When Your Faith is Flat Lined | Joe Dobbins | Twin Rivers Church

I want you to get your Bible and I want you to turn to the gospel of John chapter 11, John chapter 11 and you know I read recently that there was a man who was in the hospital. He was recovering after a massive heart attack and his wife was right there beside him and he reached over and grabbed her hand and he said darling I've been thinking you've been with by my side in every moment of life. You've been with me when we lost our house. You were with me when I lost my job. You were with me when our pet died. He said and you were with me when this heart attack took place and she looked at him with just her eyes kind of tearing up and she leaned in and he said it's just got me thinking. She said what have you been thinking? That you're bad luck he said is what I'm thinking. You know the reality is life's hard and there gets to be these points in life where we genuinely find it hard to muster any more faith and so I want to talk to you for the next few minutes about what do you do when your faith has flat lined. You know I read in a medical article one time that said that of all the issues in your body the ones that are the most pressing are issues of the heart and though that was a medical article about your physical heart the truth is is the same thing is true when it comes to your spiritual heart. Proverbs chapter 4 starting in verse 23 says above all else guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Now we have bank statements to check in on our finances. We have scales to check in on our physical journey. We even have you know reviews to check on our performance at work but when's the last time you checked on your heart? This scripture says you better check on your heart because everything you do flows from it. It means that if you've got a bad heart you're going to head in the wrong direction in life. You're going to have wrong perspectives and you're going to it's going to ruin a whole lot of things your relationships your money everything so check on your heart.

But I want to talk to you today specifically not just that if your heart may be ill but maybe your heart's not even alive. The reality is we've all been through difficult things but some people I'm speaking to today the truth is you're dead. Now I know that hits is pretty strong and you're thinking I know I need a tan but come on I'm dead. No no no no the best way to explain it would be this years ago Dr. Tony Campolo was teaching a class at the University of Pennsylvania and it was just a regular class when all of a sudden a life-giving lesson came forward when he engaged a young man and he asked the young man he said how long have you been living? And the young man answered by giving his age just like we all would but Dr. Campolo said no no no I didn't ask how long how old you were he said how long have you been living? He said how old you are tells me how long your heart's been pumping he said how you've been living though that tells me where you are spiritually. Now listen the truth is he was pointing to we're all physical but we are also all spiritual and if you've never taken time to consider how long you've been living fully alive spiritually speaking well that's at some point you need to explore that because God has a plan for your life but until you partner with that plan you're not really living. As a matter of fact in scripture there's as the New Testament's written in Greek there are often multiple English words for one word that may be in the Greek or vice versa when you see the word death in English in the Greek it actually has two meanings there's one that refers to physical death meaning that it's the type of death that our physical bodies cease and we put us in the ground after a funeral but the other one's called spiritual death and it's the idea that you're still walking around physically but on the inside there's no life spiritually. So when I say that you're dead I'm not saying that hey we're about to put you in the ground although if I catch you sleeping I'll do a funeral real quick. What I mean is if we did a spiritual EKG some of you in this room would show no signs of life and like any person who's got heart issues you're going to have symptoms. You know when you have a physical issue with your heart you're going to have things like

a shortness of breath and a lack of strength you're going to have numbness and different aspects. Well the same thing's true spiritually when you're spiritually dead there's a lack of joy there's a numbness to the presence and power and promises of God there just seems to be a missing piece if you will in your life and when you're dealing with something like that I mean you do what we all do you try to medicate it and when you're spiritually dead you medicate in a specific way you think if I accomplish some certain things I'll become alive. If I acquire certain things that's when I'll feel like life is happening. If I assemble the right you know group of relationships my love life, my friend life, my work life that somehow I'll feel like I'm really fulfilling. my purpose but here's the problem many of us have accomplished and we've acquired and we've assembled and we are still on the inside knowing something is missing and the truth is is that you can do all of that but if you're at a place where you feel like you know what I've only found temporary peace I've only found moments of joy and I always come back to this place where I feel empty on the inside here's the prognosis you don't need more medication you need a new heart scripture says it this way Ezekiel 36 26 one of God's promises he says I will give you a new heart I'll give you one that's new with right desires and I'll put a new spirit within you I'll take out your old stony heart of sin and give you a new heart of love I actually with this promise may be the reason you're even here today in God's plan he has decided that today is a day he's gonna offer you something that no one else could offer you a heart transplant for your spiritual life that he's not just gonna mend it and bandage it he can give you a new heart and this is this is the reality that's when you really start living everybody's got two lives the one before Christ and the one after Christ and it's the one after Christ when you truly become who God always destined you to be now you said well how does that happen well there's a story in the New Testament in the Gospel of John that I think illustrates how God resurrects flatline faith and it's about a story that you may have heard before

