for us to step foot in a church again.  I had in my mind that the house church movement was what we needed to pursue in order to find real Christians and real fellowship… lack of friendship was a gaping hole in my life… a constant reminder of The Church I was pushing away.  We had been through a string of exceptionally demoralizing church experiences… the legalism and bad doctrine I held on to so tightly, thinking I could somehow win God’s favor, virtually destroying my marriage, any hope of relationship with my children, and rendering me purposeless, faithless, and friendless.  The strong foundations that had been laid early in my Christian life had been demolished and I no longer knew what I believed about a lot of things I had placed my hope of salvation in.  Basically, I didn’t know which way was up, and even though I thought I could hear the faint whisper of God urging us to go deeper, I didn’t trust my ability to recognize His voice anymore, and so I walked into Hub City Church with a fortress up around me, expecting to be taken, mislead, and manipulated.

Truthfully, I didn’t much care for the setup of the Hub Group…  In fact there were lots of things I didn’t like about all kinds of things!  The bitter seed of legalism had sown in me all kinds of critical, judgmental thinking.  I didn’t want to be that way and sometimes didn’t even realize I was doing it, but I really tore everything apart pretty constantly.  The thing is, I probably was not a very nice person to be around a lot of the time.  But like I said, I was strangely aware of the condition of my heart, and I really wanted to change…  It felt like magic at the time, but Jonathan and Liz (who lead our Hub Group) really seemed to love me anyway…  ignoring my rants or claiming to see the positives in what I was saying…  They were really abnormally patient and relaxed with me… graceful…in fact I frequently wondered “What are these people selling anyway?  They can’t possibly be this nice for real… and they certainly can’t love me for real!  I mean, look at me… I’m a mess!  I criticize everything, I’m always arguing my point (which who even knows what that is!), and I’m a nervous wreck!  Who are they kidding?  I’m no sucker… What is the catch?”

The thing was, that over time, we formed some other relationships in our Hub Group.  I became a bit more comfortable sharing, and what I had once thought was kind of boring and uninspiring (the storying we do in Hub Group) really started to sink into me.  I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I felt something “give.”  I started to learn.  I found myself focused more on the basics of faith and grace and Jesus Himself.  I began extending that same grace to others that had been given to me.  I looked forward to sharing what God was doing in my life and hearing how He was working in the others in our group.  I was devouring books at breakneck speed… literally weeping at each revelation of God’s grace and love for me.

At some point, we broke down and started participating in the Sunday morning Gathering.  I was excited to learn more through the teachings that Frankie and Jonathan presented… they really helped me stick to the basics and continue to focus on what’s really important.  It was also really neat to find some ways to help… it had been a long time since I had been a part of anything big, and suddenly I felt needed and useful.  But the thing about The Gathering (I still think it sounds a bit like a horror movie, though in an endearing sort of way now, LoL!) that really pushed me forward was the music…  Much of my life has been about music (singing and guitar) and it’s maybe kind of odd, but when things started going wrong and the color went out of my life, music was the first thing I let go.  There was just something so real about the music at Hub City… I think it was that whether it was just Josh or when they put together the band… it never felt like I was watching a performance.  In fact, there are times I almost feel like I’m intruding on their worship!  That experience has really helped me to open back up that area of my life and has given me practical (by example) instruction on how to adore God through music and worship.

I did have some crisis points this past year while at Hub City.  Times when the ball was obviously in my court and I had to decide whether I was going to be the kind of person I was seeing modeled, the kind who will “listen to God and do what He says,” or whether I would fall back on my own understanding and react in fear to things that made me uncomfortable.  One such crisis surrounded the first Immersion class we took part in.  The discipleship process for me started out as kind of a love/hate relationship.  When I found out there was a “process” for discipleship at Hub City, I was really mad.  I thought, “Ha!  I was right all along!  They weren’t really loving me at all… it’s part of the program!”  Dang, I’m jaded…  But I don’t know…  I guess because I had already opened back up to God, it was hard to shut His voice off completely, and even though I let Jonathan know I didn’t like the process and felt manipulated, he and Liz just continued doing everything the same!  I stuck it out and realized that I was basically just being an idiot…  I mean, they continued being my friends even though I didn’t like their stupid program… and besides they already knew what “level” I was and everything… My needs were being met.  What did I have to lose?

Quite some time later, a major conflict arose in a key relationship in my life.  And something strange happened that I wasn’t expecting.  I responded differently than I normally would have prior to my time with Hub City Church.  I showed grace.  I was patient (more or less).  I was forgiving.  I was doing some of the Fruits of the Spirit that I had seen demonstrated the last several months.  It really surprised me!  So much so that that ended up being a huge turning point in my relationship with God… I was so in awe of what He was doing in my life… it was ALL Him, and I wanted more!  Around that time, we also had a teaching series called “Man Up,” dealing with “doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.”  I started reading my Bible very consistently and God gave me the courage to make some tough decisions and start to really seek His will for my life.  I started to feel like I had purpose, an identity, bigger than all the things that could go wrong in my life, family, marriage…  God was caring for me.  He was ministering to me.  And at times He was chasing after me… and all this through His Church, through the people he had set up to surround us with Him.  I know I said this before, but there were times that it really did seem like magic.

