SPEAKER_00: So we've been going through the book of John in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We're in John chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked about this crazy this crazy principle in life and very clear in the story, the feeding of the 5,000, that power comes through vulnerability.
SPEAKER_00: And it's crazy that we might, not power like outer prosperity and wealth and houses or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like an inner power of a security of your soul, a strength of your personhood, your identity, a connectivity with other people and intimacy with other people, and then also a connection with God and intimacy with God that this is accomplished through vulnerability.
SPEAKER_00: And that's extremely scary, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the last thing we want to do.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we talked about last week and last week's message.
SPEAKER_00: Vulnerability is the path to connection and love with people, and God yet is the place we most fear to go to.
SPEAKER_00: And then this week we get these handful of verses in John chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be like verses 37 through 40, and also in 44.
SPEAKER_00: And what we're going to see here is we're going to see, again, power, security of your personhood and who you are, and what God wants to do in you.
SPEAKER_00: This comes through belonging.
SPEAKER_00: But this belonging is not what we think it to be.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: This God who loves you and cares for you, wants to provide for you, and he wants to hear from you, this God, God is, he's all about himself, much more than you.
SPEAKER_00: That God is about God.
SPEAKER_00: He is about increasing his own glory.
SPEAKER_00: He is fully into himself.
SPEAKER_00: And in our modern mindset, oh, hold on a second, you know, I kind of like the like the God.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of meet him halfway, and he's kind of my Santa Claus, and you know, and he's like for me, and I kind of come to him.
SPEAKER_00: God is actually the center of the universe and of creation.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he's actually fully into himself, and and this is this is the great thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is actually the best thing for us.
SPEAKER_00: For our life not to belong to us is such a freeing thing.
SPEAKER_00: So few people get the freedom of it.
SPEAKER_00: That your life has never really belonged to you, that it has always belonged to the creator of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Because the modern world says, well, you know, uh, God serves you.
SPEAKER_00: You're the center, you're the be you're you're the beginning of your own life, and we try to make ourselves the center of our entire world, really.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you're the center, and God serves you, and you kind of go to Him when you want to, and then He kind of serves your life.
SPEAKER_00: Um but what God says through the scriptures very clearly is that you belong to me, is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Your family, your career, your sex, your money, your entertainment, your golf, your shopping, your eating, your fitness, all of that, it belongs to me.
SPEAKER_00: And it belongs for my glory, and not your glory.
SPEAKER_00: And it kind of makes us squirm.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Kind of feels like we're maybe being violated a little bit, like you're kind of violating into my personhood and my glory.
SPEAKER_00: Um so last summer we were in Hilton Head for our kind of family beach week, and uh Josie and I are walking out to the beach, and so we're walking up that path, and you walk up those wood stairs up over the dunes, and uh, you know, the wood stairs, wood railings, and and we're walking, and she's kind of you know dragging her hand along the top of the rail.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all know what's coming, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and catches uh this is my five-year-old little girl, and catches that splinter.
SPEAKER_00: You know, ah, you know, and and and so we turn turn the hand over and and and kind of pull it, you know, you can get in there, you try to get your little two little fingernails to touch each other, it's extremely hard.
SPEAKER_00: And um pull that thing out and um a little bit stayed in there, you know, you didn't get quite good at all.
SPEAKER_00: And and and so you know, next you go, well, you know, hopefully the water, you know, it'll it'll work it'll work its way out.
SPEAKER_00: And so um a lot of swimming that day, you know, every once in a while kind of look down at it, you know, and it's still in there.
SPEAKER_00: Um it'll work its way out.
SPEAKER_00: You know, so let's let's just let it ride, put some neospor on at night, let it ride the next day.
SPEAKER_00: Um in it, but it's getting just a little, just a little bit you know, redder.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so by kind of middle of next day, uh going, all right, we're gonna have to have to go into this.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have to go digging.
SPEAKER_00: Um part of you is kind of excited about it in a strange, kind of morbid way.
