SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit GrandProquay.org.
SPEAKER_03: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, Father, may we be able to see the joy on your face.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for inviting us into your presence so we acknowledge that.
SPEAKER_03: We want to come before you this morning as kids who are safe and secure, unashamed to ask our Father for a good gift because he's got a lot of candy in his pocket.
SPEAKER_03: We want to be joyful and generous people.
SPEAKER_03: Even with our nonverbals, we want to preach the gospel.
SPEAKER_03: Make us more aware of who you are.
SPEAKER_03: Increase our capacity to see ourselves through your eyes.
SPEAKER_03: And increase our responsibility to notice those around us who need to know about your faithfulness and your goodness.
SPEAKER_03: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you guys.
SPEAKER_03: Well, good morning, church.
SPEAKER_03: I'll say, bless the Lord if you'll say, Oh my soul, bless the Lord, bless his holy name.
SPEAKER_03: My name is Chris.
SPEAKER_03: I'm kind of like a weird athlete's foot.
SPEAKER_03: I appear every once in a while at your church.
SPEAKER_03: You think you've gotten rid of me, and then I show up again.
SPEAKER_03: I pastor a couple microchurches uh in Franklin, Tennessee, and have just been a longtime friend and extended weird cousin of this church.
SPEAKER_03: So thank you so much.
SPEAKER_03: I just want to honor you guys for making it here this morning.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for being present.
SPEAKER_03: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_03: Getting myself and my family to a place actually on time usually is a minor miracle.
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I sometimes I'm usually never more unchristian than when I'm trying to go do Christian things with my family.
SPEAKER_03: Um so for those of you who need to repent for what happened on your way here, just take a minute.
SPEAKER_03: You and Jesus, it's okay.
SPEAKER_03: You are not alone, but you're here, and I want to honor that.
SPEAKER_03: And I've been praying for every single one of you, prayed over every chair, that you would hear from God.
SPEAKER_03: And you need to know that comes with my family's blessing, um, and that they're praying for you as well.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, thank you for the way that you guys have organized.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for the staff that you have.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, Neil and Marcy, just want to honor you for always being.
SPEAKER_03: The Bible says this um, you are happy to share not only the gospel with me, but your very lives.
SPEAKER_03: And so my life is always better when I intersect your life.
SPEAKER_03: So thank you for that.
SPEAKER_03: All right, that's enough.
SPEAKER_03: You guys have been journeying through the book of Acts, and this morning we're gonna take a break.
SPEAKER_03: So um I we we walk through books of the Bible together in our microchurches.
SPEAKER_03: We try to read them every day and kind of interact with each other.
SPEAKER_03: We always want to be telling God's story to each other so that our stories don't become the story.
SPEAKER_03: If I'm just living my story, it's so overwhelming.
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it can feel so heavy and hopeless.
SPEAKER_03: But when I remind myself, I fit into this huge narrative both here and overseas, and there's this great cloud of witnesses.
SPEAKER_03: I get to read and remind myself, oh, okay, I'm a part of something bigger.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and recently we were reading through the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_03: We're trying to get some Old Testament fiber in our diet, right?
SPEAKER_03: Because I got to prove that, hey, we're a real church.
SPEAKER_03: Even though we meet in homes, we read the old testament, okay?
SPEAKER_03: Maybe we'll talk about that later.
SPEAKER_03: But uh has anybody ever read any of the stories in Judges?
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
SPEAKER_03: I was first exposed to this.
SPEAKER_03: Uh uh, my parents put me in Christian school up until about junior high, and and then it it all took a tragic left turn.
SPEAKER_03: But in the fifth grade, I had a teacher named Mrs.
SPEAKER_03: Weaver who, oh, she was round and lovely and glasses down here, and it swished like lycra every time she came down the hall, smelled a little bit like potpourri.
SPEAKER_03: And uh, she figured out one of one of the biggest influences looking back on why I wanted to teach, she figured out how to get rambunctious little fifth graders who capture their attention.
SPEAKER_03: She would read us the book of Judges every day in class, and she would leave off right at the climactic moment and say, we're gonna pick it up there again tomorrow.
SPEAKER_03: If you can get fifth grade boys to start booing you for stop reading the Bible, you have a supernatural impartation from the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: So when I get to Judges, I'm smiling thinking about Miss Weaver, and then I'm reading these stories and going, How in the world are we gonna preach a sermon out of these?
