The opening 3 verses of the Book of Acts set the stage for the incredible story of the Church
All right, you may or may not know this movie trivia tidbit, but every single Star Wars movie opens up in the exact same way. Okay? The screen is filled with a picture of outer space. And then seconds later, a sentence comes across the screen in blue font, and it says, A long time ago in the Galaxy far away.
Then those words fade off the screen. When they fade off the screen, two things happen simultaneously. The Star Wars theme music comes on through the speakers, and the Star Wars logo comes on the screen. And then it begins to fade into the distance, into space. Then after that, you begin to see some yellow words come up from the bottom of the screen several paragraphs, and they roll up the screen slowly.
And then they fade away, too, into the background until you can't read them anymore. When all those words finally disappear from view, then the movie starts. This is the way that every Star Wars movie begins. And the introductory paragraphs at the beginning of Star Wars play an important role. Believe it or not, they provide the viewer with important information about the movie.
When you read these words at the beginning of Star Wars, they fill you in on some events that have already happened in the timeline of the story. They highlight events that have already taken place in the past. And knowing these things helps you better understand the context of the movie that you're about to watch. I'm going somewhere with this. Tonight.
We are starting a brand new sermon. Verse is the book of Acts, and we can see the exact same pattern unfold for us at the very beginning of this book. Acts open in the same way that every Star Wars movie does. Luke not Skywalker, but Luke, the beloved physician and travel companion of the Apostle Paul and the author of Acts, writes to a man named Theophilus. In the first three verses of Acts, Luke writes to Theophilus, and he highlights some events that have already happened in the past in order to help prepare Theophilus for what he's going to experience in the book he's about to read.
So let's jump right into Acts chapter one in verse one, and I'll show you what I mean. In Acts one, Luke writes, I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, and just stop right there. In just a few opening words, we noticed Luke point us back to something that has already happened. If you'd like to underline things in your Bible, underline the phrase the first narrative in verse is Lucas pointing Theophilus back to the first literary work, the first story, the first account, the first narrative that he wrote. Interestingly, this work that he points Theophilus back to is a work that Luke also wrote to Theophilus.
So here's a Bible trivia question for you. Does anyone know what Luke's first narrative is? Luke the Gospel, the gospel that bears his name. The first narrative that Luke wrote. The narrative that he's referring to here in Acts One.
One is the Gospel of Luke. Now here's another question. What do you think Luke's implying in the phrase in the first narrative? Well, if there's a first narrative, then that implies that there's also a second narrative. And the fact that Lucas refers back to his Gospel as the first narrative indicates to us that the Book of Acts which he also wrote is the second narrative.
So go ahead and write that down on your outline as your first filling. The Book of Acts is a narrative. The Book of Luke and the Book of Acts are two volumes in the same work by the same author, written to the same recipients using the same literary genre. Biblical narrative is a particular genre of literature found in the Bible. The Bible is one book, and at the same time, it's a compilation of 66 different books.
The chimes of time ring out the news Another day is through Some one slipped and fell, Was that someone you?
You may have longed for added strength Your courage to renew Do not be disheartened I have news for you.
It is no secret what God can do, What he has done for others, He'll do for you. With arms wide open, He'll pardon you It is no secret what God can do.
There is no night, for in His light You'll never walk alone. You'll always feel at home wherever you may roam, There is no power can conquer you, While God is on your side. Take Him at His promise, Don't run away and hide.
It is no secret what God can do, What he has done for others, He'll do for you. With arms wide open, He'll pardon you. It is no secret what God can do...
It is no secret; Back in the 50's there was a well-known radio host/comedian/song writer in Hollywood named Stuart Hamblen who was noted for his drinking, womanizing, partying, etc.
One of his bigger hits at the time was "I won't go hunting with you Jake, but I'll go chasing women."
One day, along came a young preacher holding a tent revival. Hamblen had him on his radio show presumably to poke fun at him.
In order to gather more material for his show, Hamblen showed up at one of the revival meetings.
Early in the service the preacher announced, "There is one man in this audience who is a big fake."
There were probably others who thought the same thing, but Hamblen was convinced that he was the one the preacher was talking about. Some would call that conviction, but he was having none of that.
Still, the words continued to haunt him until a couple of nights later he showed up drunk at the preacher's hotel door around 2AM demanding that the preacher prays for him!
But the preacher refused, saying, "This is between you and God and I'm not going to get in the middle of it."
But he did invite Stuart in and they talked until about 5 AM at which point Stuart dropped to his knees and with tears, cried out to God.
But that is not the end of the story. Stuart quit drinking, quit chasing women, quit everything that was 'fun.' Soon he began to lose favor with the Hollywood crowd.
He was ultimately fired by the radio station when he refused to accept a beer company as a sponsor.
Hard times were upon him. He tried writing a couple of "Christian" songs but the only one that had much success was "This Old House", written for his friend Rosemary Clooney.
As he continued to struggle, a long-time friend named John took him aside and told him, "All your troubles started when you 'got religion,' was it worth it all?" Stuart answered simply, "Yes."
Then his friend asked, "You liked your booze so much, don't you ever miss it?" And his answer was, "No."
John then said, "I don't understand how you could give it up so easily."
And Stuart's response was, "It's no big secret. All things are possible with God." To this John said, "That's a catchy phrase. You should write a song about it."
And as they say, "The rest is history."
The song Carl Stuart Hamblen wrote was "It Is No Secret." "It is no secret what God can do. What He's done for others, He'll do for you. With arms wide open, He'll welcome you. It is no secret, what God can do...."
By the way... the friend was John Wayne. And the young preacher who refused to pray for Stuart Hamblen? That was Billy Graham.
It really is no Secret. Music:
It is no secret -- Jim Reeves May the Good Lord bless and keep you
Eventually, our family solidified into a single unit and we relocated. Periodically, I looked for a church family for us to join because I knew its importance to my husband. Each experience was unsuccessful, and he finally told me to stop looking.
I decided that if I was to truly reject Christianity, I needed to read the Bible. I needed to make sure I knew what I was rejecting.
Then we had a family crisis, and I found myself at a church on the first Sunday of January, wondering where God was and knowing I needed to reconnect. The pastor that morning challenged us to take the year and read the Bible cover-to-cover.
I decided that if I was to truly reject Christianity, I needed to read the Bible. I needed to make sure I knew what I was rejecting.
I finished reading the Bible in the first week September.
One week later, I was baptized.
I would never have taken the step were it not for my husband, and I know deep in my heart that God set my husband in my path. I would not have seen the man he is if I had not gone through my own trials and pains.
My husband walks a Christ-like path. He acknowledges where people are in their journeys, encourages them when he can, and most importantly, demonstrates unconditional love and acceptance while still offering correction when needed.
The years since my baptism have been intense on many levels as God reworks my heart. I know I am unfinished; I have much to learn and much to do to fulfill my small piece of God’s plan.
God has given me much and healed many wounds
I still take a step back every so often, astonished at where I am, at how deep my faith and love for Jesus is. The first time I handed a Bible off to a friend scared me and thrilled me; it also encouraged me to keep sharing the Good News.
I now live my life by two verses. The first is my life verse:
And Jesus said to them, “According to your faith, let it be done to you.” (Matthew 9:29, NIV)
This verse challenges me to keep my faith strong. To me, it is both a promise and a warning.
