Download Document - National Community Church

NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH
January 24, 2016
Reset: Spiritual Reset
Campus Pastors
Welcome to ‘snowtastrophy’ 2016! Hopefully you have got your fill of snow and sledding and
snowmen and snowball fights. But we know a lot of you can’t make it to services this weekend
but we want to come to you. So we have our eight campuses pastors to come and encourage you
this weekend with a word. So even though you can’t make it to church, we still believe God has
a unique plan to speak into us this weekend. We’ve spent the last month talking about hitting the
reset button. We’ve talked about emotional, relational and financial and today we are going to
talk about spiritual reset. We are going to have fun. We pray that as we jump into this thing that
you will be challenged and encouraged.
There is a story about 200 years old about a rabbi. One night the rabbi was sleeping and he had
this intense, vivid dream. Far off, he saw a bridge and under the bridge was a river and there was
buried treasure underneath. The rabbi woke us and jumped out of bad and goes off on this long
journey. After many miles and many days, he comes to this city and he sees the bridge and he
goes underneath it and starts searching for this treasure. After a while, a policeman comes along
and he asks the rabbi what he is doing and the rabbi says, ‘What are you talking about?’ And the
policeman says, ‘I’ve been watching you for hours, what you are doing?’ The rabbi says, ‘You
will not believe this, you will think I’m crazy but I had this dream and in the dream there was
buried treasure underneath this bridge.’ The policeman just started laughing and he said, ‘Do you
really believe dreams like that? If you do, then I believe that there is treasure underneath a rabbi.’
The rabbi smiled and walked away and ends his journey. We spend our whole lives searching
and trying to find that which we always have. We spend our whole lives trying to be spiritual
when the Christian revelation is that we’ve always been spiritual in Christ. In Hebrew, there is no
word for ‘spiritual.’ If you went up to Jesus and said how is your spiritual life, He might say,
‘What are you talking about?’ We are in this Reset series and all of it is integrated into this idea
of being spiritual. The early church picked this up. They said whatever you do in word and deed,
do it in the name of Christ. What does that say? Make everything that you do be a spiritual act. It
is just us becoming more aware. When Jesus said whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you
have done unto me. What is He doing here? He is trying to teach us that no matter who we are
around or what interaction we find ourselves in, we have the opportunity to see the divine in that
moment. There is this beautiful passage in Matthew 11 and you’ve probably heard it before. I
think it is a phenomenal spiritual reset that Jesus is trying to do. Matthew 11:28
28-30 “Are
you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and
you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—
watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting
on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Jesus is not inviting us into a transaction. It is not mechanical. It is a relational flow. We are
always and forever instruments and our job is to slowly but surely tune into the frequency of the
divine that is around us.
So may this verse be a reset button for you. Take a deep breath and instead of trying harder this
year to be better and to do the right thing, maybe just take a deep breath and walk with Him and
you learn the unforced rhythms of his grace.
Three years ago, my wife and I were given some amazing news. We were at the doctor and she
confirmed that we were pregnant and that we were having twins. That blew our minds. It was an
unbelievable announcement. And then right after the best announcement, we received the worst
announcement. The doctor said there were some concerns. We were given the diagnosis that we
have these amazing twins coming but they were really rare and they would need lots of
hospitalization. So as we went through the pregnancy, my wife ended up living in the hospital for
three months. Then after our twins were born, our daughter had all kinds of health issues and she
was in the hospital for an additional month. So out of a full year, we lived in the hospital for over
four months, 110 days. During that time, I asked lots of questions and shed lots of tears and was
praying for the survival of my children. It went like this. We say, God, you love me and I love
you and I’m serving you and doing everything I can so shouldn’t I get a blessing in return.
Shouldn’t life be a little bit easier? Shouldn’t there be some kind of policy where maybe I could
skate through the hard times and not experience the pain or the suffering or the anguish that
everybody else does? At that time, I really had to ask myself, how do I really understand God?
