Who Are You When Nobody is Watching?

and when I was a sophomore, I didn't wanna pay for a parking pass. Can I get an amen? How dumb is that? I was like, I'm already paying $80 million to go to school here, and I have to pay to park? I was like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And so I said, I'm gonna beat the system. I'm gonna ride my bike. Now, problem, didn't have a bike. So that was a challenge. But I thought, I need to find a bike. And so I actually was home for a weekend, and I was like, oh, dude, let me go look in the garage and see if there's an old bike in there. And I find the BMX bike that I rode when I was in middle school. Okay, now, back in the day, it was sweet. When I found it that day, not so sweet. It was rusted out, it looked terrible. And so I thought to myself, I'm not scared of a little hard work, right? I'm putting a little elbow grease into this thing. We're gonna make it happen. And so I spent the weekend sanding all the rust down, and I was painting, and it looked terrible. I don't know what I thought it was gonna look like, but it looked better in my mind than what it ended up looking like. But I was like, I'm committed, this is all I got, right?

So I load it up in the back of my truck, get to school, ride my bike to school, right? Enduring this thing, and it's rickety. But at the same time, it brought back memories, you know, because I used to throw down. And there was a moment where I'm riding through campus, and I see the marching band, and it's like 300 people on this field. And I was like, do you know what they need right now? They need to see me do some tricks. Like they're probably all having a really bad day because they're in the band. And I'm gonna bring a little joy. And so I just concoct this plan in my head. Now, mind you, haven't done any tricks on a bike at this point in years. But that didn't matter, because they needed me. And so in my mind, I'm like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna ride across this field, I'm gonna ride as hard and as fast as I can, and I'm gonna get over to those yard markers, and I'm gonna do like a bunny hop, and I'm gonna do a little tail whip, you know, and then I'm gonna land this thing. They're gonna be so hyped, they're gonna throw their instruments in the air, trumpets are gonna be flying in the air. And so I take off, right, and I'm cranking on this old bike. And I've never, this has only happened one time, but the bike chain talked to me.

As I was really cranking on the pedals, it's like it looked at me and said, nah, bro. And I get about halfway across the field, and the chain snaps in half. And when it snapped in half, it wrapped itself into the back tire. So now the back tire stops rolling. So I start sliding, right, now to try to correct it, I pull up hard on the handlebars. They come out of the bike. So now I'm sliding, I got handlebars in my hand. You know, you ever been like in a terrible situation, everything just starts going super, super slow, you know, and I'm like, I'm sure if I watched a video of this, which I wish I had, because I would show it, I'm sure it was just like, bang, bang. But in the moment, it felt like hours, right? Like I'm sliding across the field, looking at the handlebars, right, and then just crash. And when I crash, the bike just explodes into all these different pieces. And there is no quick escape. Right now, I've got to own the fool that I am. So I'm walking around the football field with the band who did not cheer and throw trumpets and tubas in the air. They're like, ooh, you know? And so now I'm like walking around, grabbing handlebars and chains, and I'm leaving, carrying my bike.

Have you ever had a day like that? Right, everything goes wrong, nothing worked. The thing that you were trying to do didn't happen. The thing that you planned to do fell apart. Nothing seemed to be going in the direction that you thought it was gonna go. We call those days days of trouble. Anybody had any trouble in their life? You know what's so interesting is that we're surprised when it happens. And you know, Jesus told us that we shouldn't be surprised when we hit trouble. He actually told us very, very clearly in John 16, three, that in this life, we will have what? Say it, church. Trouble. In this life, we will have trouble. Things are gonna be hard. Things are not gonna work out like we thought. Things are gonna fall apart. It's at times gonna feel like we're running into walls. We're gonna have challenge in our life. But Jesus then also said to what? Take heart. He said, take heart because I have overcome the world. Jesus is making it clear to us that when we hit hard in life, that the strength that we need to keep moving. moving towards Him comes from and through who He is and what He's done.