about a physical resurrection of a man named Lazarus let me show you to you John chapter 11 started verse 1 now a man named Lazarus was sick he was from Bethany the village of Mary and her sister Martha now this was Mary whose brother Lazarus now lay sick was the same one who poured perfume on Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair so the sisters sent word to Jesus Lord the one you love is sick and when he heard this Jesus said this sickness will not end in death no it is for God's glory and God's Son may be glorified through it now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus and then I want you to look at verse 17 it says but on his arrival Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days now most people when they read this story are familiar with it they know it's about a resurrection but here's the thing they think it's about Lazarus's physical resurrection and it is but there's actually a second resurrection Jesus doesn't just resurrect Lazarus physically he resurrects his sister's faith spiritually because then when they saw Lazarus goes went into the tomb they thought everything was over and their faith died so what do you do when you have flatline faith I'm gonna give you the four steps according to this story number one when you have a flatline faith the very first thing is you must realize you are loved you see as I read this you have to just ask what would give these two women the audacity to call Jesus I mean they didn't even go through his secretary they didn't make an appointment I mean they just texted him you better get here and then notice they didn't even put in who was sick they said the one you love is sick they didn't even use Lazarus's name so notice this boldness comes out of a recognition Jesus loves us can I tell you this most people have a dead faith because they have never settled the fact that they are loved by God the foundation of your faith is this God cares now I know you've heard people say God loves you and you've read it on bumper stickers I get all that but listen to me I can prove I know you when you read it you heard it you thought yeah maybe other people not me no I can prove it it's quantifiable you can measure one of the ways you can measure love is by the distance one is willing to go in order

to be with something or someone for example I love ribs how many of you love ribs come on show me a hand there we go listen I'm willing to go 25 minutes downtown to get some ribs but if those same ribs were two hours away I'm not gonna drive to get them so it's clear to say I love ribs about 25 minutes worth of ribs not two hours worth of ribs now but on the other hand Kayla and I didn't live close to each other when we were dating and so I would meet her for just 30 minutes of coffee I would drive nearly four hours so it's fair to say that I love Kayla way more than I love ribs now the Bible tells us that Jesus traveled to see Lazarus he traveled 20 miles on foot because he loved Lazarus but here's my question do you know how far he's traveled to express his love to you he left the glory of eternity and came to live a life on earth he went from a crib to the pain of the cross from the pain of the cross to the death to the coldness of the grave from the depths of the grave he went and battled death and then he came out of the grave he then resurrected not just himself but gave resurrection life to all of us and returned to heaven with this promise one day I'm gonna come back and get you and bring you to eternity with me forever I think that proves there is no distance with which God is not willing to go to communicate how much he loves you but let me take it a step further because some of you are discounting that love you say yeah pastor that's for church some people it's not for people like me people who've made a lot of mistakes failed done a lot of awful things listen here's the best thing about God you don't have to be lovable for him to love you as a matter of fact when Jesus shows up at this tomb that he's getting ready to have him open the door and everybody warns him Jesus don't open the door and here's what they say he'd been in there four days he and then the King James it says it this way he stinketh okay I have a teenage son when I open his door it stinketh okay to his room and yet Jesus didn't back away at any moment he didn't say because of the condition of Lazarus I'm not gonna do this he said open that up because I'm here for the one I love listen it is true your sin stinketh to God but listen to me had it's not caused

him to back away for one second his love despite you and I being unlovable is constant it's unconditional and it is complete you know there's people standing there that day and they were I wonder why Jesus is here I mean why would he resurrect Lazarus the only public resurrection Jesus can does and you know I probably somebody thought well I bet Lazarus owes him money you know and he's gonna get him to come back pay his debt and put him back in there no Jesus says in verse 36 he says I'm here for one reason I'm here for my friend listen this is not some random Superman saving a faceless civilian Jesus traveled for relationship and can I tell you this what God does in your heart he doesn't want to give you a one-time spiritual experience or make some exchange of penance for a blessing he's in it for a relationship with you he wants to have a relationship with you every moment of every day he wants to love you again and again and again from the moment your eyes open in a day to the moment they close he wants to love you and love you and love you and that's the reason he's invited you into a relationship but you got to start with this you got to realize you're loved here's the second thing after that you have to also recognize that Jesus is the solution now Mary and Martha saw their brother take a turn for the worst and immediately they reached out to Jesus no one else because when you have a problem you want an expert and you want somebody who is an expert listen I I don't want a personal trainer who's overweight I don't need a surgeon with a shaky hand I don't want a plumber who doesn't show crack at the end of the day you want an expert well if you need a resurrection you call Jesus and the reason you do is because Jesus announced it this way he said he's in verse 25 he said I am the resurrection and the life he didn't say I do resurrections he said I am the resurrection now let me tell you this is a big moment because this is the argument that separates Jesus from every other faith leader on the planet you see people don't have a problem considering Jesus as someone who was compassionate to those in need they don't have a problem seeing him as a spiritual teacher they don't have a problem saying he was philanthropic they have a problem when he says I am the Son of God and the