SPEAKER_03: We're about to find out.
SPEAKER_03: So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Judges chapter three.
SPEAKER_03: We'll put it up on the screen.
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna read a story here.
SPEAKER_03: Um just for like genre's sake, for those of you who like shows on Netflix about Vikings and death and depravity and arbitrary violence, the book of Judges is for you.
SPEAKER_03: You're gonna feel it right at home, okay?
SPEAKER_03: First three chapters are PG 13, and then it's just straight R.
SPEAKER_03: So just that's that's a heads up.
SPEAKER_03: And if you think the Bible's boring, you're reading the wrong passages.
SPEAKER_03: Pray for us as we read God's Word.
SPEAKER_03: Holy Spirit, would you give us eyes to see and ears to hear?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus, would you go before us in this text and make a way?
SPEAKER_03: And together we say the words that ravage your heart.
SPEAKER_03: Speak, Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Your servants are listening.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: So we're in Judges chapter 3.
SPEAKER_03: We'll start in verse 12.
SPEAKER_03: And I'm gonna read this whole section.
SPEAKER_03: So get locked and loaded, have fun, picture this in your mind.
SPEAKER_03: The Israelites again did what was evil in the Lord's sight.
SPEAKER_03: He gave King Eglon of Moab power over Israel because they had done what was evil in the Lord's sight.
SPEAKER_03: After Eglon convinced the Ammonites and the Amalekites to join forces with him, he attacked and defeated Israel and took possession of the city of palms.
SPEAKER_03: The Israelites served King Eglon of Moab for eighteen years.
SPEAKER_03: Then the Israelites cried out, 18 is just probably a magic number, like I'm praying that over my teenager.
SPEAKER_03: Like at 18 years, you're gonna cry out to the Lord and go, Oh my gosh, save me.
SPEAKER_03: The Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he raised up Ehud, son of Gera, left-handed Benjamite, as a deliverer for them.
SPEAKER_03: The Israelites sent him with tribute for the King Eglon of Moab.
SPEAKER_03: Ehud made for himself a double-edged sword 18 inches long.
SPEAKER_03: He strapped it to his right thigh, put it under his clothes, and bought tribute to King Eglon of Moab, who was an extremely fat man.
SPEAKER_03: Getting the casting pictures here, right?
SPEAKER_03: When Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he dismissed the people who had carried it.
SPEAKER_03: At the carved images near Gilgal, he returned and said, King Eglon, I have a secret message for you.
SPEAKER_03: The king said, Silence! And all of his attendants left him.
SPEAKER_03: Then Ehud approached him while he was sitting on the throne in his upstairs room where it was cool.
SPEAKER_03: Ehud said, I have a message from God for you.
SPEAKER_03: And the king stood up from his throne, and Ehud with his left hand took the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into Egglon's belly.
SPEAKER_03: Even the handle went in after the blade, and Egolon's fat closed over it.
SPEAKER_03: So that Ehud did not withdraw the sword from his belly.
SPEAKER_03: And the waist came out.
SPEAKER_03: Ehud escaped by the way of the porch, closing and locking the doors of the upstairs room behind him.
SPEAKER_03: Ehud was gone when Egon's servants came in.
SPEAKER_03: They looked around and found the doors upstairs locked.
SPEAKER_03: They thought he was relieving himself in the cool room.
SPEAKER_03: The servants waited until they became embarrassed, like all of us reading this text out loud on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_03: And they saw that he had not opened the doors to the upstairs room.
SPEAKER_03: So they took the key, opened the doors, and there was their Lord lying dead on the floor.
SPEAKER_03: Ehud escaped while the servants waited.
SPEAKER_03: He passed the Jordan near the carved images when he reached Sarah.
SPEAKER_03: After he arrived, he sounded the ram's horn throughout the hill country of Ephraim.
SPEAKER_03: The Israelites came down with him from the hill country, and he became their leader.
SPEAKER_03: He told them, Follow me, because the Lord has handed over your enemies, the Moabites, to you.
SPEAKER_03: So they followed him, captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Moab, and did not allow anyone to cross over.
SPEAKER_03: At that day at time they struck down about 10,000 Moabites, all stout and able-bodied men.
SPEAKER_03: Not a one of them escaped.
SPEAKER_03: Moab became subject to Israel that day, and they had peace for eighty years.
