TV 1751 | The 'How' of It All Conclusion

Wouldn't it be nice if we'd learn how to agree with the Lord and understand His purpose to the point where we could actually say, yes, Lord, I know you're doing this because you love me. I know where this is headed and I'm on board. Thank you for showing me my weakness, my need. Lord, I just give it to you and trust in you. Isn't that how He wants us to learn how to react to stuff? Because if He's doing everything out of His love and with a purpose, why are we reacting negatively to it as though something is wrong? It shouldn't be like this. But Paul went on, he said, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses. Praise God, isn't that awesome, I'm weak. So that Christ's power may rest on me. Now you know, we don't have to be an apostle to need Christ's power resting upon us, just to be the person He wants you to be in the realm that He has placed you, the place you've placed you. It needs to be Him and not me. Isn't that what Paul said? Not I, but Christ who lives in me. That's everybody that comes to Christ. So whatever He allows in my life and yours, that's what it's about, okay? So how does He go on and react? That is why, for Christ's sake, now who are you living for? Is your life about you? I want everything to be according to my liking, and if it isn't, I'm going to be upset about it. That's human nature. But Paul said, I've got a different reason for living. God's called me out of that, and I'm going to live for Him, and if He shows me something, I'm going to agree with Him.

That's kind of a good way to live, isn't it? That's the how of it all, but how is going to be His strength and the grace that's offered. Therefore I will boast ... Well, I already read that. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight ... Oh boy, I'm really excited about that. I delight in what? In weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. Wow. That doesn't sound like what we live for, particularly in America, where everything's all about pleasure and just everything being smoothed out. You think maybe God might be wanting to get us ready for whatever? I'm so glad He knows what He's doing. I'm in His hands. I want to be so connected to His purpose. I don't want to just read a book and say, I've got to go by the book. I thank God for the book, but the book is from a person, and all of this plays into my relationship with the person that He wants me to get to know, and to know in a practical sense. I can say, Lord, I'm with your program. Life isn't about me, and it's not about the life here. I already gave that one up. Remember, I was crucified? I handed over this life and all it stands for so that I could have another life. I'm still living in this body, and I've still got that old nature of living in this flesh Until I get rid of that, it's going to be here wanting its way, and you're going to be showing me through my everyday life. That's the key here. My everyday life is going to show me where human nature's still kind of in charge. Then the question is, what do I do about that? I think the step one is I need to understand what this is about. Instead of saying something is wrong, if we understand it, we can say something is very,

very right here. God wants to show me this. Now, does he want to show me that so that I can feel defeated and try harder? See, that's not understanding. If you react that way, you're not understanding. Does he want me to be afraid? Fear is not a part of his equation. He's a loving father who wants me to know that right then, he loves me. Praise God. What about, okay, so what do I do about it? Oh yeah, I remember a scripture that needs to really become, needs to jump off the page and become alive. How about Hebrews chapter 4? Because I got somebody. I can go to. The one who lives in me by his spirit also sits on a throne. He sits there having taken care of all of my need. It's already been done, it's been paid for, it is finished. And my eyes and my heart need to leave my weaknesses and my failures and go to him. We have a high priest, thank God. Verse 15, we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses. You mean the one that Isaiah saw, the one who walked among us and then ascended to a throne, the one who's in charge of everything, his father gave him all power in heaven and earth, you mean he actually understands what I'm going through? What's the answer to that? Do we actually believe that we have somebody we can go to? Boy, the devil loves to jump in there and that's what I was talking about a while ago. The struggle we have when we fail, what do we do about it and how do we find confidence and how do we get over it? You remember the song that we heard years ago about how someone messed around and blew

another day? I can't remember the exact words. Yeah, no condemnation. I don't guess anybody here has ever done that. You sort of, you know, it's like I've got to clean myself up and then I can go. I've got to do something and make up for it. We can't do any of that. We need to come as we are and know that we can come with confidence and be accepted and be understood. The Lord knew that weakness was there. He is able to deal with us not on the ground of justice, but on the ground of mercy because justice has been satisfied at the cross. Praise God, a loving Heavenly Father invites us and a Savior is there to intercede for us. Thank God. Praise God. He knows what brought that about. He knows that your nature was very much, too much in charge. He did that so you would know it, not like He didn't know. We're the ones who need to know it, but then we kind of need to know what to do about it. I need to go and get some divine strength. I need to go to a throne. You know, a lot of times the battle involved where human nature wants one thing and it's so used to having its way and being in charge. It's not just a point, oh, I got it, push button, done. There are real battles that we fight where our nature just doesn't want to give up. How about Jesus praying three hours in the garden? This is the Son of God. Every natural part of Him says, oh, God, there's got to be some other way. If there's any other way that this could happen, Lord, saying, I don't want to have