only thing that proved he was the Son of God was not his teaching it was not that his good works it was the fact that he got out of the grave now I know some people would argue and say well no that he wasn't really resurrected the Romans that they just hit his body well that doesn't make any sense for the Romans to hide his body it would have mean that that then they didn't they didn't want to prove that he had died no one wanted to prove that Jesus had died more than the Romans had they hit his body they would have pulled it out and said see he's dead no more resolution revolution no more no more people following him this guy's dead but they couldn't produce a body and some people say well what happened in fact is is that the disciples stole the body okay so let's take that theory down the road so you're telling me a couple of fishermen that are possibly teenagers get the jump on two trained Roman centurions that they throw them over and then still the body except for the the soldiers never say that they didn't say hey that tax collector was wiring he got the jump on me no they said that we saw an angel and an angel came and opened the tomb and we saw a guy walk out of the tomb so even the Romans didn't say that the body was stolen by the disciples well let's say well the disciples were lying okay well let's say the disciples were lying you still got a problem because the Bible says that two women in the garden also saw the resurrected Jesus two people on the road to Emmaus saw him and then he spent 40 days on earth where over 500 people saw him with their own eyes and testified of his resurrection can I just tell you something you can't get 500 people to agree on anything and yet 500 people all testified to the exact same thing that we saw the resurrected Jesus, but if all three of those arguments don't line up for you. Let me ask you this question How do you explain what happened after the resurrection of Jesus Christ among his followers? But at the crucifixion every follower of Jesus dispersed in fear They hid they did not want to be seen after the resurrection You find that they are boldly preaching that this Jesus has been raised from the dead that they come out at their own expense and at their own Threat and start to preach this Jesus to the fact that that when you said you were a Christian

It usually meant arrested and death for the first 300 years Christianity existed It was illegal in the world, which means every time someone said I'm a follower of Christ. They basically signed their death warrant They were thrown to lions. They were beheaded. They were crucified themselves yet They continued to claim because you cannot unsee a resurrection and then and 33 AD when he died There are only about a hundred and twenty of his followers that even existed today 2,000 years later. There are 2.6 billion Christians in the world. That's more people that are in China. That's more people that are in China plus Europe That's more people that are in China plus Europe plus the United States The number one people group the largest people group on planet Earth is the Church of Jesus Christ How does that happen? Because he is not a spiritual teacher because he is not a philanthropic figure because he is the resurrection and the life He's the Son of God the Savior of the world and he's the only one that can bring a dead heart back to life There is something that sets him apart from everyone else and you have to recognize that now here Here's the third one. The third one is this is that you have to refuse to give up You know Martha sent for Jesus and she sent for him when Lazarus was sick But the Bible says that Jesus showed up and he had already died And it appears like Jesus was late and Martha says to him Jesus I appreciate you coming but we asked you to come for a healing and instead you showed up for a funeral. It's too late That's what some of you feel like even here today It's too late Too late for my marriage too late for the addiction. I'm wrestling with too late for See God's plan of my life too many mistakes too late And that's basically what Martha was saying. She was saying Jesus. I Just I thought you'd show up I thought you I just I don't have Much faith left. I'm most of my faiths gone because I just thought it wouldn't turn out like this Most of my faith most of my faith most of my faith Listen to me It's a mistake to believe that God needs most of your faith to do a miracle That's why we think about faith like it's some meter and when it gets to 100% then God can do something But wouldn't that mean that that it means the miracles more dependent on you than it is him No, Jesus didn't say that at all. You know what Jesus said. He said if you have as little of a seed of faith I