SPEAKER_03: The word of the Lord for the people of God.
SPEAKER_03: I told you, right?
SPEAKER_03: What you just got yourself into a slightly parental guided, suggested Netflix show.
SPEAKER_03: This is history, right?
SPEAKER_03: At its finest.
SPEAKER_03: When you're reading through here, here's what I enjoy about all the genres in scripture.
SPEAKER_03: This one especially, it is full of satire, suspense, and humor.
SPEAKER_03: What's setting this up, just in case you're wondering where this gets dropped in the Bible universe?
SPEAKER_03: The prequel to this, right, you remember Moses who led his people out of Egypt?
SPEAKER_03: He was a guy who was restricted by his speech patterns and then also his criminal record, but God decided to use him anyway.
SPEAKER_03: So then he gets him, leads the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, but sometimes that slavery still lives in our heart.
SPEAKER_03: And so they're wandering around the deserts trying to burn out some old bad habits.
SPEAKER_03: Then finally it's time to go into the promised land.
SPEAKER_03: His intern named not Moses, Joshua takes over.
SPEAKER_03: They get in, they conquer the land.
SPEAKER_03: But again, their hearts are still drawn after foreign gods.
SPEAKER_03: And that slavery piece is tough to get out of, the habit of.
SPEAKER_03: And so the question that the entire book of Judges is asking us and asking the Israelites is this will you worship God alone?
SPEAKER_03: Will you surrender and submit the totality of your life underneath the lordship and the care of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_03: And when you don't, will you repent and return?
SPEAKER_03: That's why we see all over butt judges this phrase.
SPEAKER_03: And again, and again, and again, and again.
SPEAKER_03: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_03: I'm tired and embarrassed that I live in again and again and again.
SPEAKER_03: You ever sit down to have some prayer time and repent to the Lord and all you hear is this voice of shame?
SPEAKER_03: Really, Chris?
SPEAKER_03: Again?
SPEAKER_03: We're here again?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: But again, and again, and again, what you learn about God is He is slow to anger and has quick loving and forgiveness waiting for you.
SPEAKER_03: Will you worship God and God alone?
SPEAKER_03: And if you don't, will you repent quickly and return?
SPEAKER_03: Because again, and again, and again, you will find a God who is with you and for you because of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_03: And he will come after you when you're not.
SPEAKER_03: Again and again and again.
SPEAKER_03: That's why we show up here again and again and again.
SPEAKER_03: To remind ourselves who we are, to say we're sorry when we're acting like we're outside of our identity, to get in classes to better understand how we can live out this gospel message, to find out places where we can step in and be a full representation of the gospel when people are in need, a place to raise our children and understand I can't do this by myself.
SPEAKER_03: Again and again and again.
SPEAKER_03: So I dropped you into a slightly inappropriate story, which Neil said beforehand, just be yourself.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, we're gonna talk about inappropriate stories then.
SPEAKER_03: Satire, suspense, and humor.
SPEAKER_03: So did you see some of the suspense and humor moments, right?
SPEAKER_03: The suspense is they're being oppressed.
SPEAKER_03: They need a liberator.
SPEAKER_03: It's been like 18 years, and uh, then there's the humor, right, of how they're drawing the picture.
SPEAKER_03: It's Eglon.
SPEAKER_03: He's kind of like this job of the hut, muy gordito, right?
SPEAKER_03: So we're really getting a great villain picture.
SPEAKER_03: So you have that suspense building up, and then there's the humor about who he is.
SPEAKER_03: Then there's the suspense of they pick uh who's this guy?
SPEAKER_03: Ehud from the tribe of Benjamin?
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
SPEAKER_03: You got the suspense of he's in his shed fashioning out this dagger, putting it around his thigh.
SPEAKER_03: Well, how is he gonna get there?
SPEAKER_03: Oh, he's gotta go pay tribute.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, so he's going to pay his taxes and say, hey, we're so sorry.
SPEAKER_03: Please continue to rule over us.
SPEAKER_03: But somehow he sneaks past the guards.
SPEAKER_03: And then there's this kind of humor, right?
SPEAKER_03: Where he says to the king, I have a secret message for you.
SPEAKER_03: I am not right-handed, right?
SPEAKER_03: I am left-handed.
SPEAKER_03: You killed my father, prepared to die.
SPEAKER_03: And just, oh my gosh, how did he do that?