The strength that we need to keep moving through the hard that happens in our life does not come because we are strong. It does not come because we've got it all figured out. It comes because we serve a God who has overcome all of our trouble. So we can take heart even when we don't understand. Now let's just keep it 100, right? Can we be honest? Doug said that I could just act like this is my house. All right, so I'm just gonna be honest with you. We don't like this scripture. Few nervous laughs, right? We don't like this. You know what I want the scripture to say? Oh, what I want the scripture to say is in this life, you will have no trouble. That's what I want it to say. In this life, because you have relationship with me, you will have no trouble. Life is gonna be easy. You're gonna have more money than you know what to do with. You're only gonna get promotions. You're gonna marry the first person that you see. Life will be super easy, right? But that's not at all what life is and that's not at all what Jesus told us that it would be. But the reason we want that scripture to not say in this life, you will have trouble,

but in this life, we want it to say you won't have trouble is because we live in a culture that's hard averse. We will go to great lengths to not do hard. Some of you make me angry because you will wait at HEB in the line with your car, thinking that somebody's gonna pull out of the front spot and you'll wait there for longer. Don't look at your neighbor if it's them. For longer than it would have taken you to walk from the back of the parking lot. But God forbid you gotta get in the heat and walk a 10 extra feet, right? Look, we don't even have hard conversations anymore. We just leave bad reviews. We don't do hard as a culture anymore. Just the other night, my wife and I were like, man, we don't wanna clean up, let's just order food. Right, like we live in a day and age where things are created to try to alleviate hard in our lives. And so we shouldn't be surprised then that we're tempted to create a life that is hard averse and wait for it. For that to happen, that means you need to build a life that is risk-free, so that then it would potentially be pain-free and wait for it. Then your life will be impact-free. And so here's what I want us to wrestle with together

as we dive into the word of God, is that hard is not bad. Hard is not bad. Hard actually is used by God to build in us what he needs in us to do the will that he has for us. When we read Hebrews, right, it was the hard they went through that produced in them what they needed. It was the challenges that they faced, getting robbed, persecuted, accused, imprisoned, all of those things built in them what they needed so that they could do what God had called them to do. But hard is not fun, right? It's not hard to get that phone call from your doctor to hear the news that you didn't want to hear. It's not fun to try to think about what you're gonna say to your spouse or your roommates when you're driving home after you just got laid off from your job. It's not fun to hold the hand of your loved one as they take their last breath. It's not fun to watch your kids go through hard stuff. And to have their own challenges and difficulties. No, we don't like dealing with that, but maybe there's some good for us in it. Because there's no season that's wasted in a heart that's submitted to Jesus. There's no season that is wasted in a heart that's submitted to Jesus.

Romans 8, verse 28. And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love them. In some of the things? No, come on, church. In some of them? No, all things. In the good? All. In just the easy? All. He works all, thank you, that one person. He works all things for the good of those who love him and who've been called according to his purpose. Life with God is not about avoiding hard or getting a pass around it. Life with God is he meets us so we can thrive in it. Because he makes all things work for our good. I love the definition of resilience. Sometimes Webster nails it. For those of you guys, who is almost everybody in this service, who have no idea what Webster is, it's a dictionary. See, a long time ago, there were these things called books and they had pages in them. And there was one, and this is crazy, it was a book of words. It was before Google. And so you would look up the word

and it would show you how to spell it and what it meant. And it was called Webster's Dictionary. There you go. Webster defines resilience as this, it's our capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulty. Resilience is our capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulty. But resilience isn't something that we just hope for. We don't just hope that we're gonna be more resilient. We don't just say, man, I hope I'm more resilient today. No, resilience is earned by leaning into Jesus in the storm. You don't get resilient without a storm. Learning who God has called you to be in the middle of the chaos of life is where our heart gets the strength that it needs to do all that God has called us to do. Our heart gets the strength that it needs to do all that God has called us to do. James 1 says this, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance and perseverance finishes its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. That there's a work that God does in the challenge that shapes us, it forges us, if you will, into more of who he's called us to be, that we would be mature and not lacking in anything.