The second verse is my action verse:
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. (Mathew 3:8, NIV)
God has given me much and healed many wounds; it is now my responsibility, my purpose, and my joy to be intentional in sharing Jesus and the Christian walk with others.
I don’t know where you are in your walk, and I pray for you. Where you are weak, I pray He strengthens. Where you are broken, I pray He heals. Where you doubt, I pray He reveals. May God reach His hand over you and cover you with His love and mercy.
The Beatitudes; The Beatitudes offer a vision of what it means to follow Jesus Christ
In a few short sentences, the Beatitudes are perhaps the most important, subversive and revolutionary text in the Bible. ‘Brothers and sisters, listen carefully to these words from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. In them he declares the blessings of God's kingdom. He gives us a vision of a world redeemed by love, and the qualities of discipleship which will bring about that transformation.’
The Beatitudes sum up Jesus' teaching about what it means to live as a child of God’s kingdom. They can be found right at the beginning of a long passage of teaching by Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, known as the Sermon on the Mount. Just as Moses taught the people of Israel from the mountain after he had received the Commandments, so Jesus begins his ministry by going up a mountain and teaching his disciples.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs, is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Some of these sayings are difficult to understand, and some are uncomfortable for us today as they would have been to Jesus' first hearers.
Looking at how Jesus lives them out himself is the best way of understanding what they mean. So, for instance, if you are not sure what Jesus means by ‘blessed are those who mourn’, look at the examples in Jesus’ own life and ministry where he cries out with sadness and anguish to God. This will help us see that mourning is not just about bereavement, but a whole attitude of lamentation and crying out to God when we see and experience the injustices and sorrows of the world.
Some of us may find that we are naturally people who thirst for justice, or who are merciful to others. But likewise we may also conclude that being pure in heart or meek do not come naturally to us. Whatever our natural tendencies, though, all of the beatitudes are for all of us, and they need to be understood as a whole.
The Beatitudes are complex. They are hard to live out. But they are also very beautiful. They describe what it means to live by a set of standards, callings and attitudes that go way beyond the observation of rules or the keeping of the law. This is what life looks like when you are truly Christ-like.
In order to follow Jesus and live the Christian life we need to enter into the challenging world of the Beatitudes. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you. All things pass away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Those who have God lack nothing: God alone suffices.
Colourful Romero cross laying on white clothJane Willis The Pilgrim Way The Pilgrim Way is a new guide to the Christian faith.
It is no secret what God can do; The chimes of time ring out the news, another day is through Someone slipped and fell, was that someone you? You may have longed for added strength your courage to renew Do not be disheartened, I have news for you
It is no secret, what God can do What He's done for others, He'll do for you With arms wide open, He'll pardon you It is no secret, what God can do
There is no night for in His light, you'll never walk alone You'll always feel at home, wherever you may roam There is no power can conquer you while God is on your side Take him at his promise, don't run away and hide
It is no secret, what God can do What He's done for others, He'll do for you With arms wide open, He'll pardon you It is no secret, what God can do
Christians ought to love everyone even their enemies the Bible tells us. I have to admit that is a tall order. I am glad the Lord is forgiving as are we really able to do this? I am happy I don't hate anyone and those who have wronged me it too awhile but they are forgiven. Yet I don't love everyone and there is the rub. I need to work on that one some more.
Melodyland is a church one block away from Disneyland in Anaheim California. It has three services in the morning, it is a huge place. I spend a lot of time there because I was still searching at the time and had many questions that needed answering. I often listened to Dr. Walter Martin giving lectures. He also wrote a book called; "The Bible Anwer Man" Next he led a radio program where you could phone in if you had questions. All right up my alley! One day a guest speaker asked people to come forward for special prayers. We, who had come forward were asked to close our eyes and think back on who we needed to forgive. I was amazed by who and what came to my mind. Mostly things that had happened in the past. Bullies in childhood for one, was like a film was being projected as incidents came to my mind. Things I believed I had totally forgotten. It was a very good experience and I occasionally still do this exercise. Truly I recommend it to you all, you will find it liberating for sure and......surprising
Forgiving is not easy. Believe me it is not always easy to forgive. My sister had hurt me pretty bad again, and I had a hard time forgiving her. I heard a scripture in my head that said; "Vengeance is mine, sayest the Lord.” I thought this was just great! “Okay Lord, I forgive my sister, you go get her!”
When I told this at the Bible study, one wise sister said; "Jenny, that was not forgiving what you did, it was passing the buck you must forgive her without you thinking of revenge.
The Lord may not punish her at all, and you surely may never wish that He did."
“What do you mean? He may let her get away with it? That is not fair, she deserves to be punished!”
To forgive my sister now was not easy, but I finally managed to do so.
We've talked about forgiveness. The second part is now making amends. Merriam Webster defines making amends as to do something to correct a mistake that one has made or a bad situation that one has caused. When you make amends, you go further than just saying, I'm sorry. You acknowledge your errors and take action to make up for what has happened in the past.
As painful as making amends may seem, it's absolutely essential. Dealing with the root of your problems means dealing with unresolved relationships. Until you do this, recovery can't happen. Here's a quote from John Baker. He says, When I got to this choice, I had a lot of work to do. I had quite a long list of names of people to whom I needed to make my amends. Over the years of making poor choices, I had heard a lot of people. They ranged from former employees and employers to friends and neighbors. But the most special amends I needed to make were to my family. I had caused them a lot of pain and heartache, but they graciously accepted my amends. And after a period of time, our relationships were restored. Today, those relationships are stronger and more loving than I could have ever hoped for or deserved. Making amends is such a big deal that Jesus says this in Matthew Chapter 5, starting in Verse 23, So if you are offering your gift on the altar and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.
First, go and be reconciled with your brother or sister and then come offer your gift. Jesus is saying that fixing your relationship is so important that you can't worship God vertically if there are unaddressed issues in your relationships with other people horizontally. Jesus says, Stop worshiping God if you have relationship problems that need to be fixed. That's a big deal. One of our attitudes for this choice says blessed are the peacemakers. Making amends is making peace. The Bible places a high priority on getting things right in our relationships. Listen to what the author of Hebrew says, Chapter 12, Verse 14, Pursue peace with everyone and holiness. Without it, no one will see the Lord. Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and defiling many. One of the reasons you can't let go of that hurt or get past that hang up or get over that habit is that when you hold on to unresolved relationships, bitterness takes root in your heart and causes all kinds of trouble. These unresolved relationships must be dealt with if you're going to get on with your recovery and enjoy the blessing that comes from being merciful and making peace, as our beatitudes say.
We talked a little bit about why we need to make amends. Now we're going to talk about the hard part. How do we do it? How do you make amends to someone you've sinned against? Well, the Bible has a great piece of advice on keeping peace with others. It says in Romans chapter 12, verse 18, If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Keep this in mind as you work the steps of making amends to those you've hurt. Do what you can. The Scripture says, If possible, as far as it depends on you, you are only responsible for what you do. You are not responsible for how the person you approach responds to your amends. So how do you make amends of the people you've hurt? Number one, make a list of those you've harmed and what you did. You'll do the actual hands on work for this choice and then make the choice action steps found at the end of your message outline. But let's think of a couple of things as we introduce this idea. First, a word of caution briefly. As you start listing people you need to make amends to, your mind may immediately jump to, how on earth am I going to pull this off?