How do I understand my relationship with God and my expectations of God and I really needed
a spiritual reset as to who I was and who He was and what our relationship was. This is a
common issue in Scripture. In John 11, we see this exact same story playing out. There is this
family that Jesus loved very much. In fact, it says that Jesus loved Martha. It said that He loved
Mary and He also loved their brother Lazarus. And when Lazarus is referenced, his name is
accompanied by ‘the one you love.’ So there is this odd passage at the beginning of John 11
where it says Lazarus was sick and they sent word to Jesus and it says Jesus loved Mary and He
loved Martha and He loved Lazarus, so He stayed gone for two more days. And this really made
everybody question the character of Jesus and the relationship that He had with Lazarus. If you
really love Mary and Martha and Lazarus, then if He is sick, aren’t you going to go right away
and pull him out of it and make sure he doesn’t experience death. But Jesus replied and said
Lazarus is already dead and for your sakes, I am glad. Well Jesus’ students couldn’t understand
why Jesus would be glad that Lazarus was dead. Then Jesus says this isn’t going to end in death,
this is going to end with God being glorified. So I ask you right now, what have you experienced
in life where there is death? Maybe financially or relationally or emotionally or spiritually. We
say, Jesus, if I love You and You love me, I’m not supposed to experience these hardships or
these deaths. Jesus doesn’t promise us that we won’t experience death. What He promises us is
that it won’t end in death. So for some of us, maybe we should be wondering if we expect
promises from God that He didn’t promise. Are we expecting a relationship with God that He
didn’t initiate? Or perhaps we are expecting freedom from hardship and suffering and death but
Jesus is saying that is not the point. The point is that you will come through it and it will not end
in death but it will end with the glory of God. So I ask you right now, as we reset our
understanding of God, as we reset our relationship with God, maybe we shouldn’t be asking if
this is good for us or is this bad for me, but maybe the question is how is God going to receive
glory in all these things.
I love America! I love America for our faith and our founding principles and for our history, but
I love America for a whole lot of less substantial reasons. I love America for college football and
pulled pork bar-b-que and for Keurig’s and I also love America for bringing the all-American all
you can eat buffet to society. If you’ve ever been to a Golden Corral or a Ryan’s Steakhouse that
the buffet is a great people-watching venue. People come to the buffet crazy! They come hungry
and focused and motivated. How you buffet says a lot about who you are and what you hunger.
And really our hunger and what we are after says a lot about who we are in general. Our hunger
drives our determination and our actions. It drives what we do and what we say. It will largely
determine our destiny in 2016. In the book, Celebration of the Disciplines, Richard Foster says it
this way. Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary
spiritual problem. He said the desperate need today is not for more intelligent people or gifted
people but it is for deep people. He goes on to add that the primary requisite for depth is a
longing or a hungering for God. Matthew 5:6 says it this way:
Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled.
What are you hungering for? What are you asking God to do in your world? Are you longing for
a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him? Are you looking for your communication with
Him to be more regular and meaningful? Well your answer to those questions will largely
determine your spiritual growth trajectory in 2016. As we hunger for God, I really believe that
the Spirit wants to let us know and remember that our hunger drives what we ingest and what we
invest. As we look at investment, I believe the Spirit wants to challenge us to begin to invest
consistently. The bottom line here is that God is looking for people to go the distance. He is
looking for people that will close the deal. God is not looking for more flamboyant or flashy
starting pitchers. He is looking for reliable closers. He is looking for people that will keep the
faith this year and finish as strong as they start. Paul says in II Timothy 4:7
My life has already been poured out as a drink offering to the Lord.
He is saying his life has already been a long consistent series of investments. But then he goes on
to say the time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have
kept the faith. That is the prayer I want. If we are going to be those people who start the race and
finish as strong as we started, it is going to come from our hunger and our investment.
I want to challenge you this morning, what are you hungering for? Would you write that one
thing down? And every day this year, pull that out and look at it and say, God, I want to start
2016 strong but more than starting strong, I want to finish strong. Let me remind you that God
values your longevity more than He values your fervency. God doesn’t want you to love him
louder, He wants you to love Him longer. This year, let’s be those people that finish the race and
keep the faith.