Not that long ago, fear reared its ugly head again as I realized I needed to make yet another decision.  Not that it was being forced on me or anything, just that it was a longstanding issue that needed to be dealt with, and it was “time.”  We took the Hub City B.S. (that’s Basic Stuff, though I had other thoughts…) class.  I had a really difficult time sitting through the last class.  I felt angry about some things, and just disagreeable about some others, but knew that it was really fear that was the problem when it came right down to it.  I was having issues with the “following the leaders as they follow Jesus” point in our Family Commitment.  The thing was, I had been so messed up by doing that in the past, that the idea of actually signing a piece of paper, basically covenanting to let myself be guided by and live in agreement with the vision of church leaders… let’s just say my initial reaction was less than stellar.  But I was able to recognize it for what it was, and through prayer and fasting and study, grew very accepting of the next move God wanted me to make.  It was another one of those “manning up” moments.

It’s good to be part of a family.  I have never had a real relationship with anyone from church before.  I feel like God has given me an older (had to throw that in there!) brother and sister in Jonathan and Liz, and more and more extended family with each passing week at Hub City Church.  What I thought was “magic” early on is now so clearly the Holy Spirit working through the people who have cared for me, guided me and helped me grow over this last year.   I came to Hub City Church a broken, scared, skeptical mess. Now, I’m still a mess in some ways LoL BUT my heart has changed over the course of this last year. It’s soft and teachable now… I’m “good dirt.”   I love and trust the people who bothered to love me first, when I was such a mess and rather unlovable. I think it is a miracle that human beings can love like God does. That is the Holy Spirit more than any big loud extravagant wonder-working. That’s real life, and I think it’s pretty neat.

Melanie Creel

I am so excited to be a part of Hub City Church. It’s the first church I’ve ever been a part of where I think they truly take Jesus’ command to make disciples serious. As a result of that, a lot has changed in my own life. We came to Hub City Church (before it was named that!) because we knew God was calling us to something bigger than ourselves. Frankie felt called by God to plant a church in the future and we wanted to be a part of a current church plant and get a feel for what we were getting into! We, also, clearly felt that this is where God wanted us.
As we begin to meet weekly with the Everette’s and the Blackwell’s, we begin to realize that the vision of Hub City Church was and is vastly different from anything we were used to and not only that, but they were truly striving to be different, to reach people that were unchurched or dechurched. We realized that by being a part of Hub City Church, we would not merely be attending a Sunday morning service, but we would be missionaries to Spartanburg. It wasn’t at all about us and what we wanted or needed.
Now, I wouldn’t say that Frankie and I went to church to have our needs met, but churches we had gone to in the past had always tried to focus on the members more than the outsiders, to make sure the members had everything they wanted…. Hub City Church, even in the earliest days, didn’t really care that our weekly needs were met, but that we were able to make a difference in the lives of those around us… and incidentally, our needs were met in the process. God worked in and through us before we even started a weekly worship service. He lead Jonathan to embrace the idea of a Movies in the Park and with around 15 people, we were able to serve between 1500-2500 people at each of those MIP that first summer. I loved helping with Movies in the Park. It gave me an outlet to help others. Something, I can’t always do on my own. We have been able to help individual families and our second year of MIP was fantastic. But in those same times, when I have been able to be a part of something that is so clearly a God-thing and serve others, God met my inner needs as well.
I would also say that before I got involved with Hub City Church, I was trapped in a Christian bubble. I only knew Christians besides my family. Whenever a pastor would talk about the people in our lives that weren’t Christians, I would always think: I really don’t know anyone like that. I had a few people at work that I would say weren’t Christians but I really wasn’t close enough to them to say anything. Hub City Church changed all that for me because of their focus on relationships. Jonathan never asked us to witness to anyone and “lead them to Jesus,” but he asked us to get to know people, to develop friendships, and from there, God would open the doors for us to have conversations with those people about Jesus. In the past year, I have had several conversations with unchurched or dechurched people that I would have never considered before Hub City Church. I think this has been the biggest change in my life. I have sought to develop relationships with people I normally wouldn’t. I have become more approachable to people outside church. I still have a long way to go with my people skills, but I am a million times better at it than I was two years ago!
I am so excited to be a part of Hub City Church, to see lives changing in dramatic ways and in personal ways. We are looking forward to seeing what God has planned for us in the years to come.