SPEAKER_03: And then there's a suspense, right?
SPEAKER_03: He he actually gets him alone, and the guy wants to hear a message from God, which again, sometimes I get excited when people say, I think that God has something for you.
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, Great, I'd love to hear it.
SPEAKER_03: Now I'm gonna say, hey, show me your right thigh real quick.
SPEAKER_03: I just need to double check.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, okay, great, we'll take it.
SPEAKER_03: So he steps up, and then there's I understand this is gore and giggles.
SPEAKER_03: There's a little humor here, right?
SPEAKER_03: So he puts it into his belly and it goes all the way in, and you can't see it come out.
SPEAKER_03: Um, and his bowels release, okay?
SPEAKER_03: The King James Version, God bless them.
SPEAKER_03: They're trying to do their British best to put some uh poopery over this passage.
SPEAKER_03: If you'll read it, it says the dirt came out.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so there's a little bit of humor, right?
SPEAKER_03: This is blood and giggles, they're like, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03: But now you got the suspense.
SPEAKER_03: He's killed the king, he's delivered him.
SPEAKER_03: Now there's a large man who he can't move, and the guards are outside the door.
SPEAKER_03: What is he gonna do?
SPEAKER_03: Moves him into the bathroom, locks the door, says, do not disturb, and goes out the balcony and sneaks out.
SPEAKER_03: And then you have the humor of the guards going, uh King Eglon, King Eglon, on the bathroom.
SPEAKER_03: Are you done with the sports section?
SPEAKER_03: Hello.
SPEAKER_03: They have to wait till the point of embarrassment.
SPEAKER_03: And then they kick the door in and they find their king dead.
SPEAKER_03: By this time, Hehood has retreated and he's rallied an army and they route and deliver the Israel to 40 years of peace.
SPEAKER_03: Satire, suspense, and humor.
SPEAKER_03: Not dissimilar to our lives.
SPEAKER_03: So I told you about the suspense and the humor, but I left out the satire until the very last because it's in the text hiding in plain sight.
SPEAKER_03: Let me give you a definition of satire just in case you're wondering what it is.
SPEAKER_03: Satire is the art of making something or someone look ridiculous, raising laughter to embarrass, or to humble or discredit your opponents.
SPEAKER_03: God picked, raised up Ehud, a left-handed man from the tribe of Benjamin.
SPEAKER_03: At first I didn't catch it, but then as I read on, Benjamin, the name of that tribe, literally means son of my right hand.
SPEAKER_03: God raised up a left-handed man from the tribe of right-handed people.
SPEAKER_03: Tell me again your excuse about why God can't use you.
SPEAKER_03: Tell me about why you can't have consequential conversations or spiritual conversations or hear the Holy Spirit speak to you in such a way that you can act right then and there and see God do miraculous things right in front of you in the midst of your mundane and boring life and exercising those details and errands?
SPEAKER_03: God calls as a deliverer a left-handed man from the tribe of right-handed people.
SPEAKER_03: We want to make it even more powerful.
SPEAKER_03: Literally, in the Hebrew, it does not say left-handed.
SPEAKER_03: It says restricted in his right hand.
SPEAKER_03: Maybe a spiritual, just something.
SPEAKER_03: All of us know what it's like to grow up in a tribe that values certain things that you do not possess.
SPEAKER_03: Spiritual, physical, emotional, relational.
SPEAKER_03: What does it feel like when you look around and go, People can do things that I cannot do?
SPEAKER_03: Do I really fit in here?
SPEAKER_03: Hehood.
SPEAKER_03: Restricted in his right hand.
SPEAKER_03: From the tribe of right-handed people.
SPEAKER_03: God calls a left-handed deliverer.
SPEAKER_03: Robert Ferrara, K.
SPEAKER_03: Pond, one of my favorite writers, calls this the left-handed power of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_03: We want to see like dominance and we're on the top and power and control and force submission, right?
SPEAKER_03: We want to win, we want to dominate, we want to know that we're best.
SPEAKER_03: But then sneakily comes in Jesus and the power of the resurrection, not a man that you would behold and think any of, who comes from a weird part of Nazareth, who's teaching in different ways, but that left-handed power, the kingdom of God that sometimes you never see coming, winds up weaving a story of redemption so powerful you can't give yourself credit for it.
SPEAKER_03: What does it look like when we feel restricted in our right hand around a bunch of right-handed people?