My son Sam is a smoothie addict. He would tell you that smoothies are one of the major keys to
success in life. Sam is also 16 and we just recently picked up a new used car so for one of Sam’s
first trips out, of course he went to Tropical Smoothie. When he got there he turned the car off
but left the lights on, went inside, hung out with his friends for an hour or longer and when he
came back out, we know what he found, a car that wouldn’t start. So I got a phone call so I
jumped in the car and went and gave Sam a little lesson in jumping a car 101 and hooked the car
up and it started right up. That car had everything it needed except power. My challenge to you
today spiritually is that many of us have everything we need but we need a reset of power. So
many of you are so good, especially at the beginning of the year, at setting up all your lists and
getting your Bible reading plan together, getting everything organized and getting things out of
your life that you don’t need and getting back into the gym, doing all these spiritual and physical
and financial things right but we have to make sure we have power. Those things are important.
They are the wheels to the car. They are the engine. They are the steering wheel and the gas
pedal. You can’t go where you need to go without them but without power, those things won’t
get you where you want to be. In II Peter 1:3, it says
3 His
divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of
him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
His divine power has given us everything we need. That word ‘power’ in the Greek is where we
get the word ‘dynamite.’ This is not just an ordinary little electrical current, this is a serious
power and it is something that is critical to our lives. You can have everything lined up but
without that power, we are not going to be able to see God do what God wants to do in our lives
in 2016. This is my spiritual challenge to you today. It says that it is everything we need. This is
the key and I want to really challenge you with this message today. It is the power for life and
godliness. Think of life and godliness. So many times in our lives, we live our lives and then we
also live our spiritual lives. We live our regular lives and our spiritual lives. It is the power of
God that brings those two things together and makes them one, unites them and makes them so
that they will bring us to the place that God wants us to be. A spiritual challenge for you today is
to reset with the power to get reconnected to the power that is found in relationship with Father
God.
I’m a person who self-reflects a lot. I internalize my thoughts and I’m constantly processing and
I’ve been doing a lot of that over the last few weeks, especially as we’ve come into 2016 and I
think I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a problem. Now, I know my wife is like Oh my
God thank You Jesus he finally realizes he has a problem after all these years of marriage! But
when I say that, I’m really focusing in on a little phrase that you may have heard before that I
think summarizes the extent of my problem and it is ‘doing the most.’ In the urban dictionary,
because that phrase is not in a regular dictionary, it says these are people who are trying way too
hard, sometimes to be overly impressive but not always and it often leads to self-embarrassment
and the results are usually less than optimal or less than what they intended. So if someone says
to you today you are doing the most, that’s not really a good thing. And if you want another
point of reference for what that looks like, just go check out Facebook or some other social
media and you will see plenty of videos of people doing the most. But when I zoom out and
think about this phrase and I think about my own life, it is really about a misappropriation of
effort. My efforts being pointed in the wrong direction. And it is overall a waste of energy and a
waste of time that could be betters suited to produce greater returns if those efforts were pointed
in a different direction. So when I openly confess that I know I do the most, I am basically
saying that I know my efforts are not always pointed in the right direction. Like when I’m
focusing too much on ministry to others and projects as opposed to giving the right amount of
ministry and time to my family. Or when I’m trying to get my home jazzed up. You may know
that I’m into home décor and I’m trying to get it looking a certain way, not just for me but so
others can come in and say oh that’s nice. That is probably not a great use of my effort and time.
Our world is a world that is full of producing results and our efforts are counting for something
but mainly toward producing what we would call a good life. But when we look at II Peter, Peter
talks about not focusing on a good life but a godly life. II Peter 1:3
3 His
divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of
him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Peter is telling us that we should try to reset our focus spiritually and not focus on a good life but
on a godly life. How can we do that? He goes on to talk about how it really is about our efforts
being focused on increasing our knowledge of who Jesus is. And through that knowledge, we
can access great promises, we can access the divine nature God has for us and it allows us to
escape the corruption that is caused by evil desires. He then goes on to say in verse 5
5 For
this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness,
knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to
perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.
When I look at that word ‘effort’ it is really about making a conscience exertion of power, hard
work, a serious attempt. And when you look at synonyms, you see elbow grease, or labor, or
sweat or muscle. It means you have to make a serious effort. You have to put a serious effort into
it. My question to you today is, where are your efforts focused? Are you accumulating a good
life or are you accessing the power of a godly life? How are you going to do that in 2016?