That's it. If Jesus is our Lord, that should be good enough. But because Jesus is so awesome, he gives us three sub reasons for forgiving people. These three sub reasons I'm going to share with you right now highlight just how good the main reason is. Subreason number one, you can write this down on your outline, you should forgive others because God has forgiven you. You should forgive others because God has forgiven you.
God is not asking you to forgive someone else before you've been forgiven. He's not asking you to pour a cup of coffee out of a pot that's empty. God has poured his radical forgiveness into your life. Now all he's doing when he's asking you to forgive is to give others what you've already been given by him. The Bible says in Colossians 3, verse 13, Bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if anyone has a grievance against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. When you remember how much God has forgiven you, it makes it a whole lot easier for you to forgive others. The Bible also says in Ephesians 4, starting in verse 31, Let all bitterness, anger, and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice, and be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. You forgive as Christ forgave you. You will never have to forgive anybody else more than God had to forgive you. Do you remember how Jesus forgave you? It's so sweet. He didn't count your sins against you.
He didn't make you pay for your sins. He ate them. He took them himself so that you could go free. You didn't deserve that kindness, and yet the King of glory lavished that kindness upon you. When you have a hard time forgiving someone else, it's usually because you don't feel forgiven. People who feel forgiven find it easier to be forgiving. If you don't feel forgiven, look again at the verses in Colossians and Ephesians. Better yet, contemplate these verses every day of your life, just as the Lord has forgiven you and forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. If you accepted Christ back in choice number 3, you are forgiven. Amen. It's a done deal. Now he asks you to turn around and forgive others. Your sub reason number 2, you could write this down on your outline. You should forgive others because resentment doesn't work. The second sub reason you need to forgive those who have hurt you is purely practical. Resentment doesn't do what you think it does. Holding on to resentment is unreasonable, unhelpful, and unhealthy. It's unreasonable. The Bible says it plainly, Job 5, verse 2, for anger, kills a fool and jealousy slays the gullible.
Another translation puts it this way, to worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish senseless thing to do. Why is holding on to resentment foolish and senseless? Well, the practical answer is that you're only hurting yourself with your anger. Job 18, verse 4 says, You who terror yourself in anger. Resentment rips you apart much more than the person you resent. Think about it. When you're angry and resentful towards someone, you're not hurting them, you're only hurting yourself. You're the one who's stewing, spewing, stressing, and fretting. You're the one who's losing sleep and being distracted from all the joys in life. It's not bothering them at all. They're probably sleeping great. They probably aren't even aware of all the huffing and puffing that's going on inside of you. They're probably oblivious to all of it. Someone may have hurt you 10, 20, or even 30 years ago, and you're still hurting yourself over it. It's still making you miserable, but they've probably forgotten all about it. So from a purely practical point of view, resentment is totally unreasonable. It's an irrational waste of energy that makes no sense at all. Resentment is also unhelpful. I
Some of you may be thinking I've been listening to these messages in this series for a while now and I don't see a whose lot of change yet. Don't worry about it. It's progress we're after, not perfection. Life change is a process. Remember the Christian life is that initial one time decision to follow Jesus, followed by the process of us becoming more and more like him. And that process of becoming more like Jesus lasts a lifetime. To the Philippians, the apostle Paul said with total confidence, I'm sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
If you've turned the change process over to God and have resolved to cooperate the best you can with the plan that he's laid out for you, god will work change in you through the power of His Holy Spirit. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that God will only love you once you reach a certain stage. God loves you at each and every stage of your recovery and growth. God will never love you more than he does at this very second and he will never love you any less than he does right now. A father does not expect his seven year old to act like a 17 year old. The seven year old still makes messes and acts like a child. But the Father is pleased with and loves his seven year old son. God is pleased with whatever growth and progress that you have made. Just as a parent thrills at his or her baby's first steps, your Heavenly Father thrills at each and every step of your growth no matter how small. It's the direction of your heart that pleases him. As you say, God, I ask you to remove my sinful patterns from my life.
So in this lesson we've talked a lot about character defects. What they are, why it takes so long to get rid of them and how we can cooperate with God to change them. You may be feeling a bit overwhelmed, so let's just pause and take a breath. We're not trying to fix everything at once. Remember the question, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That's how you're going to face your character defects, one defect at a time. So those best place to start right now we're going to do this right now. We're going to start by praying about it. You can pray as you bow your heads and close your eyes and you can use your own words. Or if you resonate with what I'm going to pray, please just share this prayer with me and make it your own. So let's pray. Dear God, thank you for your forgiveness. I'm now ready and willing to submit to any changes you want to make in my life. By Your grace, I'm ready to face it and deal with the sinful tendencies in my life one by one. I have defects that have hurt me and defects that have hurt others.
I live with some of these sinful patterns for so long that they have become a part of who I am. I've tried by my own power to fight against my tendency to sin and have failed over and over. I now ask, by Your power and the power of Your Holy Spirit, you transform my mind, my heart, and my actions. I need Your help in knowing where to start. I cannot handle all my defects at once. I can only face them one at a time. Show me, Lord, where I should begin. Help me. As I look over my inventory list, which character defect is the most damaging to my life? Where do I need to start? I'm ready and willing to follow Your lead. Lord, Amen. Amen. Amen.
As you grow in God's truth and voluntarily submit to the changes that he has in store for you, you will discover the blessing and happiness of doing what God requires. Here's number five, and it's your next fillin on your outline. It is so hard to change the sinful patterns in our lives because we don't want to make one or more of the choices, whether it's due to not wanting to give up your comfort, your identity, or the payoff you've been utilizing, or you're believing the enemy's lies.
If you don't choose to make even one of the choices you hear about in in verses, you will find yourself rowing upstream without a paddle when it comes to experiencing the healing that God is calling you towards. If you make most of the choices you learn about in life's, healing choices, but there's just one that you refuse to make, you will find the removal of your character defects, your sinful patterns to be impossible. If you refuse to follow any of the doctor's orders, you will remain sick with your spiritual headaches. The good news his this as soon as you are ready to change your mind, which is the word repentance, but change your mind and move forward down the pathway to healing, you will find that Jesus has been waiting for you there the whole time, and he is ready to help you make that next choice, whichever one it is. So how do we cooperate with God's change process? Well, I have too many favorite passages in the Bible to count, but this next one is definitely one of them. Listen to what the Apostle Paul has to say about personal transformation. Romans, chapter twelve, verses one to two.
He says therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. Personal transformation comes from the renewal of our minds. I love these verses so much. It tells us that we can actually become different people. We can be transformed in a good way. We can actually be transformed in such a way that we'll begin to find ourselves wanting different things in our life than we used to want in our life. Our desires will change and our minds will change too. Our minds will actually think differently than they used to. We will be transformed to the point whose we will know what God will for our life. Is it's possible to have your mind change when it comes to how you think of your hurts, your hang ups, your habits, your self, your God, His Word, and his ways? God is going to transform you by renewing your mind.