Can bring fruit out of that. So let me tell you if you're here today and most of your faiths gone. You're still okay you can have a load of doubt and a speck of faith and it's enough for God to work with and What he does when he finds there's just a speck of faith in a person just barely hanging on is he'll send someone To speak a life over that little bit of faith. That's what Jesus did in this moment John 1139 Martha said but Lord it's been four days since he died By now his body is already decomposing Jesus looked at her and said didn't I tell you that if you will believe in me you will see God unveil his power You know months after I got my ministerial ordination. I really thought my ministry was dead Now explain why I was in a class of people and we all got our ordinations at the same time and it felt like Immediately all of them had a ministry I mean all of them got jobs and positions and they worked at churches or started churches and and I had nothing nothing No one offered me anything and it really it was because where I grew up and in that time You kind of only had three options If you're gonna be a ministry first one is you had to work with kids Second one you could do is you could sing or the third one is you could preach Well at that time I couldn't preach I still can't sing and I didn't like kids even though I got a slew of them personally now Okay, and so I just felt like I had nothing to offer and I just remember thinking here I am God I want you to use my life and no one is coming Nobody wants to you might you must not have a position for me And and I remember my pastor coming to me several months after I got my ordination and he said Joe I've got something for you and I kind of lit up with excitement He said I need you to unlock the doors and lock the doors every Sunday And I thought really that's what you're asking me to do, but it was the only thing he said I'm gonna give you 50 bucks a month to do it So there I was getting there before everybody else unlocking the doors and there I was staying late unlock it Can I just tell you people who stay like your last two in the lobby? I used to cuss at y'all under my breath. I'm ready to go to lunch and here you are still talking about whatever listen I remember feeling so defeated and feeling like man my whole ministry God I went all through all this testing and training just so I could work this door and now one day somebody came up to me and I was getting ready to lock the

doors and they say hey Joe I just want to tell you I think I think one day you're gonna be a great you're gonna you're gonna pastor a church and I thought are you crazy I may be a locksmith but I ain't gonna be no pastor and I just know I'm telling you I see a pastor in you it didn't make no sense a few more weeks went by and someone else would come to you say hey listen I just want to tell you one day you're gonna preach God's Word I can see you're a preacher so how do you know that I've never been free I've never even seen myself preach what are you talking about I said I'm just I can just see it in you and then a few weeks were passed and another person must say pastor you ever said Joe one day you're gonna lead a large ministry I can tell God's got a big plan for you it's gonna be a large ministry I'm telling you nothing about my life looked like that right there but every time they spoke that it gave me something to hold on to something to hold on to and I didn't know it but what they were seeing is with spiritual eyes they saw where I am today and I'm thankful that somebody opened their mouth and began to speak life over what I thought was death and so I realized that some of you are here today in your situation it's bad all you hear are voices of death about your your marriage or or about your kids or about this your business let me just say I want to do this for you what somebody did for me your best days are not behind you you are going to see the hand of God work that your marriage is not too far gone and this business is not too far in the ditch for God to not resurrect it listen to me you're not gonna have this addiction your whole life you're not gonna be in this condition your whole life God is gonna come in and he's gonna do some things that you could not do for yourself he's gonna come in and transform things that you could not with enough discipline ever transform for yourself you hold on and give God just a little bit more time with that little bit of faith you got he's gonna come in and take the worst parts of your life and he's gonna turn them into something that one day you'll be grateful for and I know that you're saying well pastor you don't even know me you're right I don't know you but I know God's heart for you and I know this he's got a plan

for your life your parents may not have expected you but God's always expected you and it's a blessed plan it's going to be a plan to prosper you and he is going to take his hand and he's gonna move the obstacles you can't move he's gonna open the doors you can't open you give God a little bit of faith and a little bit of time and you do not give up and he's going to do what he does in the life of every person who turns their life over to him don't give up now here's the last one is that finally there's this point of decision where you have to respond to the call of Jesus John 11 43 Jesus standing outside this tomb called in a loud voice Lazarus come out and the dead man came out his hands and his feet were wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face and Jesus said to them take off the grave clothes and let him go now you know what's interesting to me about this passage is just me the Bible says there's a crowd of people and if you read it there's a crowd of religious leaders in particular so it's interesting to me that religion is present but it's of no help to this dead man that they're there but they don't offer him any path forward and it's because religion always says this that the works on you that you have to prove yourself that you have to do enough right that did you have to line up all your actions you got to change yourself before you can come to God well let me ask you this how does a dead man prove himself how does a man bound unbind himself the reality is is that religion was of no help because it's never of any help we can't train if you could change yourself you'd already done it if you could prove yourself you'd have already done it the reality is religion is a de-escalating staircase that we can never seem to climb high enough on no Jesus is not there because he leads a religion never think that Jesus is there because he's showing them there's something different than religion it's called grace you see only thing Lazarus had to do is respond to the call of Jesus the power and the freedom that he needed came from Jesus that's the reason the Bible tells us this and Ephesians 2 and 4 but God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins he gave us life when he raised Christ