That comes when we consider it joy that we go through hard. Now, I love the Bible, but sometimes you read it and you're like, that's kind of hard to really believe. Like, consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds. Like, we read that, that's definitely on a couple bumper stickers. You know, like, you've seen a poster of that, probably a shirt or something, but think about it. Consider it pure joy. Think about a part in your life where you are experiencing the fullness of the joy of heaven. Now, all of that thanksgiving, security, emotion, and clarity that you have in that moment, now think about experiencing that right after you lose your job, right after you get hard news, right after your best friend betrayed you, right after the person you thought you were gonna live the rest of your life with cheats on you. Consider it pure joy, not joy in what you're going through, joy in what's gonna come out of you because you're going through it. Because perseverance has to work itself out. You have to learn how to keep surrendering the midst of the storm to keep believing when everything around you is telling you not to to keep holding on when life is trying to rip your hands off consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters when you face trials because you

know the testing of your faith produces somebody say produces produces perseverance I want you to hear what I'm getting ready to say because this is so important especially in this generation where you are right now what you're doing and what you feel like is a challenge is not hindering what God has for you it is building you for what God has for you there is nothing hear me there is nothing on earth under the earth around you they can stop God's perfect plan for your life isn't that good news and then encouraging there's nothing that can stand in the way of God's plan for your life and that means that the challenge you're facing that he's got some good for you in it and it might not be comfortable but hard is not bad there's a dream in you some of you I mean even as I was praying it's like God was just stirring me there's some dreamers in this house and you've got some big dreams with Jesus and you're you're holding on to him and you're believing for them and you're praying for them some of you have some some big ambition you got some stuff that you're hoping for with your career or maybe your family whatever the case may be and sometimes those things feel really clear to us right and other times you're just kind of thankful that you got here this morning right and and here's what's encouraging it doesn't matter if you're in a season where that dream is crystal clear and you're just seeing it and you're believing for it and you wake up in the morning and vision to pray and to believe God and and to put your hope in him that that there's nothing that's impossible with him or if you woke up this morning you're like man I just hope I can get there before the 12 o'clock because my goal is to get to the 10 but here's the good news it doesn't matter if you're clear or unclear God's clear God's clear and you might be in a foggy season right now but you can hang on to the hem of his garment and he will lead you through the fog but here's what happens in trouble 1st Peter 5 verse 8 describes for us our enemy known as the devil and this is what it says your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour can we just take a minute and about the word like because the devil is not a lion he has no teeth all he can do

is is sound like a lion because he's already been defeated and so he roars at us and you know what his roar sounds like his roar sounds like lies in the middle of our pain because when we're going through hard that's when our heart is vulnerable to begin to believe something that's not true about God and about ourselves because when we go through hard you can very easily begin to question the character of God and his plan for your life because if you think that life with God is just supposed to be that in this life you will not have trouble when you hit trouble you're like what happened God where'd you go I thought you were my provider I thought you were my protector and God's standing in heaven and saying I am I am this hard has a purpose because in heaven there's always a purpose in our pain am I talking to anybody this morning there's always a purpose and there's no season there's no pain wasted there's no pain wasted for a heart that surrendered to Jesus but what the enemy will do is that he will begin to lie to you about who you are and who God is. And his plan in planting those lies in you is simply to steal, kill, and destroy God's perfect plan for your life. All he can do is distract you from it. He can't take it from you. So if he can get you to not believe it, then he's killed it. And so you go through something hard and a lie gets planted in your head. You see, I knew I couldn't trust God or anyone. And you might not even know that that lie is in you. But then a new opportunity comes your way and you approach it like this. Because that lie is shaping for you your ability to trust what's in front of you.