And this transformational renewal of the mind happens by having your mind washed by the Word of God. The Bible FYI this renewal of the mind has taken place throughout this series. Up until this point. We are being exposed to what God has to say about our life and our problems and the solution to our problems. And we are gradually changing the way we all think about it. God will show you what he wants you to do in His Word. He gives you the power to do what he's calling you to do. Then all that's left for us is to trust God by choosing to act on what he tells us to do. The following seven very practical focus points will show you how to cooperate with God as he works to change you and get you headed in the right direction. Here's the first one. It's going to be the next. Fill in on your outline. Focus on changing one defect at a time. You may have 30 different things you know, need changing, but the wisdom of Proverbs tells us in chapter 17, verse 24, wisdom is the focus of the perceptive, but a fool's eyes roam to the ends of the earth.
Another translation reads like this an intelligent person aims at wise action, but a fool starts off in many directions.
Well, his doing whatever God requires of us in that situation. And how do we know what God requires of us? Well, he doesn't make us guess. Thank you, Jesus. God tells us in his word, the Bible, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for doing those things that God requires. And one of the things that he requires is change. And that change begins with your submission to his ways and his power. Will the changes be easy? Will they happen overnight? Of course not. But the promise of this beatitude is that when your greatest desire is to do what God requires, you'll be blessed. You will be happy. And if you are a Christian, if you're a Christian, you know God has already forgiven you. Now he wants to change you. He saved you just the way you were when he found you. But he loves you too much to leave you the way you were when he found you.
Because God loves you. Because God loves you. He wants to change you. In this lesson, we're going to learn how to cooperate with God in his process of changing us. But first, we're going to take a look at a phrase that is well known in the recovery community. It's a phrase that's used to describe our tendency to do the wrong thing. It's a phrase that you can see right there in choice number five on your outline. It's the phrase character defects. We're going to look at just what exactly character defects are and why it's so darn hard for us to get rid of them. So what is a character defect? Before we answer this question, I need to tell you upfront that I'm not a big fan of this phrase. You might be thinking, well, then why are you using it? You're the one preaching it. You're the one who made these nifty little outlines for us. You could have used whatever phrase you wanted. Why did you choose to use the phrase character defects if you don't like it? Well, I'm keeping character defects in here because, as I said, it's a phrase that is prevalent in the recovery community and is used in places like Celebrate Recovery and in the book Life's Healing Choices.
I'm keeping it because there are a lot of people who can relate to it, and it's technically not an incorrect word for what we're describing. By definition, a character defect is a character flaw or any type of imperfection in the way a person thinks or behaves. Although it's technically correct as a term for what it's being used for, I still don't like it for a couple of reasons. The phrase character defect has the potential for it to be misinterpreted as something that's wrong with me, but it's not really my fault. If you order something online and then Amazon delivers a broken package to your doorstep, you're like, look at this. It's broken. It has a defect. That defect wasn't your fault. Maybe it was nobody's fault. Maybe it was just an accident. And then you return it. And that's just the way that life goes sometimes. It's not really anybody's fault. It's more of an inconvenience than anything. And we can fall into that incorrect way of thinking about the hurts, hangups and habits that are in our life. That's just the way I am. Sure I'm not perfect, but who is? We all have something a little defective with us, don't we?
Or as Lady Gaga would say the things in my life aren't my fault because I was born this way. That's what I think a lot of people mean when they use the phrase character defects as a way to describe attitudes or patterns in their life that they don't like. If we use the phrase like that, we may end up justifying in things in our life that we shouldn't. Here's another reason I don't like the term. Why do we feel the need to use a different term for something that the Bible already has a perfectly good word for? The Bible has a perfectly good word for character defects. It's called sin. And now I know there are people out there who don't like that word for various reasons.
And over time, they will only increase in frequency and intensity. And as time continues to pass, you'll start to develop new symptoms in your body. New pain and new discomfort will start popping up in other places. And eventually, you'll get so sick that you can't go to work or go on vacation even if you wanted to.
If you choose to do nothing about your situation, you will get so sick that you will eventually die. Okay, so in this made up scenario, there are two options on the table for you. Option one, make the changes in your life that the doctor has ordered and then get well. Option two, don't make the changes. Get even more sick and die. Now what option would you choose if you were actually in a situation like that where you had those two options laid out before you? Now, don't answer out loud because the answer you want to give may come back to bite you. We think the answer is obvious, but sadly, it's not. I say that because when we come face to face with a similar fork in the road in our life, sometimes, oftentimes we don't take the doctor's orders. As we've been hearing all throughout this series. All of us, without exception, have hurts, hangups, and habits that plague our lives. Let's call them spiritual headaches. And if left unchecked, our spiritual headaches don't get better. Over time, they get worse. And eventually, we get so sick of our spiritual headaches that we bring them to the great Physician.
We bring them to Jesus and he shines a light on our life so that we can see our problems for what they are, and he prescribes for us a pathway to healing. This pathway to healing is found in the choices that we're hearing about in this series and in the action steps found at the end of every one of your message outlines. We need to give time and energy to walk up this pathway. Time and energy could be given to other things. We need to do this even though this pathway to healing is not without hardships, sacrifices, inconveniences, and side effects. Because what other option do we have not doing what's required of us? So the question is not what would you do if you were in a situation like the one I shared earlier? The question is, what will you do if you are in a situation like that. Now, if you've already worked through choices one through four, you are now ready for choice number five, which is also known as the transformation choice. Choice five is all about making changes, and you can see it right on your outline in gray.
The choice is I'm going to choose to voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask him to remove my character defects. I don't need to tell you, math wizards, out there that choice five comes right after choice four and right before choice six. It's sandwiched right between choices four and six. In choice four, we spent time identifying the hurts, hang ups and habits that are in our lives, and we stepped out of generalization and into specifics. We wrote stuff down. This helps us to see the nature of our problems. Choice four is really a recon mission where we identify the things in our life that need change. In choice six next week, we're going to begin actually doing something about the issues in our life that the Lord has shown us are there. But choice five this week is all about getting ourselves ready for choice six. In light of what has come to the surface. In choice four, we make the choice to be willing to do whatever God wants us to do next about our hurts, hang ups and habits. In making choice number five, we choose to be willing to do whatever the doctor orders.
In the beatitude that's paired with this choice, Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and righteousness is doing the right thing. How do we know what the right thing is in any given situation?
One day, if you can imagine this scene unfolding in your life, you're just gonna be trying to live your best life. And one day you get a mild headache. You don't make much of it because why wouldn't people get headaches all the time? So you shrug it off, you continue on with whatever you were doing, but a couple of days later the headache comes back. This time you think maybe it was a dehydrator. So you just drink a little extra water that they little more than you normally would. A few days after that, the headache comes again. But now you begin to get them every day. Try doing it as the best you can, because you can, and tie along telling yourself that maybe it's just because you've got a lot to love on. Maybe it's the stress of life taking this whole one but a few days pastor and not only has the frequency of the headaches increased, but now the intensity of them has gone up as well.
Now, Tylenol does virtually nothing to help with the pain. The time comes when he finally came in and decided to visit your doctor. He asks you some questions, sends you to get some tests and when he gets the test result back test results back a week later, he calls you into his office to meet with him. I have some good news and some bad news, he says. What do you want first? Hit me with the bad news first, doc. Well, the test results have revealed that you have a lump in your brain. The good news is that we can treat it, we can remove it completely from you and when we do, your headaches will cease. We're not out of the woods yet though. I need you to make some changes in your life over the next several weeks, even months, to get you ready for this surgery. You'll need to get on some special medication that will be provided for you, which will have some mild side effects. You'll need to take some time off work and you'll need to be available to attend a lot of different appointments that will help us get ready for your surgery. Okay
Okay?