Thanks,
Melanie

Kenzie Rogers

Hub City Church is completely different from the traditional Baptist church that I grew up in.  And you know, that’s what I love about it.  Every week when I go, it feels “real” to me…no pretense.  It’s approachable and accepting.  You don’t have to get all dressed up, it truly is come as you are!  The actual gathering is awesome with the band and Jonathan’s relaxed style of teaching.  But, it is so much more than that.  We are building lasting relationships by attending Hub Group and serving our community together.  I think that is one of my favorite parts about Hub City, we are actually trying to make Spartanburg a better place.  I love how we don’t just talk about things that could/should be done, but we actually do them.  I hope we’re having a positive impact on the people of this city and they will realize that we aren’t doing this for ourselves or to get anything in return but that we love them simply because Jesus loves them.  All we’re trying to do is make disciples who make disciples who make disciples……

Josh Rogers

Okay, so here is my Hub City Story. My name is Joshua Rogers and I am the worship leader of Hub City Church.  Let me take you back a ways. I was born on January 28^th 1979.  Okay that’s a little too far. Now for real, I first met Jonathan and Liz in the spring of 2007 when my wife and I visited The Point. I knew right away that Jonathan was and is a great speaker/teacher and on top of that he has an enormous passion for the people far away from God right here in Spartanburg. Unfortunately my wife and I were committed to the traditional Baptist church that we were then attending, and really weren’t able to become a bigger part of what Jonathan was doing then. However when our commitments were up for renewal, so to speak, at the traditional church, we decided it was time for us to move on. So within a few weeks I had emailed Jonathan to see if they were still meeting at the same place and time and that is when he invited Kenzie and me to a vision casting for a new church plant, which we now know as Hub City Church!

That is when the launch team began to meet weekly and things were brainstormed and discussed, and the idea of Movies in the Park started becoming a reality. I miss those days.

Then we had our launch on September 21^st and we made the 6:00 news, wow! I was a happy greeter at that time, doing my best to make people feel welcomed at the door.

Roughly a month later, October 22^nd, to be exact. Frankie asked me if I would lead worship that coming Sunday, since his other fifteen options didn’t come through for him. Can you say last resort? Hahahaha!

God has revealed a few things to me since then. Worship with music in a corporate setting can be a very beautiful, exciting and spiritual experience and should be. Unfortunately it can also be an awkward, uncomfortable or an “I wish the band would hurry up and finish because this sucks” type of experience. And yes we’ve had quite a few of those moments, and still do. But why do we meet every Sunday? Is it for a show or production and if the production isn’t that great this week does that mean our first timers won’t return. If I’m not careful I’ll start thinking like that. If Hub City has taught me something about doing church it would be this, it’s not just about Sunday, it will come and go and so will the people who are looking for entertainment, but the relationships and friendships that are formed along the way will last. Those are the people that come back week after week, join Hub Groups, and begin to serve wherever they are needed. They don’t care any more if the band sounded off, or if Jonathan said they should be shot and killed for leaving tracts as a tip for waiters, or if Frankie shows too many ninger videos. They are there because they’re our friends now, not to see a show. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely believe excellence should be our goal and that is what we should try to achieve for our Gatherings, but you can only go as far as your resources and talents will let you. And anyway were not trying to sell Hub City Church, we just want to make disciples who make disciples.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY   Hub City Church!!!!!

Jessica Hall

It’s been so exciting and beautiful to be a part of Hub City Church. I’ve become so much closer and grown so much in my relationship with God. Our coming together to do for others, helping people in need, special events for the community have been so uplifting. Just to see God working in our lives and showing others his love through us is amazing! God has shown be hidden talents I didn’t know I even had, working with the 3-4 yr olds, who would have ever thought! They have inspired me greatly and I’ve learned so much from them, the simple messages God shows us through our children is such a blessing. I’ve also made new relationships through church and small groups. You need these special bonds with friends and family.We need to grow in our relationships and spread God’s love. I love all of you!

Jason Holden

“In the beginning, there was Kirk Cameron.” Just kidding, or am I? Hub City Church has done a ton of neat things to my less than ordinary life. It was not until my more recently experiences with “other” churches that I began to “feel” like I was missing an important element to the church setting. I have been to Northern churches, Southern Churches, Anti-Church Churches, different types of small groups, bible studies, and then eventually a Catholic Church. I still “felt” missing something. Then I meant Jaime and Allen Holmes.

When I first meant Jaimee and Allen, my wife, Joy, said I would love them because they are “just like us”. I loved Jaimee, hated Allen. Really, I hated Allen, could not stand him, he was just so annoying, in all kinds of bad ways. It took a few “forced” visits to see them, again, loved Jaimee, couldn’t stand Allen with all his teeth in his mouth, but then I saw his humor: Allen is a smartass, just like me. Not only did we start to bond immediately afterwards, they disappeared from our lives, for a long period. My new “brother from another mother” Allen had left me, oh and I missed Jaimee too.

Then by chance, or faith (your pick), we saw them one last time. When I had inquired of their more recent whereabouts, they told Joy and I what was going on. And to my shocker, they have been going through the same “stuff” as me. I was lost now, confused on what to do. Where were they going, why was the new place better; all questions that I had no answers. Allen had one though, “Come with us if you want to live” (sort of).

Do not get involved, do not get involved, stay in the back, and do not talk to nobody, be the hermit, be the hermit (thoughts going through my head on the first day of going to Hub City Church). Then the magical thing happened: this church was personal. This church is amazing, different, new, original, hated Kirk Cameron. I feel in love with it, which is rule number one not to do according to Dave Ramsey. Makes the divorce harder, more painful, plus child support is a killer.