And then you take a couple hits in life and so now you're even further away. No wonder we end up giving up on our dreams, man. No wonder we give up. No wonder we start thinking things like, you know what, I'm just a failure. I'm just a loser. All those promises in the Bible, they must be for everybody but me. Because our enemy, the devil, is roaming around like a roaring lion and he's exploiting our pain and depositing lies to steal, kill, and destroy to move us off of the plan that God has for us. We see this in the life of Peter. You guys know Peter? At Antioch, we call him Pistol Pete. Right, Pete was a wild man, dude. Pete was crazy. Pete had no self-control. Do you guys read the Bible? The Bible is crazy, man. It's like rated R. For real. Like, Peter cut a homie's ear off, dude. Like, when is that ever okay? Can you imagine like Jesus praying, Father, you know, and then Pete. Jesus comes out and Jesus is like, what did you do, bro? Has to like put the dude's ear back on. Cool moment.

Also, Bible's crazy. Right, Peter was crazy, dude. He was so emotional. He was emotional rollercoaster. He couldn't keep his mouth shut. He always said the wrong thing at the right time. You know, there's a moment in the mountain of transfiguration, he's like seeing heaven open upright and he looks at Jesus, he's like, should we like build something here? Like, you know, and Jesus is like, bro, like, all the time, yet Jesus looked at him and he said, you are a rock and on this rock, I'm gonna build my church. Because Jesus always tells us our identity before we begin to walk towards it. It always starts with a word. He tells, he speaks to you. This is who you are. This is what you're made for. This is who you really are. And then that gets seeded in us by the trouble that we walk through. Peter blew it. Peter denied Jesus, man. The rock, think about that. On this rock, I'm gonna build my church and a teenage girl comes up to Peter and is like, yo, didn't you know Jesus? He's like, never met him. No idea.

Who is this Jesus guy? Tell me about him. Completely denies knowing him. In that moment, he was not a rock. His courage was rocky. But we learn a lot about how Jesus sees us and how he restored Peter. So Jesus goes and dies on the cross, conquering sin and death, making a way for me and you to be forgiven of our sins so we can have relationship with God and walk into the throne room of heaven with confidence, not because of what we've done, in spite of what we've done, because of the blood of Jesus. And now we have resurrected Jesus looking at Rocky Pete. And he looks at him and he says, Peter, do you love me? He didn't say, why'd you do that? He didn't say, why are you so scared? He didn't say. be stronger than a teenager girl. He said, Peter, do you love me? And Peter responds back, yes. And then Jesus says this, feed my sheep. And then Jesus looks at Peter and says, Peter, do you love me? Peter's like, yes. He says, feed my sheep. And then one last time, he says, Peter, do you love me?

And I can only imagine that Peter's yes had a little bit of some stuff, some Peter in it when he said, yes. And Jesus said, feed my sheep. Do you see that Jesus was pulling Peter out of his shame cave by reminding him not what he's done, but who he is. He's like, is your heart for me? Then do what I've called you to do. Is your heart for me, Peter? Then do what I've called you to do. Is your heart for me, Peter? Then do what I've called you to do. Knowing your identity in heaven is everything. Knowing your identity in heaven is everything. When you know who you are in God, there is nothing that can steal you from what God has for you. But when we're not clear about it, we don't have enough truth in us, then the lies of the enemy can begin to steal from us. We have a lot of phrases around our house, things that we say, you know, I like try to be like an inspirational father. According to my children, I'm not good at it. Right, and so I'll sometimes be like, hey, don't show up to a gunfight with no bullets in your gun. You know, and you know, they're all cool, right? So they're like, dad, it's so violent. What are you doing, you know?