SPEAKER_00: Um so get the needle, get the tweezers, get the lighter, you know, light it, get it not that we want to let it cool before we go to the daughter, but um to kind of burn off the germs.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh get back to the condo and and we're we're gonna we're gonna go we're gonna go digging.
SPEAKER_00: We're we're going in to get the splinter, right?
SPEAKER_00: We've all done this, and you dig, and and and there's kind of a trickle of blood.
SPEAKER_00: She's kind of wincing back, but it had become tender, so you know, I mean it's got it's gotta come out.
SPEAKER_00: It's gotta come out.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, dig for maybe, you know, oh it was just so long, it's probably like 32 seconds, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and and and get it out, and and what happens immediately?
SPEAKER_00: Relief.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: The splinter was was removed.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I'm saying there's there's a splinter in your heart, my heart.
SPEAKER_00: And what the splinter says, you're the center of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Make yourself the center of the world.
SPEAKER_00: This, this is what would be good for your life.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just ask, how's that working out?
SPEAKER_00: Like when life is all about you getting the world to conform to you, timetables, your children's behavior, your career, your advancement, uh, your investments, uh, how's that working out for uh your wants, for illnesses, for other people's illnesses, for you being in control of the world and the world conforming to what you want?
SPEAKER_00: How's that working out for you to be the center of the world?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're here and you're working very hard to keep yourself at the center of the world and to be able to say your life's about me.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't even realize you're doing it, but but when you're you're about your record, like your spiritual record, your Christian moral record, and you're all about that and kind of keeping tabs on how you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I you know, I'm doing pretty good today, tomorrow I'm not, uh I didn't do as good, tomorrow, okay, I'll do better the next day, or maybe you do that with your fitness, or maybe you do that with your food, or maybe you do that with your career.
SPEAKER_00: When you're just all about yourself, you're placing yourself at the center of the world.
SPEAKER_00: There's an unbelievable amount of anxiety and fear.
SPEAKER_00: Because what you're saying is you're saying, I belong to myself.
SPEAKER_00: And it's all for my glory.
SPEAKER_00: And we do this, I was reading this week some different sociological articles about why would we even do this?
SPEAKER_00: We do this because we actually think we're safer at the center.
SPEAKER_00: Because see, if we're at the center, what it means is we think if we just get good enough or perfect enough, beautiful enough, or kind of high performing enough, then the the chance of being rejected goes down.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm not rejected, then I'm okay.
SPEAKER_00: Because we think if we're at the center, we can minimize the pain and the judgment of others.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: It's exhausting to be at the it is exhausting to be at the center of your own world.
SPEAKER_00: Because life was never meant for you to be all about yourself and finding and securing your own belonging.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we jump into John chapter 6, verses 37 through 40.
SPEAKER_00: A handful of verses here, not a long passage this morning, handful of verses.
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable promises when it comes to belonging.
SPEAKER_00: Who we belong to, who's in charge of this belonging, where it came from.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 37.
SPEAKER_00: All those the Father gives, Jesus is talking here, he's teaching, all those the Father, God the Father gives me will come to me.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, powerful phrase.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have to come back to that one.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever comes to me, I will never drive away.
SPEAKER_00: So God gives those who come to faith, become a Christian, God gives those to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus secures them on what Jesus did, not on what we did.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's that's really good.
SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
SPEAKER_00: It's secure and it's settled, but have to worry about it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 37, verse 38.
SPEAKER_00: For I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall, another great promise, I shall lose none of all of those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
SPEAKER_00: He loses no one.
SPEAKER_00: You place faith in Jesus to be your deliverer and savior of all your unrighteousness and your inadequacy.
SPEAKER_00: It's sealed.
SPEAKER_00: It's done.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's no screw up, there's no moral failure, there's no, I haven't quite been performing good enough as a Christian, and now all of a sudden I'm outside the favor of God, I've got to earn my way back in.
SPEAKER_00: None of that exists.
SPEAKER_00: It's on Jesus' record for us.
SPEAKER_00: It's done, it's sealed.
SPEAKER_00: I lose.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that I lose none of them.