I love watching my kids wake up from sleep. There is something in their eyes. There is curiosity
and excitement about the day ahead. I listened to a pastor preach this past week and he was
asking God why do kids love waking up in the mornings. What do we never find a kid who is not
a morning person? And he felt like he heard God says, it’s because they love life. They love life.
The love what the day ahead is going to bring. They love what they can learn. They love the
curiosity of this world and what the day is going to behold for them. Seeing my kids live out life,
and then I check my heart a little bit because there are times when I want to sleep in. There are
times when there is something about the day that I’m not excited about. There is something
about my schedule that gives me some anxiety. You know what I’m saying! Here is where I feel
like the Lord has been speaking to me during this Reset series. Psalm 46:10
Be still and know that it am God.
It is in the stillness of God’s voice that we get to know Him. It is in the place of stopping that we
have the opportunity to get to know God, our Creator. If there is something that God has put
throughout the narrative of Scripture and highlighted more than anything else, it is the heart of
Himself and his concern for our heart. I’m not talking about the four chamber system that pumps
blood through the body. I’m talking about the spiritual heart. The place of deep seeded emotions
and passions and places of compassion. It is that place where I feel like the Lord is welcoming us
daily to reset and to listen to Him and to see what is really going on in our hearts. If we are
honest, there is a little fear there. There is fear of going to a heart to heart with God because we
are afraid of what we will find. We are some afraid of some of our past or we are afraid of the
current sins that are weighing down on us and we are afraid of how God will respond. But when
we look throughout the Scriptures and we see the heart of God, we see that He responds to us in
grace and love. And in his heart, He wants to see us be changed from the inside out. When I was
in college, I took an anatomy class and in that class I actually held a real heart and I thought
about how the heart has such a purpose in the body as it pumps blood throughout our whole body
and through our brain to allow us to be fully alive. Living in Washington DC I think we suffer
from this heart condition called spiritual tachycardia, that’s when the heart is beating so fast that
it isn’t providing life to our body in a way that is effective and sufficient. And one way to stop
tachycardia, one way to bring the heart back to its natural rhythm is you have to stop it. You
need to use an AED to stop the heart and what it does is it brings the heart back to its natural
rhythm. We need to stop. During this Reset series we need to stop and in the midst of the silence
and the stillness we need to tune into what God wants to do at the heart level. We can’t just
ignore what is going on around us. We can’t just ignore that our life is going at 100 miles per
hour. We can’t just put our hearts into sufficiency and success, that is not what we were created
for. We were created to have a heart to heart with God. We were created to make appointments
with God daily, to be in his presence, to hear his voice. He speaks in a still, small voice so if we
are not still and if we are not stopping, are we hearing his voice? Or are we hearing the voice of
the roaring lion that we read about in Scripture that is an enemy to our souls. If we start each and
every single day in the stillness and pause and listen to God, I believe we will have less
disappointments. I think a lot of times we are disappointed with God because we don’t make
appointments with Him. I encourage you to make appointments with God. Be still and know that
He is your God.
What do you want me to do for you? This is the question Jesus asked two of his top disciples,
James and John. And they responded interestingly in Mark 10:35
35 Then
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you
to do for us whatever we ask.”
Jesus had just finished teaching about what true discipleship is. In fact, He had just finished
teaching about how He was going to go to the cross and how He was going to die and be
mocked. Then James and John asked Him this question. They said,
37 They
replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
It is as if they didn’t hear anything Jesus said. They only heard what they wanted to or they
weren’t listening at all. Isn’t that like most of us? We hear Jesus talk but we only hear what we
want to hear or we don’t listen at all. They figured Jesus was almighty, all-powerful and they
thought He would give them whatever they wanted. So they went for it and here is how Jesus
responds to them in verse 38
38 “You
don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be
baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
39 “We
can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am
baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those
for whom they have been prepared.”
Again, in essence, James and John wanted what they wanted. They wanted powerful positions
and the figured Jesus were going to give it to them because they were his right hand men. So
they answered Jesus’ question with wrong motives. We are told in James 4 what causes fights
and quarrels among you.
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that
battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what
you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you
ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get
on your pleasures.
