The Table California

Whatever You See You Empower - Some Practicals

• The Table California

Share episode

Neil and Lindsey sit down to discuss some of the practical ways that we can keep our eyes fixed on Jesus in the midst of real life situations. This is a follow-up conversation to Sunday's message, "Ceaseless Radiance: No One But Jesus Only."

Watch the video of this discussion here:
https://youtu.be/nGrgjYnVZL0

Watch the video of Sunday's message here:
https://youtu.be/CGAFsy1Uvj8

For more information on THE TABLE please visit:
www.thetablecalifornia.com

Speaker 1:

Ready? Yes, yesterday we looked at the story of King Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles, chapter 20. God's people are being threatened by different nations that surround them, and how the king's response to this crisis was to proclaim a fast gather, all of God's people together, and to seek the Lord. And in 2 Chronicles 20, verse 12, he gives an incredible leadership strategy. He says oh Lord, we are completely powerless. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. And so we looked at that posture of humility, of saying I'm in the middle of a situation I cannot handle, but instead of trying to fix the problem, I'm gonna fix my eyes on you. And then in that story we saw how God confused Israel's enemies. They destroyed themselves. Israel wins, good guys win, but how.

Speaker 1:

The lesson in that for us is Jesus is always wanting to reveal God into our situation. And, to the degree that we keep our eyes on him in the midst of our circumstances, he does what only he can do. Our responsibility is to keep our eyes fixed on him. His responsibility is to be God in our situation. And so I'd encourage folks, if they haven't listened to the message, go back and listen to it. But at the end we decided it'd be good to talk through some practicals of what does that look like to fix our eyes on Jesus. So, from your perspective, miss Lindsay, what would you say is a practical that you found in your life to be effective? When you're in the midst of a situation that's wanting to pull your attention off of Jesus, how do you keep your eyes fixed on him?

Speaker 2:

My first thought was that Jesus is the word made flesh.

Speaker 2:

So if I want to fix my eyes on Jesus, oftentimes I can do it in scripture, and I think you know when you read about people in scripture that had a situation, an issue, you know Jesus, when he was tempted, it was the enemy coming along and questioning is this really who God is?

Speaker 2:

And so I think every situation that we bump up against, every difficulty, every impossibility, whether it's, you know, a diagnosis from a doctor or what your bank account is saying, if it's a child that's not walking with the Lord, that is the enemy's assault on who God says that he is.

Speaker 2:

And so to be able to get in scripture and to find no, this is who God is, and to stand on that and to speak it over yourself and even to remind the powers and the principalities of the air like this is who God is, I think, one, it takes our hands off the problem, which is important, and I think, two, it turns our focus onto Jesus, so our hands get removed from the problem, because now the enemy is talking bad about God. It has really nothing to do with me, I'm just between. I'm standing between the two, so I back out of it and I turned my focus on to Jesus, and I think it's really interesting, even in Ephesians, where Paul lays out all of our spiritual armor, like the only one that's a weapon is the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Yeah, so that would be my first.

Speaker 1:

Before you jump into the second one. That's exactly what the enemy did with Eve. The serpent comes in and he twists the word of God. He questions what God had said, he tries to get his eyes off her eyes off of God and onto the temptation of the fruit, and that's exactly what she did. And onto the temptation of the fruit, and that's exactly what she did. She looks to the fruit and she sees oh wow, it's actually beautiful. So in that situation, her eyes are off of God and onto the temptation. So by fixing her eyes on the temptation, she enthrones the temptation rather than enthroning God, and she slips and she falls.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I think a big encouragement is know your way around the Bible and feast on his word. It's beautiful, it's powerful, it's the weapon that you're given to fight against the enemy. My second thought was worship, because we enthrone what we worship and it sounds really counterintuitive that we would worship a diagnosis and that would cause it to be enthroned. But the things that we give our time and attention to, it actually is worship, and it may be actually that we're worshiping fear and we're bowing our knee to fear.

Speaker 2:

Or, you know, we're worshiping money if it's finances in some form or fashion, and so for me it would be like getting in a posture of worship and I think that's maybe tied together with getting into scripture like being able to proclaim his words back to him from a place of worship, like Jesus. This is who I believe that you are, even though my circumstances might say different. This is who I believe that you are. I have faith, even if I can't see that this is who you are, and I'm going to keep saying it until I see that this is who you are. Psalms say that he's enthroned on the praises of his people, and I think he's enthroned regardless. We can't do anything to elevate his enthronement or to make it any greater, but I think it's from our perspective. When we praise him, he becomes enthroned over everything else going on around us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think 100%. It is truth to say that whatever you're giving attention to, you're worshiping. Jesus says wherever your treasure is, there your heart is, you're giving attention to something that becomes your treasure. That's where your heart is. That's worship language.