SPEAKER_00: I lose none.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 40, for my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's promise after promise after promise.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, everyone who looks to the sons in the family, saved, period.
SPEAKER_00: What do you need to do?
SPEAKER_00: What do you need to be do to be in good favor with God?
SPEAKER_00: To feel like when I die, I go to heaven, to feel like time here, that I that I have a secure identity, I'm secure with my creator, I'm relieved of guilt, I'm a righteous person, even though I don't always behave righteously.
SPEAKER_00: Where do I get this sort of position?
SPEAKER_00: It's not by what you do, it's by what He did for us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus is saying over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: I secure you, I hold you, I maintain you, and I lose none of you.
SPEAKER_00: And we can go.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like it's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: Relief and rest.
SPEAKER_00: If you jump to verse 44, you're welcome to read 41 through 43 later.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of segueing into 44.
SPEAKER_00: No one can come to me.
SPEAKER_00: This is going back to that first phrase in verse 37 said we'll come back to.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 44 makes it more difficult.
SPEAKER_00: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.
SPEAKER_00: And again, promise, I will raise them up at the last day.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father without God wooing them and saving them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you all have been around church, some of you haven't been around church a lot, some of you have been around church.
SPEAKER_00: Um here's what I don't care about.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care too much, and sorry if I offend you, I don't care too much if um whether you become reformed or not, or Calvinistic or not.
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if I even care if you don't know what those words mean.
SPEAKER_00: Um here's what I care about, and if you care about this, and then you care about those things, then I'm all for those things.
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense to some of you.
SPEAKER_00: I care that you rest in the truths of God that can give you peace.
SPEAKER_00: That's what matters.
SPEAKER_00: This idea is a little uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: That the only people who become uh believers are those that God draws.
SPEAKER_00: We feel a little violated of maybe of my will, or maybe of somebody who doesn't make that decision.
SPEAKER_00: What about their will to come?
SPEAKER_00: And we feel a little violated because we've been removed from the center of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: And God has become the center of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna we're gonna talk about this.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm gonna read Romans 8, 28 through 30, and a lot of you would say, don't read that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't please don't read.
SPEAKER_00: I brought a friend.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's the verse we want them to read later on, um, like down the road.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is, is people read the Bible on their own and they'll they'll hear this eventually.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna go, what is this?
SPEAKER_00: This is crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Um so we're just gonna read it and we're gonna talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 28, we all love.
SPEAKER_00: We put on the coffee cups and t-shirts and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: You'll love verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, 29, you're not gonna some of you won't like too much.
SPEAKER_00: Um here we go.
SPEAKER_00: And we we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his promise.
SPEAKER_00: For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: And those he predestined, he also called.
SPEAKER_00: Those he called, he also justified, those he justified, he also glorified.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've I've read a lot, I've studied a lot over the years, I've I've heard a lot of sermons uh when it comes to these ideas of predestination, foreknowledge.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe if you're not familiar with predestination, uh a philosophical term for that would be determinism.
SPEAKER_00: Um God has determined steps of people.
SPEAKER_00: And so I've heard lots of sermons, I remember I heard a sermon one time about, well, there's there's a there's a tension with you know, there's a tension in reality, and it's kind of like a like a like a pole, and and the illustration is a cable that comes off that pole to one end, and that's predestination or determinism, and and there's a tension, there's a cable that comes off the other end, and that's free will, and that we sort of live in the middle of this tension, and that that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, all right, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Um I've also heard another the two wills of God, some of you might be familiar with that, that God can will everyone to come to him, and yet at the same time, he can only will certain people to come to him.
SPEAKER_00: That's tough to reconcile in our minds.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of makes my brain hurt a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I don't want us to do.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not redefine words for our convenience.
SPEAKER_00: So foreknowledge foreknowledge means that God knew something before it happened.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to foreknowledge.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what foreknowledge means.
SPEAKER_00: Predestination means something totally different.
SPEAKER_00: Predestination means he chose of his own willing.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that means.
