Unbelief

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📅 Sunday Gathering 4:30pm 


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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You can tell everyone's a little sleepy tonight. It's like you guys had some stuff going on this week and in all the different places. But praise God, you guys. Praise God, He is good. I was actually, it's ironic that I'm wearing this sweatshirt. I was gonna have Chris bring me up a like not a sweatshirt to wear up here. Um, but it feels really fitting to wear a sweatshirt that says, God is good and that's enough. And um, so maybe that was intentional. Also, yay for sweatshirts. Um man, I got to go be part of Amplify this weekend, you guys, and it was so cool. Like, I proclaim this very loudly that I can't clap on beat, I can't sing a note to save my life, I like to paint and draw, but even that's kind of questionable. Like, fine arts is not something that is like a huge skill set of mine, and I got to go, and it was amazing, it was so good. And I'm so glad. I so interesting enough, Brooke, who is my youth student, was going to go. She was homesick all weekend, so I smuggled Brandon in like contraband to a youth event, and he just like lived his best life. He was like, this is the best hype session I've ever been part of. Um, it was really fun, and bless everyone who took care of him while I wasn't there because he is a hype guy. Um but what is interesting is Thursday night, so it was Thursday night, Friday night, all day, Friday, all day, Saturday. So Thursday night, all day, Friday, Saturday. Friday I was at work because paychecks. Um, that was weird. But so Thursday night at some unholy hour, I texted Ashley after I had gone home, and I was like, I didn't know at Amplify there would be like worship and a message. I just thought students were presenting the whole time, which is also worship and messages and all of those good things too. But like I didn't know like I would be sitting and receiving. And she was like, Yeah, God's funny that way, huh? And I was like, Oh, and like I think I've just been weepy all weekend. Like, I just like testimonies, I'm just weeping. So, but in order to stay up that late, I drank copious amounts of coffee, which also means then I did not sleep because I'm old. And now if I drink caffeine too late, I don't sleep. So there's all these fun realizations that I had outside of my spiritual life this weekend that were just a lot. Um, so it was just interesting, is I heard some amazing sermons and some amazing worship, and I watched kids do amazing, not kids, youth, sorry, youth do amazing things. Like God's, God has gifted so many people, and that was just like one area of fine art. Like that is just one area of giftings. And to watch students like stand up there and like boldly present, I'm like up here shaking a little bit, like, ooh, this is a little nerve-wracking. And those kids are just like up there doing their thing, it's amazing. But what it reminded me of is a couple weeks ago, um, at my job, we have chapel every week for junior high and high school students, and I as part of my job get to go and participate, which is a really cool like benefit of a job. Um, but you know, like Amplify wasn't necessarily intended, like I wasn't the intended audience for those messages to necessarily receive. And at chapel each week is kind of the same thing where I'm like, I'm not really the intended audience, and I don't know why I'm surprised by this, but God continues to speak to me in those spaces. Like, if the spirit is on the move and you're there, you better buckle up because it doesn't matter what the intended audience is, he's gonna speak to you. And so on that note, because you know, like when I I come on Sundays, I'm ready to receive the word and if gathering, ladies, we don't hug nearly as much as these men hug, they hug a lot. I was just like, wow, I don't feel like after if gathering we have these, maybe we'll step it up. There's a lot of hugging, they're all sweet and connected, and thankfully I think all of them showered too. But um, but that was a side tangent. But um, Holy Week, a couple weeks ago, our superintendent spoke at chapel. Sometimes we'll have staff, sometimes it's local pastors, missionaries, uh, people in ministry, different leadership roles, will come and speak. And our superintendent spoke, and I work in the same office as him, but I don't interact with him a ton. I do. He's a really nice guy, but not like I don't get to hear his life and I don't know his story very well. And his whole message was really about like choosing the faith for yourself. Um, like how he shared his testimony when he came to know Jesus, not just the faith that his parents had instilled in him. Um and he threw out this thing, like just a side clip, and it has been sitting with me for a couple weeks now. Um he just happened to throw in there, and I can't remember how he related it to a story, but he said, Unbelief interferes with your closeness to God. And I go, yuck, okay. And I my like immediate reaction was to be like, that's not like a full statement. Like, let's let's break that apart. And I was like, I am a believer, I have belief, I have faith, I am a Christian, but sometimes I feel far away from God. And what it breaks down to is unbelief. And I was like, no. So I got back to my desk, and as any good employee does, I go to Google. And I Googled unbelief, which I've now typed it so many times and thought about it and read it and said it. Like, I'm like, is this a real word? I make words up. It's like a common thing for me just to like combine words, but no, it's a it's a real one. Um, Google tells me that unbelief is passive, it's referred to as a lack of trust. It's the beginning of a hardened heart. Yeah. And then disbelief, because I was like, is that is again, is unbelief a real word? Disbelief is aggressive. It's referred to as an active refusal to believe. So where I'm sitting there being like, well, I have faith, I'm a believer, I'm a Christian, I don't have unbelief. Sometimes I just feel far from God. No, I still have unbelief. I don't have