to go through this, Lord, nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done. Do you see the battle between what God wanted and what He wanted? How did He do that, by the way? I've said that many times. We know that He offered Himself without spot to God, it says in Hebrews in one place. How did He do that? There's a little phrase in there that you could almost read over and miss the meaning of it. By the eternal Spirit, okay? He sure didn't get it out of what He got from Adam. He got it from the Father living in Him, giving Him the strength that He was seeking for a refresh, a fresh infusion of the power that comes with that life. I need that every single day. When God shows me that I'm still too much under the influence of human nature in this circumstance or that one, He wants me to have the freedom to go to Him, and He says with confidence, not, oh, here we go again, I'm so worthless, I'm so bad. Yeah, you are, that's why you need a Savior. We all are in that category. Get over yourself. Just come and say, thank you, Father. Thank you for showing me my need. And you did it because you love me and because you have the answer. And so, first place, I can find mercy, and the second place, I can find that grace that gives me the strength, all right? And of course, one of the first things that we need to do when we find a need is have that thankful heart. Thank you, Lord, for showing me this. And I'm coming to you with a freedom and a confidence because it's not on the basis of me and anything that I deserve, it's on the basis of the cross, and that's the only place I'm looking, and to the one who bled and died there in my place.

Can we do that when we feel a sense of need? When human nature wants to rise up, can we let the Lord show us that need and go to Him? That's what He's looking for. Praise God. And so then, once we do it, and once we find strength in the Lord, sometimes it is a battle. Sometimes it's prayer has to go on, and we need the Lord to help us do that. Every single thing, we need Him to live it out in us. But if He tells me to pray, can I not say, Lord, you know I can't pray the way you're talking about. I can say words, but I need you to come and help me do it. Isn't that what He wants? Praise God. There's so much where He wants us to learn about the relationship. It's not just learn the religion. He wants me to walk with Him every day, and allow Him to walk with me and in me. Gonna show me my need, but He's gonna immediately turn my attention, if I'll lay Him, to His life and His answer, so that I've always got a place to go. I've always got a resource. I don't ever have to be fearful or discouraged. I can do what Paul says. I can press forward. I want to know Him. I want to know the power. I want to share in His suffering, whatever it costs. Whatever it costs to say no to the old life and yes to the new one, because His strength is there to help me to do it. And even to the point of just letting go of all that this world has to offer, I'd rather have Jesus than anything. Praise God. Good song to sing this morning.

Praise the Lord. Praise God. I just want to learn how to go to Him when I have a need and not be discouraged, but have a confidence. I want to know how to deal with the things that rise up in me, because our nature just wants to deny them, hide them, pretend, try, struggle, everything in the world, except lifting up our eyes and saying, God wants me to look to Jesus. He is the author and the finisher of my faith. Look what He did. Isn't that kind of what He did? Where were His eyes? He looked to the Father, didn't Him? And it was the Father in Him. Well, that same truth, that same reality is the how of it all for us. It's not I. It's Christ in me. So now I'm in a position. I've been to the Lord and there's an infusion of strength that I've gotten from Him. It isn't a feeling, by the way. I'm not waiting until I, okay, I feel it, I feel it, I've got it. Most of the time, often, we're going to come to a time when God wants us to begin to confess the truth that we know, whether we feel it or not, because it's true. Truth is truth, not just because we feel it. We can confess what He's done. We can confess the ability that God has given to us and praise God. Isn't that what faith is about? What did Paul live by in this new life? I know that most translations say faith in, and I pointed out that it is a little deeper than that because it's the faith of. That's where I get the faith.

But it is faith in. Because most of us naturally try to live by faith in ourselves. How's that working out? No, I need to be saved from this guy. My eyes always need to be turned to him. I died. That life is over. I gave it to him. It doesn't belong to me anymore. He has the right to change me, to fit me, to get me ready, and he's going to put all kinds of things in my path to remind me what I need to be saved from so that I can look to him in that instant and learn something from him that's going to help me to move a little bit more in that direction. How do we learn? relationship develop? Is a relationship just reading somebody's biography or somebody's story and reading it over and over and over again, does that build a relationship? Or do you literally spend time with that person and you go through life experiences and you learn from them and about them? And that's kind of what we need. That's not kind of, that is what we need with Jesus. That's what he's promised. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. I'm going to finish the job I started, all the scriptures that we use so many times. But I guess the central thing that is just kind of my mind has been focused on, how do we do all these things that we know we're supposed to do? It's great to say you're supposed to love one another. How do I do that? It's not a pretend thing. I need something that's real, that's going to give me supernatural power to just be a different person. And it isn't going to come with great icicles running up and down my spine or, you know, sudden leap from here to there necessarily. It's going to come with a day-by-day thing. And sometimes I'm going to have to fall in the mud over and over again until I learn, oh yeah, that was me, and you got better for me, and you're living in me, and you don't act like that. So I don't have to. And it really comes down to, you know, we recognize the issue. We recognize what God's doing. We recognize we don't have to be afraid. We know we've got a place to go. And we can begin to confess what we know is to be true. That becomes the confession of my mouth.