SPEAKER_00: This that's what makes us feel a little violated.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that he would violate our will because you say, I make my own decisions.
SPEAKER_00: I've I made my own decisions.
SPEAKER_00: I know my own life, I know my my my mental abilities, um, I've made my own decisions.
SPEAKER_00: Uh possibly, could I could I go on a limb here and say, possibly uh could we humbly realize that maybe we don't grasp all things?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're not omniscient.
SPEAKER_00: Omnipotent.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're not maybe we're not like in all of time in all moments.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we don't know everything.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm I'm just I'm going out on a limb here with that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, perhaps.
SPEAKER_00: Um here's my conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: We're not the center of brilliance and omniscience and omniscience.
SPEAKER_00: We're not.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: I don't I'm assuming you're not.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you are, um we'll just rename the church after you.
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, Jake the Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh here's I'm not the center of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: I can chase my tail here for a long time, or I can come into some measure of intellectual humility and mystery and receive this truth as is clearly stated.
SPEAKER_00: Um God's outside of time.
SPEAKER_00: When I preached on predestination back last year about this time, this is one thing I broke down and lengthened is because God is outside of time, that he is in all of time and all of moments equally, that time is contained within him.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what eternity is not forever time.
SPEAKER_00: Eternity is is no time.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what does that do?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I we we can't even get there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how do you even see reality or or decisions when you're outside of time?
SPEAKER_00: I don't even, I can't even get to what that means when it comes to predestination because I'm inside of time.
SPEAKER_00: All I know is I receive the truth that God foreknew and he also predestined.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I do know uh He somehow wills everyone to come, and yet only some come, and those some that do come only come by His grace.
SPEAKER_00: That was an amen.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, hold on, hold on.
SPEAKER_00: I made a decision.
SPEAKER_00: Like I remember it.
SPEAKER_00: Like I had my Precious Moments Bible, I was with my mom, we were in the trundle bed, you know.
SPEAKER_00: You say, I I walked the aisle, I signed the card.
SPEAKER_00: You say, No, I remember it because I drank a lot the night before, and I was hungover, and my friend came over and he told me I was wasting my life, and I prayed a prayer, I made it, I made a decision.
SPEAKER_00: Like you would say, I felt so shameful because of something, and I decided I was done with it, and I handed it over.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Russ, I made a decision.
SPEAKER_00: I would say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I remember that too.
SPEAKER_00: I can remember being 13 years old and parents divorcing and wondering, you know, where do I belong, and beginning to hear about a love outside of myself greater than all of this, and forgiveness, and I've told this story a lot, but it's just so fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in a in a field outside of a Baptist church and a reenactment of the rapture and the end times, and there's machine guns and like bloody babies, and it's crazy, and they're scaring you, and then you're in a tent afterwards, and you know, and they're you need forgiveness of your sins, and and they were right.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the bloody babies and the chainsaws and stuff was an interesting part of it.
SPEAKER_00: Um the in the tent part was was right.
SPEAKER_00: Um I was messed up.
SPEAKER_00: I I I I did need forgiveness, and I wanted God a part of my life, and and I received Jesus as Savior.
SPEAKER_00: I I remember standing there, I remember praying the prayer, I did it, I remember this.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember he said, uh head, you know, eyes closed, head bowed, you know, um, and uh raise your hand if you prayed the prayer, and I looked up and see if anybody else is raising their hand.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a couple other people, well, I'll raise my hand too, and so I raised my hand, I did that, I remember that.
SPEAKER_00: Um here's what I also know is I also know the compulsion to pray that prayer was that faith had already entered my heart.
SPEAKER_00: The faith was given, and it and it created a desire to take a step, to pray prayer, to take the communion, um sign your precious moments Bible at the front.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what girls do.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'll find out quickly.
SPEAKER_00: We understand and experience life by our own decisions, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean that's how it plays out.
SPEAKER_00: And then a lot of times what happens is we get so we get through the doorway of say becoming a Christian on the front, it says confess, repent, uh, place faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that, and we understand that by our own decisions, and we walk through the doorway, and then what we see in time as we turn around and look at that doorway, is on the other side of that doorway, what we see is it says only by my grace.