Speaker 1:

So if we're focusing too much attention on something that the enemy wants to use, like what you said, to destroy the testimony of God in our life, then we are empowering the enemy to speak into a situation that he should have no authority saying anything into. The enemy wants to use Goliath to destroy the testimony of God in our life. So, like what we talked about yesterday, goliath wasn't so much David's problem as it was God's problem Because Goliath was coming against not just the army of Saul, he was coming against the testimony of what God was going to do to the people of Israel. So David saw it from that perspective. How dare you, uncircumcised Philistines, speak against God and his armies this way? God used the shepherd boy to deal with the problem because the shepherd boy had a heart after God whose eyes were fixed on him always. So OK, we said one of the practicals is going to the word of God.

Speaker 1:

Another practical is maintaining that posture of praise and worship even in the midst of suffering, trial, difficult circumstances, whatever it may be. I would add a third, one prayer, but specifically I found praying in the spirit to be my go-to when I'm in a situation that's just too big for me, when I don't know what to pray because the situation is too big. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit does know what to pray. He prays through us with groanings too deep for understanding, and so I'll increase my time of praying in the Spirit, and it brings me to a place of peace, encouragement, comfort, just like the scriptures say that it will. That's what the Holy Spirit does.

Speaker 2:

He's our comforter, he guides us into all truth. I love what you said yesterday about how praying in the spirit really is an act of humility. So maybe touch on that. It's important because I think a posture of worship in the midst of circumstances that are out of our control, that's a posture of humility. It's a bow down posture, I think, leaning on his word when we don't know what the future is, that's an act of like trust and humility, as is praying in the spirit.

Speaker 1:

I would say praying in the spirit is an act of humility because it makes no sense to our natural mind. It even even like in the natural. It is a babbling. It's a, it's a posture of this childlike babbling that doesn't make any sense. You don't know what it is that you're praying. You're praying out mysteries and so you're trusting by faith that God is receiving these babblings as something to respond to.

Speaker 1:

It's an act of foolishness. I mean the way that Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 14, it is foolishness. But yet everything in the kingdom is foolishness to the natural mind. The cross is foolishness, you know, coming and serving and that being called kingly is foolishness. Praying in tongues is foolish and I would add also, maybe a fourth practical would be fasting. That's another way to enter into that place of humility. You're posturing yourself in this position of brokenness, weakness, humility, and you're saying I don't have the strength to deal with this situation. So I'm going to take all of my energy, even the energy and focus that I would put on food and feeding myself, and I'm going to direct 100% of my gaze onto Jesus and allow him to reveal God in this situation. That's humility. That's a violent act of aggression against everything in us that wants to fix the problem.

Speaker 2:

That's so good and I think well, at least while you were talking, one of the things that I noticed is, in all four of those like getting into scripture and proclaiming who God says he is, worship prayer and fasting, like praying in the spirit specifically and fasting All four of those are as if humility and faith are holding hands.

Speaker 2:

You know, like it takes humility to come underneath the word of God, like it takes humility to come underneath the word of God, because as humans, if we're all honest, sometimes we think that we can just figure it out and do our best and come up with a solution that makes the most sense. It is an act of surrender and humility to come underneath the word of God in faith that he is exactly who he says he is. Worship, same Praying in the spirit, faith that the things that you're saying are a heavenly language, that are praying out things that are on his heart that are too big for you to understand, and it's accomplishing things that we can't even see in the natural Fasting. Same Like faith that giving myself over to this and coming into a posture of weakness and humility is actually seen by God and it's positioning ourself for victory. I love that. I love, that humility and faith can hold hands in all of these.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and maybe we should mention this too. It's not that we're ignoring reality, right, like we're not taking the power bill and throw it in the trash. Can you know? We don't take the x-rays from the doctor and say they don't exist, but what we're doing is we're seeing those things through the lens of the cross. Psalm 16, 8, I have placed the Lord continually before me because he's at my right hand. I will not be shaken. So the x-rays aren't before me, the cross is before me and the x-ray is on the other side of the cross. The x-rays are still there. That's still reality. But I'm not looking at the x-rays trying to figure out what to do. I'm looking at the cross and saying, jesus, you said there is no more powerful prayer than God. You said.