disbelief, thankfully, but I struggle with unbelief. And I don't think it's all that uncommon. And I'm just sitting there like, my superintendent's name is Al. I'm like, Al, how can you just throw that in there in the midst of what you're talking about? Like, that wasn't his point, but it's the point that God had intended for me. So that's what I want to share about is unbelief. Um, I it was comical this week, and I was kind of um, I wouldn't say I was fully bullying, but I was someone who was is going to speak in the future, giving them kind of a hard time about how they should, oh, do it, like yes, and da-da-da-da-da. And Miss Glenda sitting there behind me is like, yeah, you know, like if you're asked to, I think that's a sign from God you should. And then Steven this morning, as he dropped my husband off at the house, was just like jokingly, like, Ashley, I should have had you share today. And it's been a while since I've been up here, uh, in large part due to my unbelief. Um, and then I just heard Glenda's voice, and then Pam's voice, who I was kind of harassing. Um, bullying is a strong word. I don't think I bully. Um, but it's so it's just maybe ironic. Um that was also another side tangent. This is well, this will be a fun night, guys. Buckle up. Um, okay. So here's where I was going to. So like I read these these definitions, and I'm like, still like, that's dumb. I don't have unbelief. I don't like this one bit, which generally means I feel guilty about something. Um, and so then I'm like thinking through scenarios, like, okay, let's look at this logically, because I like to be a logical and rational person. And I was trying to find these scenarios, like, if unbelief is truly what's distancing me and Jesus and my relationship and my intimacy with Jesus and God, there's gotta be something else, right? And so I go through these scenarios. Maybe it's my anxiety, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. And I landed on these, and I'm gonna read them off my paper because otherwise I'll probably just put them all into one. So if I have needs in my life, and instead of trusting God, that God Himself can satisfy my every need, and I choose to believe that the temptation of sin in my life will satisfy me more than God, and then I will tell myself that it won't change me, it's not that harmful, choosing that over trusting God in my life, that's unbelief. If I have doubts and fears about myself, my abilities, my worth, instead of trusting that God has the power and the strength to reconcile and heal those in me, and instead I start to choose to like talk poorly about someone else, if I'm um pointing out the things that they're doing wrong, if I'm speaking passive aggressively to them, choosing that over letting God do the work to trust him to do the work in me, that's unbelief. If I have a void within me, a place where my soul longs for something to fill it, instead of that trusting that only God can satisfy my soul and that only he can fill the voids within me. And instead I'm in addiction, drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling, lustful books and music, food, if I'm choosing those instead of trusting God to satisfy those, that's unbelief. And if I hear the tiny whisper, and sometimes it's not tiny, I'm just really thick scrolled. If I hear that whisper of the spirit in a call to go and do, and instead of saying, okay, God, here I am, equip me, use me, send me, and instead I choose to ignore, or even worse, I I choose to refuse that call because of my lack of qualifications, because of my anxiety, because of my discomfort, or for any reason at all, if I'm choosing that instead of trusting God's call on my life, that's also unbelief. So I want to look at Moses. Um, I want to look at Moses. He's a fun guy. I've read Exodus quite a few times. Um, I always kind of start the year reading through the Bible, like Genesis, Exodus, and then sometimes I'll get derailed and then I'm reading something else. So I've read through Exodus quite a few times. But so we're gonna be looking at just a part of it in a little bit of four. Um, I think it's, yep, I think it'll be up on there on the screen, but it's gonna be Exodus 3, verses 7 through 22. It's a lot, sorry. So then the Lord, oh, a little background. Moses is now in median with his father-in-law, he's shepherding his flock, he goes up and he sees the burning bush. And Moses and I are different people because he sees the burning bush, and the Bible actually tells us that he thought to himself, weird, the bush, not that word, weird, the bush is on fire, but it's not burning up. I should go check it out. I would be like, I'm getting out of dodge. Nope, no thanks. That's weird, that's not normal, and I'd be gone. Moses goes to investigate. And he uh hears from the Lord. The Lord says to him, I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of the harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. Another translation that I was reading in so that he was concerned with their suffering, because God is concerned for us and on our behalf. Uh yes, I'm aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey, the land where the Canaites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebizites now live. Look, the cry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them. Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. God directly told Moses to go. And you must lead my people out of Israel, out of Egypt. And Moses is going to question or say no five times. Pretty sure as a parent, when I ask my kid to do something, I expect it on the first try. And Moses like, I got five. Um, so the first, but Moses protested to God, Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt? And God, gracious, has always answered him, I will be with you, and this is your sign that I am the one who has sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this very mountain. Number two, verse 13. But Moses protested. This guy's bold. If I go to the people of Israel and I tell them that the God of your ancestors has sent me to you, they will ask me, What is his name? And then what should I tell them? God replied to Moses, I am who I am, say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you. God has also said to Moses, Say this to the people of Israel, Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations. Now go and call together all the elders of Israel. Tell them, Yahweh, God's repeating himself here. When God repeats himself, we should surely listen. When God says it the first time, we should surely listen. But you know what? Like I said, I'm a little stubborn. So the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has appeared to me. He told me, I have been watching closely and I see how the Egyptians are treating you. I have promised to rescue you from the Egyptian, oh, from your oppression in the in Egypt. I will lead you to a land flowing with milk and honey, the land of the Canaites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebuzites now live. The elders of Israel will accept your message. Then you and the elders must go to the king of Egypt and tell them, The Lord of the The Lord, the God of the Hebrews has met with us, so please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand forces him. So I will raise my hand and strike the Egyptians, performing all kinds of miracles among them. Then at last he will let you go, and I will cause the Egyptians to look favorably upon you. They will give you gifts, and you will go, so you will not leave empty-handed. Every Israelite woman will ask for articles of silver and gold, and fine clothing from her Egyptian neighbors, and then from and from the foreign women in their houses. You will dress your sons and daughters with these, stripping the Egyptians of their wealth. Um, and for sake of time, I won't read into all of four either. But so we had two times that Moses denied. And then the fourth is in chapter four, verse one, he says, But Moses protested protested again. What if they won't believe me or listen to me? What if they say the Lord never appeared to you? So God gives him signs to prove to them. The fourth time is in verse 10 and chapter 4. But Moses pleaded with the Lord, O Lord, I'm not very good with words, I never have been, and I'm not and and I'm not now. Even though you have spoken to me, I get tongue-tied and my words get tangled. And then, like God throws down and he says, Moses, who created you? Who made your tongue? Okay. And the fifth time, Moses questions God is in 4.13. But Moses again pleaded, Lord, please send anyone else, send anyone else. So Aaron goes and is given to go with him. Um and it's interesting. So for however many times I've read Exodus, which probably isn't as many as it feels like, but it's been a lot, um, it never really stuck out to me that man, Moses was really putting up a fight with God. And it really caused me to cause reflection in my life, like, where am I saying, oh, but God, oh but God, oh no God. And like, that's not the stance I want to take before the throne of God. If God says go, we should go. Because the God who called and equipped Moses is the same God who has called and equipped you and me and our neighbors. God does not dismiss us from our calling because we have unbelief. He equips us because he has called us. And that's like a final sentence. Like that's the statement. He's equipped us because he's called us. My concerns, my unbelief, don't get to play a role in that. And just like with Moses, like, God is gracious and he's gonna keep working on that. But when God calls you to something, he means it. He doesn't say it by mistake. I don't know why I, and maybe you do this as well, fight so hard to get back in a grave that Jesus has rescued me from. I use that unbelief, my anxieties, the doubt, addictions, whatever it may be, that's like trying to crawl back in that grave. Jesus closed that grave, he rescued it from us, he reconciled us with God. So why, when God tells us to do something, we're like, meh, maybe tomorrow. Or maybe we just completely rejected it completely. Um, but you know, there's that song, right? The same God. And it goes on the same God who did all these amazing things in the Old Testament is still the same God today. The same God who equipped Moses to go and lead God's people out of Egypt is the same God that's equipping us to go into the world and be his hands and feet here on earth. Whether that's walking alongside a neighbor, whether that's having coffee with someone, whether that's going out there and doing missions work, whether it's raising up youth to go and perform and share their talents with the world, whether it's gathering men to go together so that they can be equipped to go back to their families and to their friends. God is equipping us, the same God who equipped Moses. And Moses is great, but he had unbelief. He had all his reasons why this didn't sound like a good idea. And our unbelief does not change who God is. He was and is and always will be the same as his word tells us he is. He's eternal, he's merciful, he's graceful, he's powerful, compassionate, loving, forgiving, protective, selfless, patient, and perfect. He makes no mistake. Not in our creation, not in our personalities, not in our strengths, not in our weaknesses, and certainly not where he has called us to go. So what do we do with that, right? If okay, unbelief is what it is, that's kind of ugly. It's starting of a hardening heart, it's not trusting God, how do what do we do? We get out of our own way. Moses was in his way. He was stopping himself. He was using too much of his own wisdom as to why this won't work. But God doesn't operate under our wisdom, he operates under his power and authority. And when God says for us to go and do something, we should be listening. We should be leaning into that, we should be aware for it and waiting for it. We need to get out of our own way. Every time we're faced with unbelief, and I don't know about you, but like it comes like in wave after wave after wave for me. It is constantly something that I think is in our world, and it's what the enemy wants. Tony was saying, you know, like the enemy's gonna be mad that we had amplified this weekend and that we had men's retreat this weekend. The enemy is going to be trying his darnest to stop that. So that unbelief is gonna creep in. That's not unbelief from God. God's fully able to equip us where he wants us, but the enemy is gonna try and use any little doubt he can, anything to drive that wedge between us and God. Because unbelief means that we're in distance from God. It's creating that space between us. So every time we're faced with unbelief and we want to try and control it, we want to try and change it, we want to try and manipulate it or excuse it away. Um I want to look at Proverbs 3, because this is how we solve it. Very simple in word, a little bit harder in action. Proverbs 3 says, My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart. If you do this, you will live many years and your life will be satisfying. Never let loyalty and kindness leave you. Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation. Five is our the key point. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. My understanding would not have me sitting in a church. My understanding would have my whole entire family, my family that I was raised with, my parents and my siblings. It would have me come from a line of alcoholics who made poor choices and continue to make poor choices, but God reconciled that. I'm not trusting my own understanding. My own understanding is full of faults. But God's wisdom and God's understanding is perfect. So trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all that we do, and He will show us the path to take. Don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones. So, how do we get out of our own way? How do we get in that closeness with God? How do we quiet the unbelief that is circling around us? It's really simple. We practice hearing God's voice. Super simple. When we feel out of control, if we uh default to what we know, it's not gonna be God's wisdom, right? It's gonna be like, oh, I can't do that because of this, and my past trauma dictates this, and my anxieties say this, and my fear says this. I can't let that control my life. You can't let that control your life. We have to lean onto God's voice. We have to, but you you're not just gonna hear, right? Like, we, if we want to be in an intimate relationship with God, we need to step into that. We need to make the bold choice and we need to pursue God. We need to chase after him, we need to be in prayer, we need to be in his word. God gives us an entire Bible that describes his entire character in the goodness and faithfulness of him. And then we choose not to read it, and then we complain because we say, I don't feel like God's there for me, I don't feel his presence around me. We need to beg to be in his presence. We are we alone in our own are not worthy to be in his presence. And Jesus, we I mean, we just came out of Easter. Jesus is the reason why we're able to stand before God. And then we just let that go. We need to stop trying to go back to the grave that he pulled us out of. We need to pray. We need to ask God, where can we be used each day? God, who do you want to put someone in my path? Where do you want me to be active, Lord? Who can I pray for? What interactions can I have today that better your kingdom today? And then we need to do it. And if we ask God to put us in places where he can use us, we need to act faithfully when he puts us there. We don't want to be resistant, we don't want to be found that I don't know about you, but I don't want to stand up one day in front of God and say, I didn't do what you asked me to do. I was a good person, I loved my family, I loved my kids, I loved my neighbors, but I didn't better your kingdom. I was not the hands and the feet because it made me uncomfortable, because it made me scared, because I got in my own way. We need to pray for those interactions from God and we need to act on them. Another thing is to read the Bible. How can we trust someone that we don't know? We know God from the Bible. We know God from His Word, we know the testimonies in the Bible, the story of Jesus. How could someone love us possibly so much to give their only son so that I can be found right in the eyes of God? I'm not worthy of that. And that's the point, is because God loves and pursues us, but it's a two-way street. We have to actively go there too. So, one thing from Amplify, I'll finish up with this, this wrapping it up, but um one thing at Amplify, I think Michaela spoke to it. Um, one of the nights the speaker had kind of just really called out the adults in the room, and I was like, oh. And he said, you know, it's the altar, we can't just expect the youth and the students and those who are first coming to know Jesus to come up to that altar while we stand back like we have it somehow all figured out. It doesn't mean that we don't know Jesus if we're at the altar, but we all have things to repent of. And then there was this beautiful time of repentance at the altar. And I got to repent to God about my unbelief. This has been stirring in my heart, but this goes back months and months and months and months that it's been stirring in my heart that this distance was there, and I couldn't quite figure out why, and I was just kind of stewing, and I had all the right people in my life trying to come alongside me and coaching me, but what I was refusing to do was listen to God. So that's what I got for you. Um, would you guys pray with me? God, we love you. Lord, I am sorry for the unbelief in my heart. Lord, we we repent that to you, Lord. Lord, if there's anyone in here who is burdened by that unbelief, Lord, would would you convict them of it? Would their heart be burdened for you, Lord? Um, Lord, when you say go, we want to go. We don't want to stumble like Moses did. And thank, thank you, God, that you still used him. You led your people out of Egypt by by Moses' honor. And so you went and you you went and you did it, Lord, and we want to do that, Lord. We don't want to tell you no. We don't want to tell you all the reasons why we're not qualified. Lord, we want to be equipped. We don't want our unbelief to be a reason that we sit on the sidelines and we just wait for someone else to do it. Lord, we love and we honor you. Amen.