Hub City Church had the missing “stuff” or “something” that was “missing” from all the “other” churches: connection. I was no longer a Jewish prisoner with a number tattoo poorly in my arm given crappy sawdust bread looking for hope and friendship. I was a free man with more than enough hope and friends, to the point I am beating them off with sticks. Friends that I could be my crazy self with, do the crazy things, and make fun during the service. It was perfect. I was no longer trapped anymore.

Hub City Church lets you be the person you are, without shame, without judgment, and lets you become naturally, who you are suppose to be through bonding together as friends and family. No more small talking before and after church, no, there is more. Hub City Church is about family, family that accepts, embraces, and changes together. Happy Birthday Hub City Church. I will see you there, seated right next to Allen.

(Oh, and we’re the people with the picket signs protesting Kirk Cameron’s “Left Behind 18” in the theatres. I mean, come on, really 18 of them? When is enough an enough.)

Jason M. Holden

Proud Member of Hub City Church

Kevin Simmons

I didn’t think that we would ever end up in a church…in a movie theater.  Shawna and I had been looking for a church for almost a year since we had been married.  Praise and worship was a big part of decision, being pentecostal background and all(you know pentecostals will be doin’ p&w for like 5 hours on Sundays).  We were more less looking for a “christian” church, not a “religious” church(as our fine pastor would say).  We kind of just stumbled across HCC and really felt a connection there.

After visiting Hub City a couple of times I felt like this was where God was leading us at this point in our lives.  Since I have been at HCC I feel that my life has been 3X as busy.  Okay, seriously….It has been busier because I have decided to commit myself to praising God for the talents that he gave me.  Its a good to know that somebody, somewhere, has had an impact in their life from this church.  For me, that’s what its all about…I am proud to be a part of it.

Congratulations Hub City Church to the BIG 1 YEAR!

Shawna Simmons

What does Hub City Church mean to me?  Hub City Church is the true definition of church – People.  Through Sunday morning gatherings, Hub groups and Movies in the Park, I’ve developed relationships with people.  People that know, trust and desire God.  These people make me feel like I belong.  This sense of belonging holds me ACCOUNTABLE.  Through belonging, I develop a strong sense of godly fellowship.

Thanks to this fellowship, I can come to church in a dress or jeans and feel accepted, feel as if I belong.  I can help others to belong too.  Hub City Church creates in me a sens of belonging and the need to share that belonging to Christ with others.  Hub City Church is a people church.  I belong.  You belong.  We belong… to Christ.

Cathy Bachman

The birth of this church was an event that I was introduced to when my own small group leaders announced they would be leaving my home church to assist with the birthing process of this church.  Our own family unit of 4 tagged along during the early labor pains but we were quickly derailed by our own crisis as childhood leukemia relapsed in our daughter and dragged out its’ own second year battle.  As our 6 year old departed for heaven, we learned that part of grief is learning to move forward, as meaning shifts like sand and God becomes the lion’s mane where we cry the sadness of our shattered hearts.  Many things and places that were once havens, now are marred with memories too soon to visit.  It means a fresh start is necessary if there is to be a start at all.  God has been gentle with us as we listened for his voice on where we would fit, where we could start in, and where we might come alive in the clarity that we were granted having off-roaded with Jesus through the valley of life and death.  Where could we settle in to pay forward the love and grace that the circle of community had taught us to be such a powerful tool? Where could we begin to heal?  We felt broken and hurt, alive and fierce, all rolled up into one bag of spiritual psychosis known as the Bachmans.  We wanted to be around others of the same energy with that ALIVE in God almighty as the starting point.  I have to say, there are not alot of churches out there that mean it when they say “come as you are”…the first thing they want to do is fix you so you look bandaged up enough to look like “them”.  Hub City takes who YOU are as the gift.  The hunger we have for spiritual encouragement has been met with the hunger of a young church encouraging my own zest for life.  I have come to join the energy of God that is creating this ripple.  Bigger ripples are replaced by waves.  I stop and think of the power I feel when I am at the ball game and everyone participates in “The Wave”.  Everyone knows when to participate and on their own accord the successful sports wave is created.  It is a simple analogy.  At Hub City Church we arrive in various clothing and in various stages of our Journey with Christ.  We have so much to give, so much to learn.  Yet even in these early stages of discovery I see it.  The power of those who are already “waving” to my left, generating our own famiy desire to  throw our hands up in praise in a way that will then encourage those to our right to join right in with seamless attention not to let it fail.  We know what it takes to execute the plan and we are ever so surprised when it works.  ahh, the power of God in willing hands.