SPEAKER_03: A quick question I just I have for you this morning is what if because we all have limitations and liabilities, right?
SPEAKER_03: Lincoln, unbelievably cute, amazing, right?
SPEAKER_03: He he's gonna have such gifts that God's given him that we're gonna have to identify, bring out, nurture, and cultivate.
SPEAKER_03: He's also gonna have limits and liabilities.
SPEAKER_03: Your kids will have brokenness in a broken world.
SPEAKER_03: None of us get through this without some sort of limitation, wound, or scar.
SPEAKER_03: Here's my question.
SPEAKER_03: What if the limitation that you've spent your entire life hiding is the very way that God wants to reveal Himself to you?
SPEAKER_03: What if your restriction met the power of the resurrection?
SPEAKER_03: What if what has been breaking you for 15 years is the very thing God wants to use to break the bondage of slavery for other people?
SPEAKER_03: If you'll just have the courage to stop hiding it, to get rid of the voice of shame, and to surrender and submit it to God and say, all of my life, my gifts, my assets, my abilities, and also my liabilities and my limitations.
SPEAKER_03: I surrender to the king and kingdom.
SPEAKER_03: Do with me what you will.
SPEAKER_03: What would it look like?
SPEAKER_03: I I I know when I start talking this way, I uh I have a lot of some of my leader friends go, Chris, slow down, pump the brakes.
SPEAKER_03: You're always going straight into like the soul-crushing, fearful places.
SPEAKER_03: Can we just talk about football for a little bit?
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, that's fine, sure.
SPEAKER_03: Great.
SPEAKER_03: Can we talk about it now?
SPEAKER_03: I I I know this will take courage and vulnerability.
SPEAKER_03: Um and I know that when we're talking about it, some of you are shaking in your boots right now because you're thinking about that one thing that you go, mm-mm.
SPEAKER_03: No one will ever know that about me.
SPEAKER_03: I'm wondering this morning, would you have, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the ability to embrace that shake to see what he winds up doing?
SPEAKER_03: To help drive the image and metaphor, I think this is really helpful sometimes when the Lord gives us pictures about what he's talking about in the text.
SPEAKER_03: I want to show you a quick video from a TED talk called Embrace the Shake.
SPEAKER_03: If you'll direct your attention to the screen.
SPEAKER_02: So when I was in art school, I developed a shake in my hand, and this was the straightest line I could draw.
SPEAKER_02: Now, in in hindsight, it was actually good for some things like mixing a can of paint or shaking a Polaroid.
SPEAKER_02: But at the time, this was really doomsday.
SPEAKER_02: This was this was the destruction of my dream of becoming an artist.
SPEAKER_02: The shake developed out of really a single-minded pursuit of pointalism, just years of making tiny, tiny dots.
SPEAKER_02: And eventually these dots went from being perfectly round to looking more like tadbols because of the shake.
SPEAKER_02: So to compensate, I'd hold the pen tighter, and this progressively made the shake worse.
SPEAKER_02: So I'd hold the pen tighter still.
SPEAKER_02: And this became a vicious cycle that ended up causing so much pain and joint issues, I had trouble holding anything.
SPEAKER_02: And after spending all my life wanting to do art, I left art school.
SPEAKER_02: And then I left art completely.
SPEAKER_02: But after a few years, I just couldn't stay away from art, and I decided to go to a neurologist about the shake and discovered I had permanent nerve damage.
SPEAKER_02: And he actually took one look at my squiggly line and said, Well, why don't you just embrace the shake?
SPEAKER_02: So I did.
SPEAKER_02: I went home, I grabbed a pencil, and I just started letting my hand shake and shake.
SPEAKER_02: I was making all these scribble pictures.
SPEAKER_02: And even though it wasn't the kind of art that I was ultimately passionate about, it felt great.
SPEAKER_02: And more importantly, once I embraced the shake, I realized I could still make art.
SPEAKER_02: I just had to find a different approach to making the art that I wanted.
SPEAKER_02: I still enjoyed the fragmentation of pointalism, seeing these little tiny dots come together to make this unified whole.
SPEAKER_02: So I began experimenting with other ways to fragment images where the shake wouldn't affect the work, like dipping my feet in paint and walking on a canvas.
SPEAKER_02: Or in a 3D structure consisting of two by fours, creating a 2D image by burning it with a blowtorch.