I'm like, dude, I don't care. Don't show up to a gunfight with no bullets in your gun. And when I say that, what I'm saying is, don't walk into the world with no truth loaded. Because the enemy is gonna be shooting at you. He's gonna be shooting lies at you and temptation towards you and bad opportunities in front of you. And if you are not loaded up with the truth of the word of God, you will not have anything to fight him with. This is why we have to be Bible readers, man. We have to be a people who read the Bible, that read it for ourselves, that dive into his word, that encounter him daily, that worship him, that have a vibrant secret life with God so that God can use us vibrantly in the world. Because what's happening when no one's watching is exactly what's needed when everyone's watching. Again, this works against what's kind of cool in culture because culture, it's just like supposed to happen, right? Like you graduate, boom, billionaire. First idea, boom, trillionaire, right? You don't even gotta, you just get your influencer on, you know? This is what I like from Sephora and this is my lip color. And, but you know, I love these shoes. They really support me. You know, like I use this product with, like everybody's just like trying to influence everybody.

But the funny thing is everybody's just chasing a bag, dude. No one's trying to influence anybody. They're gonna influence you toward their gain. That's what it is. And we're drawn to it because it feels like any, oh, I can just do it. You don't have to serve anybody anymore, man. You got an idea, start your company, boom. You know how many CEOs I meet? Right? They live at home with their mom. Right, because you just start something. Yeah, I'm a CEO, man. I got something going on. I'm a CEO of this deal. You know, we're popping. You know what I'm saying? We're like, we're in that guerrilla stage right now, you know, but we're on that grind. We're on that grind, dog. Because we have missed that there's preparation that's needed for impact. We've missed that. We've missed that there's like things that need to be worked in us in the challenge of becoming that is actually gonna be a place of strength for us when we get there. This is why I think that a lot of people end up going crazy when they make it. Because if you see somebody who had nothing

and then has everything, rarely does that story end well. And it's because nothing was forged in them. And so they didn't have what they needed to hold what they were even given. Good. Knowing our identity in heaven is how we move from the lies of failure to the purpose of our calling. We see this in the life of David. I love David. King David, what a guy. What a journey. His story starts in the book of Samuel, 1 Samuel. We're gonna kinda be in and out of Samuel 16 and 17 if you wanna open your Bible there. But I want you to understand that David was anointed king because the spirit of God left the other king. Now this is a side note. This is like a sermon 2.0. King Saul stopped doing what God called him to do and started doing what he wanted to do. And here's the uncomfortable biblical truth. The spirit of God left him. The hand of God was raised off of him. And God initiates with the prophet Samuel and he says, Samuel, I want my people led by someone who is going to honor me and do what I say to do and not do what they wanna do. And so he sends Samuel on a journey. He's like, go, I'll show you where you need to go.

And he's like walking around. And he gets led to this dude's house named Jesse. And Jesse was David's dad. And while he's there, he's like, I need to see all of your sons. I need to see all of them. And we get a little window into the pain and the brokenness of David's family dynamics. Because Jesse didn't even go get David from the field. Now, this is when I wish I had like a picture book Bible that was like actually real because supposedly David's brothers were like dogs. You know, they looked like Nehemiah over there. You know what I'm saying? Like just big dudes, you know, like they looked like a warrior king. They looked like, oh, this guy's got it under control. And this is where we get that famous scripture that we've probably all heard even if you've only been to church once, right? That God looks at the heart. Man looks like at the outside. And so even Samuel, the prophet of God, led there by God to anoint the next king. He goes to each of the brothers and every one he's convinced this guy must be the guy. He's like, oh, dude, bro, I feel it on you, bro. And God's like, nope. And he goes to the next brother and he's like, my bad God, it's because I hadn't seen him yet.

What a dude. And God's like, nope. You know, and he gets to the last brother and God's like, nope. And he looks at Jesse and he's like, this is it? And Jesse's like, I mean, there's David, bro, but. He's like small, kind of sings a lot, a little emotionally unstable. We keep him outside. He's a little volatile. He writes a lot of poems. I don't know if he's your guy, you know? And Samuel's like, no, I need to meet him. And until he gets here, none of you can sit down. I mean, can you imagine that moment, dude? Like the brothers are just like, this is awkward. So David comes into the house, right? Samuel sees him. God speaks to Samuel and he says, this is the next king of Israel. And it says that Samuel put his hands on him and prayed for him. And the anointing of heaven fell on David. And when that anointing fell on David in that moment. He was fully 100% the anointed king of Israel. The hand of God had fallen on him and he was given what he needed in that moment to lead the people. Now, check this out. This is the best part of the story.