I love that we meet in a theatre.  Standing in an ecclectically non-church surrounding commands that the true worship come from within.  The lack of pomp and circumstance assures us that this band of believers each matter individually as we add our own desires to make that joyful noise into the mix.  It is us who come through the door, and not the door itself, that shines God’s works in progress.  It is also nice that you, Jonathon, do not fed us applesauce but rather a well rounded meal of meat- and- potatoes- Word -of- God that sticks to our ribs and does not give us that false sugar high.  I see practical greens are creatively applied to our plate of information as well.  We are off to a healthy start.

With this, I simply say, thank you for following the spiritual journey that it took to plant this church.  Jesus is the vine, we are the branches and this plot of tilled hearts will indeed produce much fruit as the roots of our hearts begin to penetrate the community around us.
Happy ONE, Hub City Church. Happy One.
Cathy Bachman

 

Fool Proof: The best question ever

I want to give thanks to Andy Stanley and his book The best question ever for the inspiration behind this message.  Here’s the transcript.

We’ve all done some dumb stuff in our lives, haven’t we?  I thought maybe the best way to get this series started off is to go over here on the front row and you just stand and share maybe the dumbest thing you’ve ever done and we’ll just go around the room and all share our dumb stuff.  Just kidding.

We’ve just all done dumb stuff.  There’s money we wish we’d never spent.  There are relationships we wish we’d never gotten into.  Maybe a marriage you wish you’d never gotten into.  There are deals you wish you’d never done.  There are partnerships you wish never formed.  There are investments you wish you’d never made.  There are dates you wish you’d never gone on.  There are invitations you wish you’d never received.  There are opportunities you wish you hadn’t taken advantage of.  The list goes on and on and on.

All of us can look back, and in some cases it was a night, for others of us it was a weekend, for some of us it was a month or several years, but all of us have chapters in our lives we wish we could go back and rewrite.  The odd thing is, now, looking back on those evenings, those weekends, those deals, those partnerships, those years…it’s so obvious to us how stupid we were to make those decisions and get into those relationships.  I mean it’s so obvious to us now that we look back and say to ourselves, “How could I have been so dumb?  How could I have been so stupid?  How could I have been so blind?  How could I have been so foolish?

Well, years ago I was exposed to the three verses we’re going to read today and it totally changed the way I make decisions.  These three verses gave me a brand new filter with which to evaluate every opportunity, every invitation, every date, everything I was asked to do, everything I was tempted to be a part of.  Everything began to be evaluated through this brand new grid which basically boiled down to asking one question.  And I think it’s the best question ever.

This is the question that has the potential to foolproof your marriage, to fool proof your finances, to foolproof your relationships, to foolproof your dating relationships, to foolproof your morality, to answer the questions that the Bible doesn’t seem to answer like how far is too far and how much is enough and all those questions that sometimes we wrestle with.  This one question, the best question ever, has the potential to foolproof your life.

But at the same time, this is a question that takes a lot of courage to ask.  Because just by asking the question as it relates to any area of your life, peels back the layer of deception all of us are prone to live with.

See I’m just like you.  I can talk myself into anything.  Can’t you?  I can make the worst decision look like the best decision.  I can make the poorest choice look like the best choice.  I can talk myself into wasting money.  I can talk myself into wasting time.  That’s how we get ourselves into the messes we get into, isn’t it?  This question, the best question ever, exposes that deception.  This question takes us to a level of understanding in terms of what’s going on in our heart and in our soul that no other question does.  And so I need to give you a warning, as we move towards the end of today and I challenge you to begin asking this question about every invitation, opportunity, investment that comes your way, there may be something in you that resists asking the question, and if that’s the case then today, whether you apply anything you’ve heard or not, you will have learned something about yourself, because God has given us a question that will protect us from further disaster and further poor choices.

If you have your Bibles I want you to look at these three verses with me and we’ll discover the question together.  It’s in Ephesians chapter 5 and we’re going to begin with verse 15.  Ephesians 5:15.

Let me tell you a little bit about this book of the Bible.  Ephesians is a letter that was written to Christians in the city of Ephesus by a man named Paul who was a follower of Jesus.  Paul was Jewish, the believers is Ephesus were a mixture of Jewish people and what they would refer to as gentile people.  They lived in a very pagan city and he wrote them this letter.

Now you can visit Ephesus today, it’s a ruin.  They’ve excavated and done archeological digs in Ephesus.  You can go visit Ephesus.  Well, you may think this is odd, but part of the religion in Ephesus involved temple prostitutes, so what was wrong in one area of values became right in the religion of the people of Ephesus.  So it was a very pagan culture.  Pagan even compared to what happens in our culture today.  So to this very pagan culture, the apostle Paul writes to these Christians who were trying to be Christians in this culture that was anything but Christian.  And so in Ephesians he gives them a list of all this stuff Christians should do.  He says, “Watch out for this, and don’t get involved in that, and abstain from sexual immorality, and don’t let your greed control the way you do your money, and do your relationships this way.”  He gives them all these dos and don’ts based on “hey, as Christian, here’s how you needed to live.”  And then Paul, following up that list of dos and don’ts essentially gives them and gives us the secret of how to live the life that really in our hearts we want to live and how to avoid the situations we wish we would have avoided and how to keep from making a mess of our lives because of bad decisions.  And here’s what he says, Ephesians 5:15:  I’ll unpack this for you a little bit.