SPEAKER_02: I discovered that if I worked in a larger scale and with bigger materials, my hand really wouldn't hurt.
SPEAKER_02: And after having gone from a single approach to art, I ended up having an approach to creativity that completely changed my artistic horizons.
SPEAKER_02: This was the first time I'd encountered this idea that embracing limitations could actually drive creativity.
SPEAKER_02: At the time I was finishing up school and I was so excited to get a real job and finally afford new art supplies.
SPEAKER_02: I had this horrible little set of tools, and I felt like I could do so much more with the supplies I thought an artist was supposed to have.
SPEAKER_02: I actually didn't even have a regular pair of scissors.
SPEAKER_02: I was using these metal shears until I stole a pair from the office that I worked at.
SPEAKER_02: So I got out of school, I got a job, I got a paycheck, I got myself to the art store, and I just went nuts buying supplies.
SPEAKER_02: And then when I got home, I sat down and I set myself to test to really try to create something just completely outside of the box.
SPEAKER_02: But I sat there for hours and nothing came to mind.
SPEAKER_02: The same thing the next day and then the next, quickly slipping into a creative slump.
SPEAKER_02: And I was in a dark place for a long time, unable to create.
SPEAKER_02: And it didn't make any sense because I was finally able to support my art, and yet I was creatively blank.
SPEAKER_02: But as I searched around in the darkness, I realized I was actually paralyzed by all of the choices that I never had before.
SPEAKER_02: And it was then that I thought back to my jittery hands, embrace the shake.
SPEAKER_02: And I realized if I ever wanted my creativity back, I had to quit trying so hard to think outside of the box and get back into it.
SPEAKER_02: I wondered, could you become more creative then by looking for limitations?
SPEAKER_02: What if I could only create with a dollar's worth of supplies?
SPEAKER_02: At this point, I was spending a lot of my evenings in well, I guess I still spent a lot of my evenings in Starbucks, but I I know you can ask for an extra cup if you want one.
SPEAKER_02: So I decided to ask for 50.
SPEAKER_02: Surprisingly, they just handed them right over.
SPEAKER_02: And then with some pencils I already had, I made this project for only 80 cents.
SPEAKER_02: It really became a moment of clarification for me that we need to first be limited in order to become limitless.
SPEAKER_02: I took this approach of thinking inside the box to my canvas and wondered what if instead of painting on a canvas, I could only paint on my chest.
SPEAKER_02: So I painted 30 images, one layer at a time, one on top of another, with each picture representing an influence in my life.
SPEAKER_02: Or what if instead of painting with a brush, I could only paint with karate chops?
SPEAKER_02: So I dipped my hands in paint and I just I just attacked the canvas and I actually hit so hard that I bruised a joint in my pinky and it was stuck straight for a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_03: Or what if what if instead of relying on myself, I had to rely on other people to create the content for the Thank you for going me with part of that is I'm a huge Bruce Lee fan, so I just wanted you to see the point where he did hid Bruce Lee.
SPEAKER_03: But I'm gonna try to contain the pastoral and prophetic imagination of what that just translates.
SPEAKER_03: As pastors, that's what we see in our churches.
SPEAKER_03: We see all of our fragmented lives coming together, right?
SPEAKER_03: This is what Scripture said.
SPEAKER_03: You are God's masterpiece, created with works in advance to do in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: And even though you know your life is not this perfect, neat, tiny, refined little point, it's more like this squiggly line.
SPEAKER_03: When we bring all of that together, God's creating a picture that we can't possibly fathom until we step back and take a look.
SPEAKER_03: And that your life and your limits and your liabilities not only belong here, they're essential.
SPEAKER_03: We need you to step in full force.
SPEAKER_03: Because I know what it's like, and so do you, that when we're trying really, really hard to control and manipulate every single outcome and relationship and financial decision in our life, and it's not working, we double down and do what?
SPEAKER_03: We grip tighter.
SPEAKER_03: And we wind up having that nerve damage.
SPEAKER_03: And we begin to shake, and we begin to step back from partnering with God to create the future of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_03: And we basically go, Frank Sinatra, I'll do it my way.
SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, I'm not surrendering or submitting any of that stuff to you.
SPEAKER_03: I'm now in damage protection mode.
SPEAKER_03: What is the most I can do so that the least amount of bad will happen to me?