Guess what happened after that? Nothing. See, this is where we start to miss it a little bit because we have some big moments, some big revelations, some big idea, and we just think like, boom, it's time! My time has come! And David was anointed to lead the people of God. And guess what he did? He woke up the next day and he went back to the fields and he was just a shepherd. The anointed king, but waiting for the king's time. Because there's some things that needed to be worked in him so that God could work through him. And don't miss the timing of the story. God always speaks your identity to you before he gives you what he's going to give you because you're gonna need your identity on your way. And so David's just back with the sheep. He's just doing shepherd stuff. And then this war breaks out. The Philistines come and they're like, we're gonna kill you, you know? And David's brothers, these like yoked up warrior dudes, go to the fight. And they've been out there for 40 days, the Bible says. And then David finds out from his dad, hey, David, the brothers have been out there for 40 days. Why don't you go bring them some lunch?

Just think about this for a minute. The anointed king working for Uber Eats. Hey, go take them some food, man. And so he goes out there not to fight, but he goes out there because he's obedient to his father. David never tried to rush what God had for him because he knew who God had said that he was. So he didn't feel any pressure to make something happen that was outside of the timing of God. And so he goes just obedient to his dad, like, hey, dad, okay, I'll bring him some lunch, you know? And so he goes out there to bring his brothers food. And he hears Goliath, this mountain of a man, cursing God and cursing the people of God. And then guess what? His identity came out as the king who is to represent God to the people and to the people of the earth. And he says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine? Now, of all the put-downs you can say, uncircumcised Philistine, I'm using it now. Like, I'm gonna use that. Like, somebody cuts me off in traffic, you uncircumcised Philistine. And so his identity came out, right? He's like, man, no, I'm called to defend the God that he's cursing. And he looks around, how come none of y'all are worried about this? How come none of y'all care about this?

And his brothers are like, dude, chill out, bro. Go back, be with the sheep. And then Saul, King Saul hears there's somebody who's willing to fight Goliath. He's like, bring him here, right? So David shows up, little Dave, Shepherd Dave. Right, and Saul's like, bro, this isn't for you. Thank you for your passion. But man, this guy has been a warrior his whole life and you are a shepherd. And then David says something incredibly important. He says, you know what? There was a time when I was out in the field and a lion came and that lion tried to eat my dad's sheep. And so I killed it with my bare hands. And then another day, a bear came and I did the same thing to that bear. So you know what I'm gonna do? The same thing to that uncircumcised Philistine. Now watch this. Was David rejected in the field or was he being prepared in it? Was he forgotten or was he being forged? You see, because when no one is watching who you are is who you really are. And it's who you are when no one's watching that will give you what you need when everyone's watching And so now David has an everybody's watching moment. And so who he is came out Who he had been prepared to be came out and he says, you know what? I'm gonna go handle this guy He goes out meets Goliath You guys know how the story goes, right?

He takes a stone Saul tried to put his armor on him, right and he's like man. I can't fight him like this This is crazy. He's like, this is all I need cuz this is who I am Don't make me you Don't put your armor on me Because God defended me against the lion and a bear and God's gonna defend me against this man and so he takes a sling and he puts a rock in it and he slings it and he hits Goliath right in the head and Goliath falls out knocked out takes Goliath's sword cuts Goliath's head off raided our Bible I Want you to hear this David became a king Before he was a king He was built in the pain of the rejection of his family and the isolation of the fields God was preparing him For what he was gonna put in front of him and you know what our culture needs right now our culture needs giant killers There's a lot of loud giants in culture right now saying things with intimidation and fear And It's time for the church to rise up and say I'm not afraid of the giants of my culture Because I know who I am in the eyes of my God That's how we're gonna win. It's knowing who we are in the eyes of our God