Be very careful, then, how you live…  that is, if you want to live a life that takes you to where you want to go, if you want to live a life that is pleasing to God, he says, “You have to be careful how you live.  That means you can’t be careless in your decisions.  The little word careful there really means to be on the lookout.   He says, “If you’re going to get to the end of your life and look back and have something worth looking back on, you must be on the lookout.  At what’s around you, what’s ahead of you and what’s behind you.”

Be careful how you live.  Be careful how you do marriage.  Be careful how you do business.  Be careful how you treat your morality.  Be careful how you treat dating relationships.  Be careful how you treat partnerships.  Be careful with your investments.  Be careful.  You can’t be careless and end up where you want to be.

He goes on, not as unwise, now let me stop there because there are really two kinds of unwise people, some of them are careless because they didn’t know any better.  Some of us got in trouble because we didn’t know any better.  Other people are careless because they could care-less.  I know the difference between right and wrong, but I could care-less.  I know that’s not going to take me any place good, but I could care-less.  I know it’s wrong, but I could care-less.  The apostle Paul says, “Look, if you want to live a life that’s pleasing to your heavenly father, and even if you don’t, I mean if you’re here this morning and you are not a Christian, if you want to live a life that will take you where you want to go, then you can’t just carelessly wander your way through the day and through the months and through the years.  You got to be careful and live not as unwise” and then he gives us the brand new standard, but as wise.

Now here’s where this starts to take on some practical meaning.  You see my temptation and your temptation is to ask this question:  “How close can I get to sin without actually sinning?  How far can I go and not actually break the law?  How close can I get to immorality without actually being immoral?  How close can I get to being unethical without actually being unethical?  In other words, how close can I get to disaster without experiencing the consequences of disaster?  How far can I stretch?  How much of the law and the rules can I bend?  How can I keep God in my hip pocket and yet experience all I want to experience out of life?

In other words, the standard for us is:  Is it legal?  Is it moral?  Is it acceptable?  Is it permissible?  And God, through the apostle Paul and throughout the old and new testaments says, “That’s the wrong question.”  The question you must begin to ask is not, “Is there a verse against it, and if there’s not a verse against it I guess God’s for it.  The questions isn’t is it moral, is it legal, is it right?  The question we must begin to ask is this:  What is the wise thing to do?

We’re not to live as the unwise who ask, “How close can I get to the line without disaster?  How close can I get to the edge and to the ledge without actually going over?

But what if in every invitation, every opportunity that comes our way, what if we could ask the best question ever:  What is the wise thing to do?  See it’s a new standard.  It doesn’t run concurrently with culture.  It’s a higher standard.  It takes you out of the mundane that says, “Well if it’s not illegal it must be ok.  If the bank will loan me that much money it must be ok.  Zero percent financing, how can that be a bad deal.  It was consensual, it must be ok.

He says, “Don’t be careless.  Don’t be unwise.  Be wise.  Of every invitation, of every opportunity ask, what is the wise thing to do?

Then he goes on and gives us some more insight, verse 16:  This is what the wise people do, making the most of every opportunity, or literally making the most of your time, check this out, because the days are evil.  Now he’s talking into a first century context.  He says, “Hey, you people in Ephesus, look around your city, these are evil days.  In other words, if you pick up your feet and allow the current of culture to sweep you along in the direction of the current culture, then eventually you will end up in a place you did not intend to be.  These are evil days.

If you handle money the way culture says to handle money, if you handle morality the way culture says to handle morality, if you do your marriage the way culture says to do marriage, if you prioritize the way culture says prioritize, at the end of the day, at the end of your life, you will not be where you want to be.  These are evil days he said to his culture.

Well I think if it was evil then it is equally as evil now, isn’t it?  Hey guys, if you treat morality the way culture says that you as a man are to treat morality, is that an investment in your marriage?  If you fill your mind with what the culture says it’s ok to fill your mind with, is that an investment in long term relationships or is it a detraction and certainly a distraction?  If you handle your dating relationships the way culture says to handle dating relationships, that is you go as far as the other person is willing to go because after all it was consensual, and if it is consensual then it must be ok, I mean if you go with the current culture, if you simply pick up your feet and allow the culture to take you with it, is that going to get you where you want to be?  Of course it isn’t.

That’s why we have regrets.  That’s why there are chapters of our lives we wish we could go back and undo.  And the apostle Paul says to a group a people who live in a culture very much like ours, “Come on, you’ve got to ask a different question.  Not is it legal?  Not what’s everybody else doing?  Not, does the bank approve it?  The question is, what is the wise thing to do?

Because we have been commanded and called, those of us who are followers of Jesus especially, commanded and called to live according to wisdom, not the current trend of culture and society.