SPEAKER_03: And that has led to fragmentation and fracture in our souls, and we are distrustful and mistrustful people.
SPEAKER_03: But what if there's a different way that's possible?
SPEAKER_03: What if you just owned it?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: I have been hurt and I have hurt people.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, there are some shameful decisions I have made and some shameful things that have happened to me.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, there are certain situations in life that have me shaking in my boots.
SPEAKER_03: Like the artist said, what would it look like if I actually, with Jesus, embraced that shake?
SPEAKER_03: What if I saw the restriction as an opportunity for God's creative image to be put on display in front of the entire world?
SPEAKER_03: Now that's not the easiest thing to do.
SPEAKER_03: And there's multiple environments where this church tries to create.
SPEAKER_03: Like you have a men's weekend coming up with Sam Storms, right?
SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
SPEAKER_03: Please let me be pumped in, be a video feed.
SPEAKER_03: Love Sam Storms, incredible.
SPEAKER_03: You have women's weekends, you have weekday classes where you're trying to figure out what emotionally healthy spirituality looks like, what does this look like?
SPEAKER_03: It is coming together with other wounded, shaking people and having the vulnerability, the availability, and the responsibility in front of God and each other to embrace that shake so that he can create something you never possibly could have imagined.
SPEAKER_03: Or don't do that.
SPEAKER_03: Don't.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is technically your option, right?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, God can use anybody, right?
SPEAKER_03: That's great, left-handed guy and a right-handed trap.
SPEAKER_03: That's fine.
SPEAKER_03: That's fine for him.
SPEAKER_03: But that's not gonna be me.
SPEAKER_03: What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna continue to control and I'm gonna continue to manipulate, and I'm just gonna let you see so much.
SPEAKER_03: And this is the perfect side.
SPEAKER_03: And quietly in my heart, I'm gonna nurse private addictions, anger, and resentment, let that build up, take it out on the people closest to me, participate in generational brokenness and hopelessness, and try to micromanage my life to my very last breath, realizing that at the end of my days, no one has ever truly known me, and I've never truly known God because I've never offered him my true self.
SPEAKER_03: Or we can embrace the shake and realize we're all squiggly lines trying to come together and see if the God who is the God of art itself can't assemble it.
SPEAKER_03: And we can decide, you know what, I don't know really know how to do this, but I'm done lying, I'm done denying my deformities, I'm done trying to act like I have it all together, I'm done trying to live the American dream that I am limitless and I can do anything I want.
SPEAKER_03: I can't.
SPEAKER_03: I wonder if true creativity can't come in here.
SPEAKER_03: And before we we get to response time, I just want to make sure that I'm uh I'm being crystal clear here, by the way.
SPEAKER_03: I am not saying embrace the sin.
SPEAKER_03: I'm saying embrace the shake.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, if you and I were talking, I'd like to dig down into your sin.
SPEAKER_03: Because chances are the shake that you have is for you getting your needs met sinfully rather than trusting God for that.
SPEAKER_03: Chances are underneath that sin is a longing and a desire that you chose not to trust God with, and you're gonna get it met in your own way.
SPEAKER_03: So I'm not saying, hey, it's okay, just keep on sinning that grace may abound.
SPEAKER_03: Not at all.
SPEAKER_03: What I'm saying is whatever it is that keeps you from boldly approaching the throne of grace as a son and daughter of the high king of heaven through the blood of Jesus, you embrace it, walk through it, and make sure you make a beeline to your daddy in heaven who will wrap you up in his arms and say, I've created you just like you are to put my display on for the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_03: And chances are it's not gonna look like right-handed power, but left-handed creativity.
SPEAKER_03: When you can just start to shake your head and go, What am I doing leading the ministry of the Ukraine?
SPEAKER_03: What are we doing adopting?
SPEAKER_03: What are we doing leading this charge?
SPEAKER_03: I can't believe I'm actually considering going overseas.
SPEAKER_03: I hate plane travel.
SPEAKER_03: I can't believe I'm about to walk into a group of strangers and we're actually going to open up our lives together.
SPEAKER_03: What am I doing here?
SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, the Lord is actually calling me to lead this ministry.
SPEAKER_03: I'm not really sure it should be me.
SPEAKER_03: Every microchurch leader that we have power to disciple and lead in their relational networks, the second they start to do it, the first voice they hear in their head is, you're not qualified, you shouldn't be here, go back to what you were doing.