SPEAKER_00: And we begin to see there are so many other factors at play that God was doing in our lives, drawing us and wooing us.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2, 4 through 9, I mean many of you heard this so many times, but it's so good.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read all of it.
SPEAKER_00: But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made alive, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions, what kind of dead people make good decisions?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know anybody.
SPEAKER_00: It is by grace you've been saved.
SPEAKER_00: And God raised us up with Christ, seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed and his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Four, it is by grace you've been saved through faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is not from yourselves.
SPEAKER_00: It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, of course you're coming to faith was your decision.
SPEAKER_00: That's how it worked out in present time.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you understand it.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you understand your coming to faith.
SPEAKER_00: You understand it from, yeah, okay, I understood this, I embraced this, I walked the aisle, I took communion, I came to some conclusions.
SPEAKER_00: But the faith that caused that was given to you by God.
SPEAKER_00: And that was a grace.
SPEAKER_00: This is good news because what this means is that in the wake of this pride and arrogance, there's none of it.
SPEAKER_00: There's none of it.
SPEAKER_00: And all the jump that that creates, like comparison, Christianity, and kind of constant measuring or judgment towards other, all of that, it's gone.
SPEAKER_00: Legalism gone.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a grateful heart left that he would come for you while you were dead.
SPEAKER_00: That he would give you faith when you didn't have the ability to create faith on your own.
SPEAKER_00: This is a freedom of belonging when we're not the center.
SPEAKER_00: So years ago when I was in seminary, so probably maybe 12 years ago, uh, sometimes I'd go speak at these camps and retreats, and you think that's kind of cool for like the first few times, and you realize it's not really cool at all because it's boring.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh was at Epworth by the Sea in St.
SPEAKER_00: Simon's.
SPEAKER_00: So this Methodist camp retreat right on the water, beautiful area, kind of cabins, little motel, chapel, kind.
SPEAKER_00: Cafeteria, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm down there and been down there some, had met a few people.
SPEAKER_00: And so down there I preach in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: It was like high school camp, preach in the morning, preach at night.
SPEAKER_00: So long sections of the day in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times I would study since I was in school.
SPEAKER_00: One day I get a little bored.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in that little motel room, and it's just it's just too little.
SPEAKER_00: And I remembered uh like six months ago I'd been down there, and through a friend, uh this this guy had we had gone to the cloister together, and cloisters on Sea Island is a little bit different than Epworth by the Sea.
SPEAKER_00: The cloister is like the president goes, you know, like the summits meet there and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm you know, I get in my little Ford probe and uh not knock it.
SPEAKER_00: If you drive a Ford probe, I mean I'm I'm with you.
SPEAKER_00: I was in the family.
SPEAKER_00: And so I get in my Ford probe and get a book, get a you know, get my sunglasses, get my hat, and I'm I'm going for the cloister.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna head over there and just see what plays out.
SPEAKER_00: I don't park close.
SPEAKER_00: If they see that Ford probe coming, I'm not I'm not getting in.
SPEAKER_00: And so I park a ways down, and I kind of walk and just see if can I can wiggle in, is what I'm wondering.
SPEAKER_00: And mind you, I'm preaching at a Christian conference, and this is probably trespassing, stealing, I don't know, an ethical aside here for a moment for the sake of the story.
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of wiggle my way into the cloister, and what I remember the first time, and the reason why I kind of like this place is uh I remember the kind of the pool area, it was, you know, it was near the beach, and they had watered the sand on the way out to the beach so it wasn't hot on your feet.
SPEAKER_00: And when I experienced that, I thought this is the kind of place I want to be that would take that and recognize to me, I mean, when I walked out, they had watered the sand, I thought these people care, they care for me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna come back here.
SPEAKER_00: I want to come back, preferably when I'm not paying, but they water sand here.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm into that, and so I decide I'm not gonna get greedy with this coming into the cloister.
SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of find this little courtyard off to the side of the pool.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go for the pool.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to raise too much suspicion.