Now, this kind of situation would be scary for anyone if you found yourselves in it, but it wouldn't be a situation without hope. In this made-up scenario, there's a plain path to healing laid out for you. But what if you weren't that pleased with the path that was laid out for you? What if you weren't too pleased with the good news that you got? What if you didn't like the plan? What if you heard all that the doctor had to say and then responded with something like okay, I hear you, Doc. That sounds like it COVID is a pretty good plan for most people, but I don't think you understand the kind of situation I'm in right now. I can't afford to take any time off of work. We're slammed right now as it is. And on top of that, I'm on my way to getting a promotion that I've been working on for years. And then in a month, we're going away on a family vacation. And when we get back, we have some friends visiting us from out of town and they're going to be staying with us. And to be honest, I'm not a big fan of taking any pills that might give me some mild side effects.
So with all that said, I just don't have the time, the energy, or the willingness to stop working and implement this plan that you've laid out for me. And I just don't see any way around it. You pause for a moment, but you're not done. After a few seconds of collecting your thoughts, you say this. So here's a question for you, doc. What would happen if let's just say I don't follow the instructions you've laid out for me? What if I just did nothing instead and kept on living my life the exact same way as I always have? And you could see the puzzled look come over the doctor's face. In all his years of practicing medicine, he had never encountered a response like this from a patient who was facing the situation they were in. He says to you, What if you did nothing? Well, let's see. For starters, your headaches wouldn't go away.
Now, don't answer out loud because the answer you want to give may come back to bite you. We think the answer is obvious, but sadly, it's not. I say that because when we come face to face with a similar fork in the road in our life, sometimes, oftentimes we don't take the doctor's orders. As we've been hearing all throughout this series. All of us, without exception, have hurts, hangups, and habits that plague our lives. Let's call them spiritual headaches. And if left unchecked, our spiritual headaches don't get better. Over time, they get worse. And eventually, we get so sick of our spiritual headaches that we bring them to the great Physician.
We bring them to Jesus and he shines a light on our life so that we can see our problems for what they are, and he prescribes for us a pathway to healing. This pathway to healing is found in the choices that we're hearing about in this series and in the action steps found at the end of every one of your message outlines. We need to give time and energy to walk up this pathway. Time and energy could be given to other things. We need to do this even though this pathway to healing is not without hardships, sacrifices, inconveniences, and side effects. Because what other option do we have not doing what's required of us? So the question is not what would you do if you were in a situation like the one I shared earlier? The question is, what will you do if you are in a situation like that? Now, if you've already worked through choices one through four, you are now ready for choice number five, which is also known as the transformation choice. Choice five is all about making changes, and you can see it right on your outline in gray.
The choice is I'm going to choose to voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask him to remove my character defects. I don't need to tell you, math wizards, out there that choice five comes right after choice four and right before choice six. It's sandwiched right between choices four and six. In choice four, we spent time identifying the hurts, hang ups and habits that are in our lives, and we stepped out of generalization and into specifics. We wrote stuff down. This helps us to see the nature of our problems. Choice four is really a recon mission where we identify the things in our life that need change. In choice six next week, we're going to begin actually doing something about the issues in our life that the Lord has shown us are there. But choice five this week is all about getting ourselves ready for choice six. In light of what has come to the surface. In choice four, we make the choice to be willing to do whatever God wants us to do next about our hurts, hang ups and habits. In making choice number five, we choose to be willing to do whatever the doctor orders.
In the beatitude that's paired with this choice, Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and righteousness is doing the right thing. How do we know what the right thing is in any given situation? Well, his doing whatever God requires of us in that situation. And how do we know what God requires of us? Well, he doesn't make us guess. Thank you, Jesus. God tells us in his word, the Bible, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for doing those things that God requires. And one of the things that he requires is change. And that change begins with your submission to his ways and his power. Will the changes be easy? Will they happen overnight? Of course not. But the promise of this beatitude is that when your greatest desire is to do what God requires, you'll be blessed. You will be happy. And if you are a Christian, if you're a Christian, you know God has already forgiven you. Now he wants to change you. He saved you just the way you were when he found you. But he loves you too much to leave you the way you were when he found you.
The time comes when he finally came in and decided to visit your doctor. He asks you some questions, sends you to get some tests and when he gets the test result back test results back a week later, he calls you into his office to meet with him. I have some good news and some bad news, he says. What do you want first? Hit me with the bad news first, doc. Well, the test results have revealed that you have a lump in your brain. The good news is that we can treat it, we can remove it completely from you and when we do, your headaches will cease. We're not out of the woods yet though. I need you to make some changes in your life over the next several weeks, even months, to get you ready for this surgery. You'll need to get on some special medication that will be provided for you, which will have some mild side effects. You'll need to take some time off work and you'll need to be available to attend a lot of different appointments that will help us get ready for your surgery. Okay
Okay?
Now, this kind of situation would be scary for anyone if you found yourselves in it, but it wouldn't be a situation without hope. In this made-up scenario, there's a plain path to healing laid out for you. But what if you weren't that pleased with the path that was laid out for you? What if you weren't too pleased with the good news that you got? What if you didn't like the plan? What if you heard all that the doctor had to say and then responded with something like okay, I hear you, Doc. That sounds like it COVID is a pretty good plan for most people, but I don't think you understand the kind of situation I'm in right now. I can't afford to take any time off of work. We're slammed right now as it is. And on top of that, I'm on my way to getting a promotion that I've been working on for years. And then in a month, we're going away on a family vacation. And when we get back, we have some friends visiting us from out of town and they're going to be staying with us. And to be honest, I'm not a big fan of taking any pills that might give me some mild side effects.
So with all that said, I just don't have the time, the energy, or the willingness to stop work and implement this plan that you've laid out for me. And I just don't see any way around it. You pause for a moment, but you're not done. After a few seconds of collecting your thoughts, you say this. So here's a question for you, doc. What would happen if let's just say I don't follow the instructions you've laid out for me? What if I just did nothing instead and kept on living my life the exact same way as I always have? And you could see the puzzled look come over the doctor's face. In all his years of practicing medicine, he had never encountered a response like this from a patient who was facing the situation they were in. He says to you, well, what if you did nothing? Well, let's see. For starters, your headaches wouldn't go away. And over time, they will only increase in frequency and intensity. And as time continues to pass, you'll start to develop new symptoms in your body. New pain and new discomfort will start popping up in other places. And eventually, you'll get so sick that you can't go to work or go on vacation even if you wanted to.
If you choose to do nothing about your situation, you will get so sick that you will eventually die. Okay, so in this made-up scenario, there are two options on the table for you. Option one, make the changes in your life that the doctor has ordered and then get well. Option two, don't make the changes. Get even more sick and die. Now what option would you choose if you were actually in a situation like that where you had those two options laid out before you?
But those same people would look at the complexity of our universe, which is infinitely more detailed, planned, designed, and ordered, and they come to the conclusion it's all one big accidental byproduct of random chance that came from nothing and was designed by no one. Do you see the inconsistency between those two conclusions? Here's the flow of logic. Where there's an effect, there must be a cause. Where there is a design, there must be a designer. And where there is creation, there must be a creator. Romans, chapter one, Verse 20 says, his God's invisible attributes that is, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world. Truth number two. Write this down you matter to him. You matter to him. Since most people believe that God exists, the real issue becomes, what kind of God is he?