I can do all things through Him who loved me. But now I'm still sitting in a chair, as it were. There's one other step, isn't there? That's the doing part. And faith doesn't sit there and say, okay, I can, I can, I can. Faith does. And how many times have we seen that lived out in the Scriptures? I've used this illustration so many times about the priests who were supposed to step, and then the Lord would move the water. And that's kind of the order that the Lord has. But I thought about David. When Goliath stood against the armies, and all the armies were more in believing the terrifying sight of this giant and feeling their helplessness. Well, they were helpless. It wasn't one of them that had what it took to beat that giant. But somehow the Lord enabled a young man to recognize what the real battle, what was really going on, and to say, hey, this isn't just a physical battle with a physical giant. There's a spiritual warfare going on here. And the one that's on our side, he's in charge. And so David didn't just assert that truth and say, well, here's what's true. Go to it. Go to it. He armed himself with what he had. And that's a wonderful thing, isn't it? Just using what we have. Don't have to ... There's so many things that we think we got to do to get to that place. David just took what he had. And looking to God, declaring the fact that God was on the throne and in charge. He went forward and God fought the battle. And we've seen that pattern over and over in scriptures, where we come to a place where we understand the battle, we understand who we are and what our needs are, but where the real resource is. And then there has to come a point where we step out and do and act. We act as if it's true. Doesn't Paul say in, was it Romans 6, I think, about reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God? Reckoning, you know what reckoning is. When you go out in the morning and start your car, you're reckoning on the power and the fuel to work. Or when you write a check, you don't even think about it most of the time, but you're reckoning on money being in the bank and the bank honoring that check and giving the money to whoever you send the check to. That's reckoning. You're treating it as the fact that it is. God wants us to treat what He says in here as a fact, not just because it's on the page, but because we know the person. And we believe, and we begin to experience a life of walking with Him. Think about what Paul went through and what he describes in 2 Thessalonians 1 that we referred to a while ago. The Lord took him through that life-threatening experience when he had to learn in a fresh way that I can't rely on my own strength. I can't trust in myself.

learn to trust in Him. So what did that do for Paul? Was that just about Paul? That was about Paul being able to say, look, I have been there and done that. I have experienced something in my life. I knew it was true, but now I know it because I've been there and experienced what God put me through, and so I want to tell you about it because God wants to do the same thing for you, and then you're going to be able to help other people. Experience is something that God will take us through so that we can become what He wants us to be, grow up as His sons and daughters, and walk together and share that life and put up with each other in the process because it sure is a process, and we're going to see a whole lot of flesh coming out here and there. God's going to bring it out, and we don't need to be dismayed by that. We don't need to give into it and excuse it either, but we don't have to be dismayed when we discover that human nature still has a lot more holes than we would like to think. It's not a defeat. It's an opportunity where God wants us to learn how to not be dismayed, but how to bring it to Him, how to receive the strength that He gives us, how to use it, how to step out in faith and begin to make choices, and we're going to have God back us up. That's what this Christian life is about. So you want to know the how of it all? It's Christ in me, the hope of glory. It's not I, but Christ who lives in me, and I live not by my ... It's not me anymore. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Praise God. So what do we need to be doing every single day? Being a lot more conscious that this is what life is about. It's about developing that relationship and learning how to live out the life He's given us and knowing that He loves us and is going to do whatever it takes to make that happen and to help us in it, and He's not mad with us when there's a need.

We can come with confidence and get the help that we need. I want to do that. Don't you? What an awesome Savior we have. What an awesome Father we have. God wants us to have a rest and a faith and learn from Him. What do we get when we learn from Him? What does it lead to? Rest for your souls. Anybody need that here? Yeah, I do. And I'll tell you, we've got an awesome Lord, and He just wants to remind us. There's another thing I've said this morning, again, that we haven't heard, but it's not enough just to have the theology right. God wants us to understand our daily lives, why things happen that do happen, and what to do about it so that we can grow in Him. And He will get the glory, won't He? To Him be the glory. Praise God. We invite you to join us again next week at the same time, and may God richly bless you until then.