Verse 7
7 Submit
yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.8 Come near to God
and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to
gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
James and John weren’t humble. I’m often not humble. Maybe you are not humble. They weren’t
mourning. They weren’t seeking a spiritual reset, they were seeking selfish ambition. So Jesus
responds to the request by pointing to the cross. He points to his cup that they would drink,
which meant God wrath upon them. He points to the baptism, which means being overwhelmed.
And He said you will drink my cup and you will be baptized with my baptism. It is in the
following verses, 41-52, which I don’t have time to read now, but I believe that is when James
and John witnessed a spiritual reset as Jesus granted another man this same question. He said
what do you want Me to do for you and the man replied with the right motive and so Jesus
granted his request to be made whole, that is spiritually reset. So in closing, I want to leave you
with two things. First I want to leave you with a question and then a practical application. First,
how will you answer Jesus’ question today, what do you want me to do for you. Will you answer
with selfish ambition? That is to get power thinking that maybe you can help people but in
reality you are seeking your own desires. Or will you answer with humility? That is to be
spiritually whole, to have a spiritual reset with Jesus. The second thing is this, in addition to
seeking the Lord through fasting and through prayer, I want to encourage you to join with me as
we look long term. On July 16, 2016, I’m going to go on the Mall with a bunch of other
Christian people that are going to seek the Lord together for what is called Reset 2016. You can
go to www.reset2016.com to find out more about it but it is a long term vision of what it means
to truly be spiritually reset. We are told to pursue righteousness along with those who call upon
God with a pure heart so I want to pursue righteousness with you as we pursue God together. So,
may we deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily and follow Jesus as we seek to spiritually
reset in Christ.
Mark 10:46
46 Then
they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were
leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the
roadside begging. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son
of David, have mercy on me!”
If you want a spiritual reset, it is not that hard. Call out to God! Put down your remote and pick
up your Bible. Put down your beer and set your alarm and get up and seek the Lord. We see two
very different motives here between James and John and then Bartimaeus. They come to the
Lord commanding Him what to do but then we see Bartimaeus come and he comes before the
Lord seeking God, crying out for mercy, coming to God in humility before the Lord. Prayer
without humility as is empty as the bread aisle during a DC blizzard! Somehow grocery stores
are responsible for this blizzard! Back to my point, humility before the Lord makes all the
difference. Here is what it says in verse 51
51 “What
do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”
52 “Go,”
said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and
followed Jesus along the road.
This is the same question that is asked of James and John in the passage Pastor Mike just read
and then it is asked of Bartimaeus but they respond in very different ways and Jesus answers one
and He doesn’t answer the other. We think prayer automatically catches the heart of God but that
is not true. There is a difference. When we come to God and we pray and it is not answered, we
either think He is not real, He is not good or that prayer is not effective. But it has to do with our
attitude. Are we humble? Are we contrite before the Lord? And number two is content.
Bartimaeus wants a vision from God. When we think about a spiritual reset, we want that to
happen in our life. It is not just about getting a new idea, a new routine, a new way of doing
things, it is about getting a vision from the Lord. I love the way my dad used to talk about vision.
He would say this, a vision will take you beyond your natural resources. It can’t be accomplished
in the natural unless God does it, it can’t be done. That is where a vision will take you. They are
not comfortable. They don’t fit into the normal patterns of life. Visions take you beyond your
own strength and make you depend on the power and the strength of God. When we come before
the Lord, He does something new in us. I started this new pattern with my kids at night time. I’ll
close with this. We have three kids in our house so our house is loud and there is laughter and
there are arguments. So I come to bedtime and I say kids, we are going to take 10 seconds of
silence right now to listen to God, to get a vision from God before we pray. Then we take 10
seconds of silence and it actually works. It is the 10 most peaceful seconds on my day! I love
those 10 seconds! But something happens. They begin to get a vision from God. Can we practice
that right now? Let’s seek the Lord and take a few moments in pause.
God we pause before You, listening, seeking with humble hearts. We know that prayer doesn’t
just start with dear Jesus and end with Amen. Prayer has to do with listening and getting a vision
from You. So we pray as we have received eight different encouragements today, we pray that it
would take within our hearts and that we would go from selfishness to service, from pride to
humility, that You would reset our hearts in You. We give You our lives. We pray these things in
Jesus’ name, Amen.
Transcribed by:
Ministry Transcription
[email protected]