Not as unwise, but as wise.  Making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.  Then he gives us the punctuation, here’s the exclamation mark.  Therefore, in light of all that I’ve just said, do not be foolish.  In other words, this is his way of saying, “It’s time to stop playing games.  Pay attention.  Don’t be foolish.  Or another way to say it is, don’t be fooled.  Don’t be careless.  Don’t pretend.  Don’t continue to justify and rationalize because she did and he did and they did and everybody does and it’s the 21^st century, and I can’t find anything in here against it (flip through Bible), and on and on and on.  He says, “Whoa, whoa, don’t be foolish.  Don’t be fooled.”

And then I love this last part:  …but understand what the Lord’s will is.  Now that’s a confusing statement because it commands us to understand something.  How do you command someone to understand something?

Do you remember this from school, and I don’t know if they still do this, when the math teacher would send you to the board to do a problem for the whole class?  What was that about?  “You know I think your self esteem is a little too healthy, Jonathan.  I want you to go to the board and make a fool of yourself in front of the whole class.  You do problem 5.”  And one kid’s on the side of you and I’m going, “Can you do #5 because I don’t have a clue, anybody got 5 down here on the chalk board?”  Remember that whole deal?  I think about that every time I read this verse.  What if in the middle of all of that chaos and confusion and humiliation you were to say to the teacher, “Mrs. Crabfingers, I don’t (or whatever your pet name for your math teacher was) I don’t understand number 5.”  And she were to say to you, “Understand (point arm out).”  “Cleared it up, thanks, that’s all I needed to hear.  Just command me to understand.”

See you can’t command someone to understand.  Here’s what the apostle Paul is doing here, and this is so important.  Here’s what Paul says, “This is so important.  And I know that you have a tendency to deceive yourself, and to play games, and to “yeah but, but what about, and I didn’t know and yada, yada, yada.”  He says, “just pause for a minute.  Would you just for a minute, understand, literally, face up to what the will of the Lord is for you.  Instead of playing games and justifying would you just for a moment allow this question, what is the wise thing to do, to penetrate your soul and to expose to you what you know is there?  And you don’t even have to apply it, but would you at least face up to the fact that God has something different for you in the way you handle relationships.  Different for you in the way you handle morality.  Different for you in the way you handle business.  Different for you in what you’re doing in your marriage and the way you’re raising your kids and the way you’re responding to your parents.  Would you just pause face up to the fact that God has a different standard for you.  Don’t live as unwise but as wise, so…

What is the wise thing to do?  And as challenging of a question as that is, would you be willing to face up to the fact that this is God’s will, his standard for your life?

Let me break it down a little bit more:  What is the wise thing to do?  I think we have to ask the question at three levels.  The first level is we have to ask the question, in light of my past experience, what is the wise thing to do?  Not in light of what everybody else is doing.  Not in light of what’s legal and permissible and morally and culturally ok.  In light of my past experience:  “The last time I went to one of those what happened?  The last time I got that invitation, the last time she invited me, the last time I traveled with the guys… in light of the last time, what is the wise thing, not for everybody, what is the wise thing for me to do, in light of my past experience?

You have a unique past.  Nobody has the history that you do.  And you know this, but your past, your history already predisposes you to certain things.  In light of your past history financially, relationally, morally, ethically, professionally…in light of your history, what is the wise thing to do in each of those areas?  What is the wise thing to do in light of your past experiences?

The second level is to ask the question:  What is the wise thing to do in light of my current circumstances?  In light of the fact that something’s just happened.  In light of where you are emotionally, in light of where you are right now financially.  You see the decision you need to make financially may be fine later on but right now it’s not a good one.  The decision that you are leaning toward relationally right now may be a good decision later on, but not right now because of what’s happening in your life and in your emotions and in your family right now.  What’s the wise thing to do in light of current circumstances?

See this is the question we ask at every level.  That’s why it’s the best question of all.  What’s the wise thing to do in light of my past experience?  What’s the wise thing to do in light of my current situation?  And then the third level is this, and this may be the best one of all:  What is the wise thing to do in light of your future hopes and dreams?

When you think about what you want your marriage to be in the future, what’s the wise thing to do now?  In light of where you want to be in the future financially, what’s the wise thing to do now?  In light of where you want to be in relationship to your children, and where you want your children to be in relationship to you, what is the wise thing to do now?  In light of the kind of man you want to marry someday, or the kind of woman you want to marry someday, what’s the wise thing to do right now in your dating relationships?  Because most of us are old enough to know this:  Our unwise decisions in the past have robbed us of a portion of our future, haven’t they?  That where you are today at your age is not where planned to be, and part of the reason, not all, but part of the reason is because of unwise decisions you made in the past.  You robbed yourself.  Whenever we deceive ourselves and refuse to ask this question at the proper level, whenever we hide behind, “well there’s no verse against it.  Never heard a sermon against it.  It’s not illegal.  It’s not immoral.  Everybody’s doing it.”  As long as we hide there, we rob ourselves of our own hopes and dreams.  Most of us have lived long enough to know what that’s like.

That’s why, whenever I talk with teenagers, they’ve always got the question, “How far is too far?”  I know what they’re asking, “I know we’re not supposed to have sex, but there’s a lot between, “Hi my name is…” and sex, so how far is too far?”