Do I really matter to him? The reason a lot of us don't know we matter to God is that we don't really know what God is like. And sometimes when we don't have adequate information, we just make up our own. We say things like, God as I understand him, or My idea about God is and you just fill in the blank. But just because we have a certain idea about God, it doesn't mean it's right. Our personal conception of God is not what matters. What matters is the truth of who he is. And sometimes we just don't have the correct information. Our misconceptions about God confuse our picture of Him. Unfortunately, a lot of people think God is like one of their parents. And people who have had abusive fathers tend to think that God the Father is abusive. Those whose mothers were distant and unloving tend to think God is distant and unloving. Those who had reason to fear their parents tend to be afraid of God. Until we begin to understand God's true character, we can't completely trust Him. It's hard to trust something or someone would we do not know about or understand.
Fortunately, we have a God who cares about us. You matter to him. Understanding the following truths about God's character gives you hope when you're in pain. Because God knows about your situation. That's the truth about him. He knows. He knows your hurts, your hangups, and your habits. He knows the good and the bad. When we've had a tough week or month or life, we may think that no one really cares. We may think nobody knows the pain I'm going through in this marriage. We're wrong. God knows. Or maybe we think nobody knows how hard I'm struggling to break this habit. But God knows. Or perhaps we think nobody knows the depression and fear I'm going through. God knows. He knows it all and he cares, and nothing escapes his notice. King David had plenty of sorrow in his life, and he said of God, psalm 31 seven you have seen my affliction, you know the troubles of my soul. God sees the crisis you may be going through right now. And Jesus said in Matthew six, verse eight, your heavenly Father knows the things that you need before you ask Him. And the Psalmist said of God in Psalm chapter 34, verse 18, the Lord is near the broken-hearted.
He saves those crushed in spirit. God is with you in your pain, and he is able to help you overcome your hurts, your hangups, and your habits. Nothing is beyond his love. Nothing is beyond his compassionate gaze. He is with you, and he is aware of everything you've gone through and will go through. Job said of God in chapter 13, verse 27 you stand watch over all my paths, god's watching over you. Nothing escapes his eye. Sometimes we wish God didn't have to see all of the poor choices that we make. The fact is, nothing is off the record with God. Psalm 60 in verse is god, you know my foolishness and my guilty acts are not hidden from you. God's not shocked by your sin. Believe it or not, he knew it was coming long before you did. He knows why you did it, even when you don't. He knows your good days and your bad days.
And for the religious among us, those who've been in the church for years and yet find an annoying hole in their hearts, this denial form might describe you. It's spiritualizing. Spiritualizing. It's using Scripture as an excuse to bury my past hurts rather than deal with them. At some point, you've likely heard in the church, if you've hung around the church for a while, you've likely heard someone quote the Apostle Paul and declare from Philippians, chapter three, verse 13 but the one thing I do forget what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, forgetting what lies behind. And there are some very good, well-meaning, longtime church people who actually use this verse to discourage others from dealing with their problems.
And they use it as an excuse not to deal with their own problems either. They mean well, trying to put the past in the past and not dwell on it. And that's all great, except they forget one very important truth. The apostle Paul was not in denial. The Apostle Paul had dealt with his failures. He had dealt with his sins, he had dealt with his shame. He had dealt with all of that. In fact, in One Corinthians, chapter 15, verse nine, he writes, for I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. And later on in his life, he described himself as the very least of all Christians. And at the end of his life, he described himself as the worst of all sinners. Paul had come to terms with his role in the torture and killing of innocent people. And get this yet the apostle Paul felt absolutely no shame because he also wrote in Romans, chapter eight, verse one, therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Can you say that? Can you say that you've processed all the pain, all your mistakes, all your sins, and you've processed them and faced them and yet you feel absolutely no shame?
Because if you stick with us, you'll be able to. And that is an amazing place to be. Number six, the 6th form of denial, write this down on your outline is a diversion. Diversion. And this is a big one, which basically involves diverting the attention and focus off my problems, issues, or behaviors and onto you, someone, or something else. Humor-based diversion is the easiest to identify. For example, when someone's confronted with an issue that they don't want to talk about, they make a joke instead of actually dealing with the problem, changing the subject. Diversion is a little bit trickier, a little more common. It's got a number of forms. Someone might say in a relationship, your anger bothers me. And the other person says, well, your weight bothers me. Wait a minute, does that mean that I shouldn't be bothered by your anger? It doesn't even make sense. It's a diversion tactic. Or now you know how I feel when you do the exact same thing. Let's just park on that one for a minute because it's so common. Let's suppose after a home group one night, someone in my group comes up and shares with me BJ.
When you're facilitating the group, you spit when you talk and I say, well, you do the same thing. Does that make the people in my living room any better? Of course not. It's totally immature way of getting the tension off me and, and back onto you or someone else so that I don't have to deal with it. Rather than think through that. Maybe what you're saying is actually true. It's also destructive because I've successfully avoided dealing with something that I need to probably deal with. Then there's the attention diversion. This is all under number six. Attention diversion is whenever you begin to feel unpleasant emotions, you make yourself busy, very busy, if you need to be. It might be work, it might be a hobby, it might be taking care of others, or it might be a new focus, it might be a wardrobe, a vacation, or even a new romantic relationship. Anything to avoid feeling the pain.
Or you can have a little faith and put it in our big God and get amazing results. The fifth thing that can keep a person from making this third choice is ignorance. Now, when a lot of people hear the word ignorance, it feels like it should be a derogatory word to them, but it's not. It's a word that simply means lack of knowledge or information. So if a person is ignorant about something, all it means is that they don't have the right information about it yet.
And when they get the right information about it, they won't be ignorant anymore. Now, there are many people who choose to turn Jesus down, even though they do understand who he is and what he's done for them. They just decide they'd rather be in control of their own lives. Thank you very much. But there are many people, many who have never walked across the line to Jesus simply because they have never heard anything about this choice before. They've never been told anything about Jesus. They've never had anyone explain the Bible to them. They don't have the knowledge they need to make an informed decision to follow Christ. And you need to know that this describes a lot of people in our culture today. That's because we live in a post-Christian culture in recent generations, everybody grew up going to church, everybody had a Bible and everyone had a basic understanding of what the Bible says. But that does not describe our current generation. It's mind boggling to me how many people I've personally talked with who share with me that they have never been to church. They don't know what the Bible is about, and they've known virtually nothing about Jesus.
When I was growing up, my mom took me and my brother to church from when I was about five years old, all the way up to when I was about 13 years old. And I learned the basics of the Bible and I learned who Jesus was. But I stopped going to church when I was about 13 and I wandered around spiritually in my life until I was in my very early 20s when God called me back to follow Him. I started coming back to church. I started reading the Bible again. I picked up right where I left off when I was 13. I already had a biblical foundation laid in my life, a foundation to build upon. But so many people today do not have that same foundation in their life. They have nothing to draw on or to build upon. They are starting from ground zero. These people can't reject what they've never heard of before. And some people haven't made the choice to accept Christ because they don't know anything about Him, let alone that they can accept Him. They are ignorant about Jesus. So how can we expect these people to know anything about Jesus if nobody has ever told them?