from the dead it is only by God's grace that you have been saved let me say it this way it was Jesus's job to die it's just your job to live it's our job to put our faith in him he's the one that puts his life in us it listen all we do is open our hearts he's the one that opens the tombs listen we do the responding he does the resurrecting and I know that's hard for some of you because you've lived your whole life believing you got to do it you got to make it happen well let me tell you you can make a lot happen but you won't make this happen you have no capacity to resurrect a dead heart only Jesus can do that and he's offering it to you completely free and I know for some of you that that's so hard to even grasp because you're even uncomfortable because you come in here and you think if these people knew my story they knew the mistakes I've made if they knew the things that I've done wrong and you just think that this is just an assembly of a bunch of perfect people can I tell you I know these people this is no assembly of perfect people this is an assembly of resurrected people listen this is not a place of good works this is a place of grace that all of us the people sitting beside you behind you and for they're only here because of the grace of the Lord Jesus I wish you could hear their stories I wish you could meet TJ TJ attends our Jefferson County campus TJ's entire family every event cookout every gathering alcohol was at the center of it the problem for TJ is is that unlike some of his family members who could have a drink and stop he couldn't and he developed a very early dependence on alcohol and it continued for many years until he hit a season some time ago where he lost four dear friends in 13 days to death grief-stricken he went deeper into the bottle than he's ever been in his entire life he said his own description is he said I went into a period of time for five years where I was binging morning till evening drinking non-stop now is there in this period of time you know TJ had already been married and had a family that this this unguarded drinking led to his heart being unguarded and angered came to the surface he began to react in anger almost at every moment that he would

interact with people and it was starting to create a very dangerous pattern for his family now he never laid his hand on his wife or his children but they lived in constant fear because this eruption that would happen in him and one night it came to a head when his wife said I can't do it anymore she went to him and said TJ if you don't get help we can't stay it was a wake-up call for TJ the next day he went to a rehab while in rehab he had a counselor who in assessing him said TJ do you are you a person of faith and he said no I'm not he said as a matter of fact I'm an agnostic because I don't believe that the the there's proof that God exists and the counselor said really he said yeah he looked at him and said TJ you were drunk for five straight years you never were in a car accident you never hurt yourself or another person said you work with heavy machinery in your career and you were able to function and never had a single accident how do you think that's possible TJ said well I guess I'm just lucky the counselor looked at him and said TJ nobody in this world is that lucky and walked out of the session and those words settled on him like a ton of bricks he started to consider could it be that God actually was protecting me that led to the idea that maybe God actually has a plan for me that he cares about me well all of it led to while in rehab TJ surrendered his life to Jesus Christ and invited him to come and resurrect his dead heart the day he got out his wife met him and said out the very first thing I want us to do is I want us to go to church together she brought him to our Jefferson County location they attended a service but he was very reluctant he felt like when I walk in everybody's gonna know who I want who I am what I've done and he just thought that he's walking into an assembly of perfect people so he sheepishly comes in and a person greets him they began to love on him they connect with him and it totally confounded him that people would receive him and then he took a step forward with his wife and joined one of our life groups that's just a we have hundreds of them where basically you get together with a smaller group of believers just to encourage each other pray with each other learn together and he said something amazing happened he said the

more of the more that I shared who I was and what I did the more people loved me and were for me they offered to help they offered to come alongside it's the craziest thing I've ever seen well it didn't take long TJ and his wife and their whole family were baptized at that campus today TJ is a valuable part serving on the dream team I see him almost every Sunday when he greets me and helps me get in the door so I can preach there every time I see TJ after I heard his story here's what I think God just won't give up on people he just won't God's stubborn In his love for people that he stands at the door of a heart and he calls until someone answers Well tonight today listen He's standing at hearts and he's calling but he's not calling the name Lazarus or TJ. He's calling your name He's saying Cheryl Brandon Nathan Susan Deborah Tracy Mike He's speaking to individual hearts knowing individual journeys And here's what he's saying come out of that purposeless life come out of joylessness Come out of that that pain come out of that that emptiness This is the question Will you? respond