And I say, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news:  The good news is the Bible doesn’t tell us, but let me make it easy for you:  In light of what you want to tell the person that you married someday, that’s how far.  In light of how far you want the person you will marry to have gone with the person they dated right before you, that’s probably how far.  In light of the story you want to tell your teenage children someday, that’s probably how far.  What is the wise thing to do in the arena of morality in light of your future hopes and dreams?

There are a lot of singles in this community who are trying to answer the question, “Should we move in together?  Should we live together?  Don’t you try on a pair of shoes before you buy them thing?”  Are you comparing her to a pair of shoes?  You know that whole move in, live together thing.  Here’s the question:  In light of what you want in your future, is the wise thing to do to live together?  Let’s don’t even make it a moral issue.  I think it’s a moral issue, but forget that.  In light of your future hopes and dreams is this the wise thing to do?  “Well if you ask it like that.”  We’re supposed to ask it like that because God has called us to a different standard.  It’s not, basically, is it legal, is it moral, is it ethical, is it right, is it wrong, is there a verse about it?  No, no, no.  The new standard is this:  What’s the wise thing to do?  In light of your past experience, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams.  Don’t rob yourself by fooling yourself.

Think about this, nobody plans to mess up their life, do they?  I mean, think of all the messes in your life, the messes in culture, the messes in the lives of people you know – no one planned that.  No body looks across the altar when they get married and says, “You know, I think I’ll have an affair.  I think what I’ll do is get married and then mess the whole thing up.  It will be a very expensive mess.  That’s my plan.”  But doesn’t it happen all the time?  But no one ever planned for their marriage to go that way, right?  Nobody’s held a sweet little baby and said, “I think I’ll make this little baby so codependent he can’t live without me, and when I’m gone he’ll be a total failure.  Sweet little angel. – I think I’ll raise a rebel.  I think I’ll be so harsh and so tight and so controlling of her life that she’ll be so messed up and have to be in counseling for years and years and years.”  Never the plan is it?  No teenage girl ever planned to get pregnant as a junior in high school.  No one ever planned it.  No body ever plans to become addicted to anything.  Think about all the addictions.  Think about all the money that’s spent on helping people become unaddicted to things.  I can’t imagine anyone who has ever planned to become addicted to something.  And yet it happens all the time.  And why?

It’s real simple, no one plans to mess up their life, but we don’t plan not to.  And the way you plan not to is not by asking where’s the line, where’s the limit, where’s the ledge, where’s the edge?  How close can I get to immorality without being immoral?  How close can I get to breaking the law without breaking the law?  How close to sin can I get without sinning?  The way you plan not to is by asking the best question of all.  In light of my past experience, in light of my current circumstances, in light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?

Let me ask you:  What is the wise thing for you to do?  What’s the wise thing to do financially?  What’s the wise thing to do morally?  What’s the wise thing to do right now in your marriage?  In your profession, in your career?  What if you laid that over everything.

Now be honest, isn’t it true that asking that question is a little bit uncomfortable for some of us?  Why is that?  Maybe it’s because we know that if we ask that question we won’t like what we find out?  But here’s my challenge:  Would you be willing to ask the question of the key areas of your life:  What is the, not the right, not the wrong, not what does the Bible say against it, is it moral, no, no, no, it’s easier than that.  What is the wise thing to do?

Before you leave today I want to teach you a verse.  It’s on your sheet there, but you don’t need to get it out because we’ll put it on the screen.  We’re going to say this back and forth.  I’m going to let the ladies say it.  Then I’m going to let the men say it.  And we’re going to say it all together.  He who trusts in his own heart is a fool.  But he who walks wisely will be delivered. Proverbs 28:26

This is the promise of wisdom.  Isn’t it true, let’s be honest, if you had applied this question to your life ten years ago, think of the things you would have been delivered from.  If you had applied this question to your life three years ago, think of the money you’d still have.  If you would have applied this to your life when you stood at the altar and started investing in that brand new relationship, think of what you would have been delivered from in terms of the heartache and the pain in marriage.

And so your heavenly father says, “I want you to live at a different level.  I want you to quit asking, “where’s the line morally, where’s the line legally, where’s the line ethically, and if there’s not anything in the Bible against it then I’m sure God’s for it.”  He says, no, no, come on, it’s simple because everybody’s different, in light of your past, in light of your current circumstances, in light of your future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?

And if you’ll answer that question, and if you’ll answer it honestly, and then if you have the courage to follow through, your heavenly father will become your personal heavenly father in a way you’ve never experienced before.  Because he will guide you in the way of wisdom.

My prayer for us through this series is that God will give us the wisdom to know what’s right and the courage to do what’s right, even when it’s hard, even when I’m the only one.  And God’s answer is, “I will guide you in the ways of wisdom and you will be delivered.

Prayer:

Give us courage to stop playing games, to be honest, to live in the way of wisdom.

 

Make them wonder what you’ve got

A new series beginning Sunday, 8.2.09.