Well, the Apostle Paul asks and answers the exact same question in the first part of Romans, chapter ten, verse 14, he says this how then can they, speaking of unbelievers, call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about Him? Paul is asking a rhetorical question here. How can someone believe in something they've never heard about? They can't. So how can they hear? Paul answers this question for us as he finishes off the verse in Romans, chapter ten, verse 14 with another rhetorical question how can they hear without a preacher? People who have never heard about Jesus need someone to preach Jesus to them. If you are here tonight and you have never heard about Jesus and what he's done for you and made available to you, just hold tight because later in this very message, we are going to take ignorance off the table for you. Later in this message, I'm going to explain to you what God has done for you and what Jesus is inviting you into. I'm going to give you the information and the knowledge that you need to make this choice. And after today, you will not be able to say anymore.
The Bible tells of a story of a man who was filled with demons. And this man lived in a cemetery among the tombs and was so wild and out of control that the local people tried to bind him up, but he was too strong for them.
Nobody could control him. The demons tormented him, and he cried out day and night and cut himself with stones. Now, it's interesting that cutting him resurfaced as a current destructive way to deal with inner pain, but when his man saw Jesus, he walked across that line to him. No, no, scratch that. He ran across the line to him. The Bible says in Mark chapter five, verse six when the demon-possessed man saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him. And after Jesus called the demons out of that man people found Him. It says in Mark 5/15, sitting there dressed and in his right mind so what are you afraid of? What are you holding on to that makes you think you can't let go? Is it a relationship, an ambition, a habit, a lifestyle, or a possession? Jesus asks this all-important question, Matthew 16, verse 26. For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life? When you make this third choice, you give up everything to God's control. God takes what you give Him.
He cleans it up and he turns it around. He adds new meaning, new purpose, new significance, and new vitality to your life, and he gives it back to you in a whole new way. Just come to God and say, God, I don't even know what I don't want to give up. I just know that I don't want to live this way anymore. And I know I want my life to be under your control. God here is a blank check. Here's my life. All you have to do is trust Him. He will take care of the rest. Now, doubt... Doubt is the fourth thing that can keep a person from making this third choice. Have you ever thought to yourself, I want to believe, but my faith is just too small? If that's you, you need to know another story found in the Bible, in Mark chapter nine, about a father who had a son, that had a spirit that made him mute. Let me read it for you. Mark, chapter nine, starting number 17. Someone from the crowd answered him. Answered Jesus, teacher, I brought my son to you. He has a spirit that makes him unable to speak.
Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it up, but they couldn't. He replied to them, you unbelieving generation, how long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me. So they brought the boy to him. When the Spirit saw him, it immediately threw the boy into convulsions. He fell to the ground and rolled around foaming at the mouth. How long has this been happening to him? Jesus asked his father. From childhood, he said, and many times it has thrown him into the fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said to him, if you can, everything is possible for the one who believes. Then verse 24 immediately the father of the boy cried out, I do believe. Help my unbelief. And that was good enough for Jesus, and he healed the Father's, Son, and maybe you need to say with this man Jesus, there's a part of me that believes that you will help me with my life, but please help the part of me that's having a hard time believing.
Say that to Jesus, if that's where you're at right now. You don't have to have a big faith to decide to give Christ the care and control of your life. As a matter of fact, Jesus says in Matthew 17, verse 20, for truly, I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible for you. You see, it's not the size of your faith that matters. It's the who or the what that you put your faith in that does. You can have a giant faith and put it in the wrong things like money and possessions and come up empty time and time and time again.
Now, maybe you're not ready to make this life life-changing choice. Your pride may still be keeping you from committing your life and will and care to Christ's care and control. Perhaps you still need a greater dose of pain in your life before you turn to Him, if that's what's needed. God may allow this to happen in order to finally get your attention. The second one is guilt. And this is another thing that will keep us from walking across that line and into God's arms. We may be ashamed to ask God to help us. In Psalm chapter 40, verse twelve, it says, for troubles without number have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me. I am unable to see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my courage leaves me. Another translation of this verse puts it this way problems far too big for me to solve are piled higher than my head.
Meanwhile, my sins, too many to count, have all caught up with me. And I am ashamed to look up. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt ashamed to look up? Our guilt can make us ashamed to ask God for help. You may be embarrassed to ask Him for help, or you may think God doesn't know all the things that you've done wrong and that he will never forgive you if he actually found out about them. But you're wrong. He knows, even though he knows it all. There is no sin in your life that God will not or cannot forgive. He wants to forgive all of your guilt. That's why Christ went to the cross. Number three is fear. Are you afraid of what you might have to give up if you surrender the care and control of your life to Christ? Fear takes on many forms. Sometimes we're afraid to trust God. Sometimes we turn to God only as our last resort. We're afraid to let go and trust Him. We're afraid of the unknown, afraid of what might happen if we do. Right now, you may be hanging on for dear life, saying, things aren't that bad.
No problem. Really, I'm fine. But you're not. You're not fine. You're just afraid of letting go and trusting Him. Well, sometimes we're afraid of losing control. And the truth of the matter is that we're all controlled by someone or something at all times. To some extent, you're controlled by the way your parents brought you up. You're controlled by the opinions of other people. You're controlled by your hurts, your hangups, and your habits. Part of our control issue is the fear of losing our freedom. But you want to know what real freedom is? True lasting freedom is found in choosing who controls you. When you choose to give up the care and control of your life to Christ, he sets you free. Jesus said to some of those who had believed in Him during his earthly ministry in John 832, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And the Apostle Paul wrote about one of the things Jesus accomplished for us through his work on the cross. In Galatians five One, he says, for freedom, Christ has set us free. When Jesus His given the keys to a person's life, it is only then that they get to experience freedom, to live their life as God designed it to be lived free from the things that keep us shackled to our hurts, hangups, and habits.
But a lot of people are afraid to hand over the keys to Him. They are afraid of giving up control of their life, even though, as we've already seen so far in this series, it's our being in control of our own lives that gets us into the messes we don't want to be in. When we're the ones driving the car of our life, we're the ones that drive it right off the cliff. So it's time to do what Carrie Underwood has been singing about all these years it's time to give the keys of our life to Jesus and let Him take the wheel. Now, sometimes we're afraid of becoming a religious fanatic. Maybe you've been afraid to open up all of your life to the care and control of Christ because you think he might turn you into a fanatic, a religious nut. But Jesus does the exact opposite. He brings sanity where insanity has had its way.
Really? In God's eyes? Could we challenge that a little bit? It's a way of explaining, in a way it is rationalization. Number four. The fourth form of denial would be blaming. I've already warmed you up, so you're probably ready for another top notch dad joke. But just prepare yourselves. How do you spell the word blame? Be lame. I warned you. When we blame others for something we did, we are lame. Blaming is when you recognize a problem or a hurtful memory, but you maintain that the responsibility for your current pain lies with someone else and certainly not with you. We love to blame other people. It's like a national pastime. Addressing this denial method is tricky because sometimes it's true. At one point, the pain in your life was the responsibility of someone else.