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I wonder if the voice of shame and condemnation isn't the loudest when you're closest to embing territory and about to make a difference.
SPEAKER_03: What would it look like, church?
SPEAKER_03: If we were not only honest about our restrictions and our limitations and our liabilities, but we actually embraced them and surrendered them underneath the sovereignty of Jesus Christ and said, I surrender that because I bless the wave that dashes me against the rock of the ages.
SPEAKER_03: I look back and I see the woman at the well who has this encounter with Jesus, who has so many restrictions and limitations, right?
SPEAKER_03: She's the wrong gender and the wrong people on the wrong side of the tracks with the wrong reputation at the wrong time of the day, out for an encounter with Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: And all of those excuses are actually reasons he picks to reveal his messianic identity to her, and she becomes the first evangelist in the Gospel of John with this simple evangelism strategy.
SPEAKER_03: Hey, come see the man who told me everything I ever did.
SPEAKER_03: Do you think he's the one?
SPEAKER_03: And you know everything I've ever done that I've been trying to hide.
SPEAKER_03: He told it to me.
SPEAKER_03: And you know what the text says?
SPEAKER_03: Many believed in the town because of the word of the woman.
SPEAKER_03: Ah, let's be a church that embraces the sheikh.
SPEAKER_03: Let's be a church that creatively assembles this robust kingdom vision so that we can taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_03: And just so we're clear, this is not some Norman Vincent Peel positive of power, whatever, positive thinking spin.
SPEAKER_03: This is the gospel, right?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus' restriction led to our rescue and salvation.
SPEAKER_03: Philippians tells us this he did not consider equality with God to be grasped, but he emptied himself and became obedient, even to the point of death on a cross.
SPEAKER_03: And therefore, God so highly exalted him.
SPEAKER_03: That he'll have the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_03: Why don't we, full of our limitations and liabilities, get on our knees, surrender the sheikh, and embrace what the Lord might be calling us to do.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: So we want to preach the Bible clearly and give your soul some space to respond.
SPEAKER_03: Up on the screen, we'll have a couple questions that will kind of drive your worship and your thought process with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Also a good thing to take a picture of and maybe have some conversation as you feel led today at lunch or someone else you're talking to.
SPEAKER_03: Or you may find yourself this week where something similar comes up and the Holy Spirit goes bing bing bing bing.
SPEAKER_03: Hey, why don't you share about what you learned and experienced on Sunday?
SPEAKER_03: So let's listen in together.
SPEAKER_03: So Jesus, make all things new.
SPEAKER_03: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you guys for being here this morning.
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna direct your attention to the screen.
SPEAKER_03: We've got a couple video announcements, and then I'll speak a prayer of blessing and benediction over us.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what's happening at Grand Park Way Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new, text welcome to 281-626-5707.
SPEAKER_00: This way we can know you're here and get you connected with the church.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that we have a church app?
SPEAKER_00: You can use it to get involved, register for events, listen to sermons, podcasts, and more.
SPEAKER_00: Find it wherever apps are available for your devices.
SPEAKER_00: Community groups begin today.
SPEAKER_00: However, it's not too late to join one.
SPEAKER_00: Just choose the one that speaks to you and try it out.
SPEAKER_00: You can find them on our Connect page on Grantparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in learning more about Grant Parkway or ready to make the next step to become a member, register for our next starting point on September 24th.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, Men's Weekend is on October 20th through the 21st.
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Sam Storms will be speaking to us about leadership and the dangers of setting into biocrity.
SPEAKER_00: You will not want to miss this.
SPEAKER_00: For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.
SPEAKER_03: Would you stand up and put your hands out and uh place your hands out in a posture of receiving if you're comfortable with that?
SPEAKER_03: And I'll speak a prayer of blessing and benediction over us.
SPEAKER_03: May God be gracious to you and bless you and cause his face to shine mildly upon you.
SPEAKER_03: What I mean by that is this week, may you see the smile of Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: And may you smell the sense of his kingdom in the midst of the satire, the humor, and the suspense of how he's going to provide.
SPEAKER_03: And may your limitations this week be overshadowed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: And may it lead to your liberation.
SPEAKER_03: And in the words of Cyrin Korkagaard, now by the grace of God, you become yourself.
SPEAKER_03: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Well, pastors down front, if you need anybody to pray for you, go in grace and peace, the love, and serve the Lord.