Speaker 2:

And trusting that God is a God who speaks and who reveals things and who's full of wisdom, and he is the shepherd. We are the sheep of his pasture. I heard Graham Cook say one time that God has no problems, only solutions, and so, connecting ourselves to keeping our eyes focused on the God who has no problems, only solutions, it makes those solutions accessible to us, you know, ones that otherwise wouldn't be.

Speaker 1:

I'm remembering a time when you and I were in a situation where we had zero money, we did not have two pennies to rub together, nothing. But yet we knew the Lord had called us to serve Him 100% ministry, going to Bible school, all that stuff. And I remember thinking, okay, I need to stay awake all night tonight and I'm going to storm the gates of heaven until someone comes out and tells us how to do this. The posture was I have no idea what to do, we are powerless. I have a whole bunch of problems right now and zero solutions. So let's go to the one who has no problems and a hundred percent solutions.

Speaker 1:

And the Lord spoke that night. He gave us clear direction on how he was going to provide for our family in that season. And, my goodness man, we never would have came up with Iron Kite Films, starting a film company to do weddings and company Like. We never would have thought to do that. But that was God's plan. So our eyes were fixed on him rather than the bank account. And he, he gave us wisdom. He told us what he wanted us to do.

Speaker 1:

I'd like to add one more practical thing that we could do. I'd like to add one more practical thing that we could do, and that would be communion. There's something powerful about coming to the Lord's table, receiving His body and receiving His blood and allowing that to one, give life to us, but then bring comfort to us, bring healing to even the thoughts that we're having about the situation. You know, if his blood has the power to forgive and heal a lost enemy trapped in darkness, sinner, it also has the power to heal whatever broken situation we find ourselves in, and one of the statements that we made yesterday was communion is an act of aggression against powers and principalities that are seeking to come against the testimony of God in our lives. Communion is one of the easiest things that we can do every day. Again, it's an act of humility, it's an act of faith. You're believing that it's not just bread, it's not just juice or wine, it's actually the body and blood of Christ, and you're bringing Him into that situation in a tangible way. The Word is becoming flesh.

Speaker 2:

And we're joining ourselves to him fresh. You know that like position of abiding and remaining in him, we can't walk through life any other way. It's especially trials and difficulties we have to remain in Him.

Speaker 1:

While we were talking, I was thinking, man, these are like the most basic fundamentals, but that really is like the key to anything. Do not graduate from the fundamentals, whether it's basketball. What's Kobe Bryant doing at four in the morning Taking free throws? What's Tiger Woods doing early in the morning, taking free throws. What's Tiger Woods doing, you know, early in the morning Hitting his, hitting his chip shot again, is it?

Speaker 2:

so Tiger.

Speaker 1:

Woods. I mean he's showing your age, but the fun. You never graduate from the fundamentals. Yeah, and it's the same thing.

Speaker 2:

in the kingdom Prayer, the word communion, fast like the basics, man, kingdom 101 yeah, see how we like to grow up out of things that should be basic rhythms of life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, as a believer, yeah, you know it'd be like kobe bryant practicing what I don't know. It'd be like Kobe Bryant practicing I don't know, half court shots. Like for what? Like a globetrotter? That's a better analogy. Trying to be a globetrotter, that's not going to win you championships. Thinking you'll graduate from these basic fundamentals of the kingdom, it's not going to win you championships. Yeah, Okay, this is good. Anything else? No, I don't think so. Fundamentals, man, the basics. Never graduate from them. Whatever you look at you empower. Whatever you look at you worship. Whatever you look at you enthrone. Enthrone Jesus in the midst of your situation. Let him be God and do what only he can do.

Speaker 2:

That's so good. I was thinking sorry, I do have one more thing. I was thinking on the way over here about the importance of being like, singularly focused on Jesus, and I was reminded of at the beginning of Song of Solomon, where the bridegroom is speaking to the bride and he says about her eyes. She has dove's eyes, and I remember hearing once that doves are only capable of looking like ahead of them. Their eyes can't look. It's not like human eyes where we can see like all around us. They see like they're singularly focused. And so I think it's his heart, the Lord's heart, for his bride to have those eyes that look only to him, always. You know Jesus only.

Speaker 1:

So good. Those are the eyes of a lover. You know, when you're falling in love it's like the only thing that you can see is the object of your affection. And then what happens? Over time you start to just, you know, get lazy, look at other things, become infatuated with other things. But Jesus wants to have those dove eyes of passionate first love, intimate affection for only him. So good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, doves mate for life too.

Speaker 1:

Doves mate for life Covenant.