But that's not true today. That other person might not even be alive today, and they're certainly not worried or thinking about you today. Today is actually your interpretation of past events. It's your interpretation or the lies you believed as a result of those events and an unwillingness to deal with them. That's what's destroying your life. Some of us blame God. Some of us blame ourselves. But most of us prefer to assign blame to someone else around us as the primary cause for our unhappiness today. Here's number five. And for the religious among us, those who've been in the church for years and yet find an annoying hole in their hearts, this denial form might describe you. It's spiritualizing. Spiritualizing. It's using Scripture as an excuse to bury my past hurts rather than deal with them. At some point, you've likely heard in the church, if you've hung around the church for a while, you've likely heard someone quote the Apostle Paul and declare from Philippians, chapter three, verse 13 but the one thing I do forget what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, forgetting what lies behind. And there are some very good, well-meaning, longtime church people who actually use this verse to discourage others from dealing with their problems.
And they use it as an excuse not to deal with their own problems either. They mean well, trying to put the past in the past and not dwell on it. And that's all great, except they forget one very important truth. The apostle Paul was not in denial. The Apostle Paul had dealt with his failures. He had dealt with his sins, he had dealt with his shame. He had dealt with all of that. In fact, in one Corinthians, chapter 15, verse nine, he writes, for I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. And later on in his life, he described himself as the very least of all Christians. And at the end of his life, he described himself as the worst of all sinners. Paul had come to terms with his role in the torture and killing of innocent people. And get this yet the apostle Paul felt absolutely no shame because he also wrote in Romans, chapter eight, verse one, therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Can you say that? Can you say that you've processed all the pain, all your mistakes, all your sins, and you've processed them and faced them and yet you feel absolutely no shame?
Because if you stick with us, you'll be able to. And that is an amazing place to be. Number six, the 6th form of denial, write this down on your outline is a diversion. Diversion. And this is a big one, which basically involves diverting the attention and focus off my problems, issues, or behaviors and onto you, someone or something else. Humor-based diversion is the easiest to identify. For example, when someone's confronted with an issue that they don't want to talk about, they make a joke instead of actually dealing with the problem, changing the subject. Diversion is a little bit trickier, a little more common. It's got a number of forms.
We mourn our loss of control, even though we were never really in control. We thought we were. Facing up to that fact brings a sense of loss. Now, to be clear, we don't mourn the fact that we lost the control that we thought we had. We don't mourn our loss of control the way we mourn our loss of a loved one when they pass away. When a loved one passes away. We're sad that they're taken from us. We wish we can see them again, either in this life or in the one to come. We miss them and we want them back in our life. That's not the way we mourn our loss of control. We don't want our control back. We mourn the fact that at one point we actually thought we were in control. And we mourn the damage we did by trying to control ourselves and others. We mourn the sinfulness of our actions towards God and others. That being in control led us to. Sin is what happens when we're in control or when we think we are.
That's what we're mourning. Mourning is what happens when we finally face the truth of choice. One admitting that we are powerless to control our tendency to do wrong and that our lives are unmanageable. So go ahead and write this down on your outline as well. We discover God's pathway to comfort. We discover his pathway to comfort as long as we don't get stuck in the morning process. Morning can serve as a pathway to comfort and to the help and hope that God has ready for us. The same promise that God gave his people of old, he gives us today. God promises in Isaiah 61 three to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees planted by the Lord to glorify Him. Mourning leads us to the comfort we so desperately need. That's why grief is a blessing in disguise. And so we're experiencing some grief over the sin in our life and that grief has us on the pathway to receiving comfort, but on the path to healing wholeness and blessing, we often encounter a roadblock that will hinder our forward progress.
It will actually stop us dead in our tracks if we don't address it. This isn't the roadblock that's put up by God or by the enemy. We're the ones who put this particular roadblock up. I'm going to give you a hint to what this roadblock to recovery is. Here's the hint. It's not just a river in Egypt. Denial. Denial. Denial is a roadblock to receiving God's power to help. The denial roadblock is frustrating because it's like an invisible barrier on our road to healing. Like if you're driving down the highway and then all of a sudden your car hits something that brings you to a screeching halt, you can't see it. It's an invisible wall. You can try punching the gas, but your tires just spin and you won't go anywhere until you can see what's impeding you. You can't deal with it and get back on the road towards your destination. Until you see your denial for what it is, you will not be able to move any further towards your destination, to healing for your hurts, hangups, and habits. Let's take the invisible cloak off of denial so that we can see it for what it is and so that we can continue on the road to recovery.
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What Makes Jesus Unique? No one else made the claims that He did, He is alive...............
An Introduction (Part 1) Date:5/8/22Series: Acts Passage: Acts 1:1-3 Speaker: BJ Chursinoff
The opening 3 verses of the Book of Acts set the stage for the incredible story of the Church
All right, you may or may not know this movie trivia tidbit, but every single Star Wars movie opens up in the exact same way. Okay? The screen is filled with a picture of outer space. And then seconds later, a sentence comes across the screen in blue font, and it says, A long time ago in the Galaxy far away.
Then those words fade off the screen. When they fade off the screen, two things happen simultaneously. The Star Wars theme music comes on through the speakers, and the Star Wars logo comes on the screen. And then it begins to fade into the distance, into space. Then after that, you begin to see some yellow words come up from the bottom of the screen several paragraphs, and they roll up the screen slowly.
And then they fade away, too, into the background until you can't read them anymore. When all those words finally disappear from view, then the movie starts. This is the way that every Star Wars movie begins. And the introductory paragraphs at the beginning of Star Wars play an important role. Believe it or not, they provide the viewer with important information about the movie.
When you read these words at the beginning of Star Wars, they fill you in on some events that have already happened in the timeline of the story. They highlight events that have already taken place in the past. And knowing these things helps you better understand the context of the movie that you're about to watch. I'm going somewhere with this. Tonight.
We are starting a brand new sermon. Verse is the book of Acts, and we can see the exact same pattern unfold for us at the very beginning of this book. Acts open in the same way that every Star Wars movie does. Luke not Skywalker, but Luke, the beloved physician and travel companion of the Apostle Paul and the author of Acts, writes to a man named Theophilus. In the first three verses of Acts, Luke writes to Theophilus, and he highlights some events that have already happened in the past in order to help prepare Theophilus for what he's going to experience in the book he's about to read.
So let's jump right into Acts chapter one in verse one, and I'll show you what I mean. In Acts one, Luke writes, I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, and just stop right there. In just a few opening words, we noticed Luke point us back to something that has already happened. If you'd like to underline things in your Bible, underline the phrase the first narrative in verse is Lucas pointing Theophilus back to the first literary work, the first story, the first account, the first narrative that he wrote. Interestingly, this work that he points Theophilus back to is a work that Luke also wrote to Theophilus.
So here's a Bible trivia question for you. Does anyone know what Luke's first narrative is? Luke the Gospel, the gospel that bears his name. The first narrative that Luke wrote. The narrative that he's referring to here in Acts One.
One is the Gospel of Luke. Now here's another question. What do you think Luke's implying in the phrase in the first narrative? Well, if there's a first narrative, then that implies that there's also a second narrative. And the fact that Lucas refers back to his Gospel as the first narrative indicates to us that the Book of Acts which he also wrote is the second narrative.
So go ahead and write that down on your outline as your first filling. The Book of Acts is a narrative. The Book of Luke and the Book of Acts are two volumes in the same work by the same author, written to the same recipients using the same literary genre. Biblical narrative is a particular genre of literature found in the Bible. The Bible is one book, and at the same time, it's a compilation of 66 different books.