SPEAKER_00: My game plan here is get a lounge chair, hear the ocean, read.
SPEAKER_00: If anybody walks by, act like I'm asleep.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna wake up somebody who's asleep?
SPEAKER_00: That would just be rude.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm laying there and I'm reading, and if I kind of see somebody coming, like an employee or something, I just kind of you know, just drop the head.
SPEAKER_00: And it and it worked.
SPEAKER_00: It worked great.
SPEAKER_00: It worked fine.
SPEAKER_00: I was an hour and a half, two hours, just had a good time, a good nap.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing about it.
SPEAKER_00: The thing about it was every noise, every person who walked by, just the anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Just the anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be I'm gonna be found out.
SPEAKER_00: I mean it was totally different than than the time before when I belonged there, and I'm walking on the wet sand and you know having a good time.
SPEAKER_00: Totally different all because, all because I didn't belong.
SPEAKER_00: Belonging is a powerful thing.
SPEAKER_00: And when you have belonging, it brings inner peace and security.
SPEAKER_00: And when you don't have it, there's anxiety and there's fear.
SPEAKER_00: And and when we don't have belonging, we do crazy things.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we we have affairs and we we we cheat people and and we uh we try to please people to ridiculous points.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have school shootings because of belonging.
SPEAKER_00: We we eat too much or we don't eat or we work out too much or we work too much.
SPEAKER_00: I mean I mean all the unhealthy things that occur kind of come out of I d I feel like I don't belong.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna try to earn it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna f I'm gonna find it.
SPEAKER_00: But what if you have always belonged?
SPEAKER_00: What if there's a belonging you're a part of that has always been there because you were loved and chosen by God through Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And that you don't have to find or earn your belonging, but you receive it because he has called you.
SPEAKER_00: Christy read me a tweet last night.
SPEAKER_00: We were in bed, and a pastor friend of ours tweeted this out and she read it, and this this is the summation right here.
SPEAKER_00: Your salvation is not based in the strength of your faith, but in the power of the one who saves you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this John chapter 6, these verses are saying.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: I called you, I saved you, I'll maintain you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna raise you up on the last day.
SPEAKER_00: That'll change your life.
SPEAKER_00: This is the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: While we did not choose to belong, God chose us and he loved us in our weakness.
SPEAKER_00: And so when it comes to predestination, determinism, we kind of feel like, oh, maybe we're getting violated here, I'm not sure about that.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually the very thing that creates for you peace and security.
SPEAKER_00: Because what it means is it means you are always loved, you will always belong, you will always be righteous, and none of it, none of it can ever be taken away from you.
SPEAKER_00: And I just need this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I woke up Friday morning and I went to work out, and I'm working out, and I just felt like a failure.
SPEAKER_00: You know why I felt like a failure?
SPEAKER_00: Just because I don't live up to my own expectations, that's why I felt not necessarily because I am, well, I am a failure in a lot of ways, but um, I just don't live up to my own expectations of where I should be, who I should be.
SPEAKER_00: And just sort of feeling like a failure, and I'm working out, and I'm thinking about there's that inner voice of judgment going on, and kind of bringing stuff up, and just feeling like it's just not enough, and I'm not living up the expectations.
SPEAKER_00: You know what helped me?
SPEAKER_00: What helped me was was remembering John chapter 6, remembering these verses, and remembering this one line, you belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: And I can rest in it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you that we belong to you.
SPEAKER_00: You have called us, you have wooed us.
SPEAKER_00: You are calling some of us now.
SPEAKER_00: We don't we don't get everything when it comes to your ways, but man, are they good for us?
SPEAKER_00: Help us to place faith in you and to trust you, to find the security of our heart and our soul and in you and in you alone that we belong to you.
SPEAKER_00: And the belonging is not because we place ourselves at the center of our own faith, but because you are the center.
SPEAKER_00: Would we know the freedom of life being about you?
SPEAKER_00: And us coming under your authority over our lives.
SPEAKER_00: For you are a banner of love over us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.