SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we wait for you.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what we were created to do.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're creator, you're God, and we're not, so we don't get to, everything doesn't run as efficiently and in the manner that we think it should, because we're not in control of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a hard thing for us to understand.
SPEAKER_01: And so instead of trying to manage what's not ours to manage, we want to calibrate our soul with inside of us today.
SPEAKER_01: And so we want you to say something to us from the Bible that sticks in our head and in our heart.
SPEAKER_01: And we think about it when we're stuck in traffic on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01: And when we're talking to our wives later this week, we bring it up and we say, you know, I've been thinking about this because the Bible is that way.
SPEAKER_01: It's provocative and it's evocative.
SPEAKER_01: It summons us to these certainties that we're not normally wired up to come towards.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, we're not defensive.
SPEAKER_01: We put our dukes down today.
SPEAKER_01: We just want to say, Lord, say something that has our name on it.
SPEAKER_01: There's buildings going up that weren't going up last year.
SPEAKER_01: There's babies in the room that were not here last year.
SPEAKER_01: And there's money in the bank that we didn't have last year.
SPEAKER_01: And all of those things come from you.
SPEAKER_01: And they're tangible reminders that you're good and you're generous and you're juicy.
SPEAKER_01: You're not stingy.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, we want to just trust you.
SPEAKER_01: Waiting is an expression of trust.
SPEAKER_01: And so make us think about what our hope is in today, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We ask for this in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seed.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to the 131st Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: The 131st Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new to our church, we on Mother's Day, we recognize that it's Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_01: We had a video of our service.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not going to talk to you about seven ways to be a better mother because frankly, I don't know what it's like to be a mother.
SPEAKER_01: I think my mom, my wife's great at it.
SPEAKER_01: So you celebrate your mom, and we're going to worship Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Is that a deal?
SPEAKER_01: And so anyway, we're in a series called Life Song, and we're looking at different Psalms in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Psalms is the book in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the prayer and the worship book of God's people.
SPEAKER_01: It's very textured.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is a song.
SPEAKER_01: We find a passage in the book of Psalms and say, hey, this kind of says what we want our heart to say.
SPEAKER_01: And so today, uh the life song that we want coming out of us is simply this I am quiet on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: I am quiet on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what you're going to see in the life of this guy, David, in the 131st Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: It's only like three verses.
SPEAKER_01: It's not very long.
SPEAKER_01: So if you've got brunch plans, get hungry now because you're going to be there shortly.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I felt some of you kind of like, mm-mm, that ain't never going to happen, dude.
SPEAKER_01: We know you.
SPEAKER_01: You get carried away.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, uh, when I talk about being quiet on the inside, I had I was at the doctor the other day.
SPEAKER_01: I'd have a new doctor who had to fill out 67 forms.
SPEAKER_01: Um and and and they said something about their about your personality type.
SPEAKER_01: And I wrote battery.
SPEAKER_01: Just to see if they're going to read the thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so I turned it in, and about 10 minutes later, the lady said, Excuse me, sir, uh, battery?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, You've heard type A?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Yeah, I said, I'm double A or AAA.
SPEAKER_01: Which one do you want today?
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Now, I tell you that because here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because when we talk about, hey, I'm my life song is that I'm quiet on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: That is hard for me because I just I I got a lot of opinions and I got a lot of things, and I just spent three days in Brooklyn, and I was just kind of like, you know what, this would run more efficiently if these people would listen to what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm preaching to myself today, and I'm letting you listen, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Uh here's the now I talk about being quiet on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a picture, a true story for the life of two brothers, Charles and John Wesley.
SPEAKER_01: Uh they were very uh religious men, but they weren't Christians until they were on a ship one time and they were caught in a storm, horrible storm.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the thing was listening to the left and right, and they thought the ship was going down.
SPEAKER_01: They are freaking out on the deck of the ship, and they look over, and there's these group of guys called the Moravians.
SPEAKER_01: And these Moravians are praying and singing hymns to God in the middle of the storm.
SPEAKER_01: And it so moved Charles and John Wesley that they became Christians as a result because they realized these men have something in them that we do not have.
SPEAKER_01: We go to church, we believe there's a God, but we think we're dying, and these cats are singing and smiling, and we're peeing our pants over here.
SPEAKER_01: And so being quiet on the inside, especially in our culture, is a very it stands out.
SPEAKER_01: It's a very remarkable thing, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: This is a guy named David.
SPEAKER_01: David's been through a lot, he's done a lot.
SPEAKER_01: This is best we can tell, it's from David's life when he's a little bit older, a little more seasoned.
SPEAKER_01: He writes these words.
SPEAKER_01: He says, 131st Psalm, Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high.
SPEAKER_01: I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
SPEAKER_01: But I've calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
SPEAKER_01: O Israel, hope in the Lord, from this time forth and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Bible is written, it's so poetic and it's so beautiful, it flows really well.
SPEAKER_01: When we read that, it's kind of like, yeah, that's not my experience.
SPEAKER_01: I about beat my kids on the way to church this morning on Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so this is what this would sound like if it was written today.
SPEAKER_01: It would sound like this Lord, it's loud in here.
SPEAKER_01: I constantly hear the voices of all the people who've judged me, done me wrong, didn't come through for me, or simply sinned against me.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm on guard and I'm looking out and down on people when necessary.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'm prideful as much as I'm just protecting myself from being hurt again.
SPEAKER_01: I try not to obsess about things, but if I don't, then how can I ensure that things go the way I want them to?
SPEAKER_01: I'm like a baby who's never satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: I'm always rooting around looking for more.
SPEAKER_01: I manufacture sleep with whatever chemical it takes so I can take a break from the burden of it all.
SPEAKER_01: I put my hope in anything that I think will come through for me.
SPEAKER_01: My kids, my job, my spouse, a sleeping pill or another glass of wine just to take the edge off.
SPEAKER_01: Truth be told, I've been carrying this edge for as long as I can remember.
SPEAKER_01: I honestly don't know what to hope in at this point.
SPEAKER_01: Did I mention that it's loud in here?
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's not afraid of any of that.
SPEAKER_01: But that's the if we if we rewrote the psalm nowadays, that's what it would sound like.
SPEAKER_01: But basically, this psalm asks four questions I want to talk to you about this morning.
SPEAKER_01: The first question it asks is simply this Am I prideful?
SPEAKER_01: Who am I prideful towards?
SPEAKER_01: Or simply put, am I prideful?
SPEAKER_01: As I said, David, uh, best we can tell, this was written later in his life.
SPEAKER_01: He's more seasoned, he's not as haughty, he's more experienced.
SPEAKER_01: He's kind of learned to sit down on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: He understands what he's capable of, and he's actually done some of it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the New Testament equivalent of when he says that uh in verse 1, he says, Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up and my eyes are not raised too high.
SPEAKER_01: That's the two things.
SPEAKER_01: My heart is not lifted up, I'm not prideful, and my eyes are not raised too high.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not haughty, I'm not to a point where I look down on everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Now, a lot of times you have to live some life.
SPEAKER_01: You have to fall on your face and get back up, you have to go through some stuff uh to kind of realize, hey, we were eating at a at a Greek restaurant in Brooklyn this past week, myself and Don and Jason, and we're talking, and our waitress came over, and and and you could just tell from the look on her face.
SPEAKER_01: And and I saw I said to her, I said, You've been through a lot in life.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Yeah, I hadn't everybody.
SPEAKER_01: I said, But yeah, you've been through some hardship early on.
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Yeah, I have.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and one of the guys is like, how do you know that?
SPEAKER_01: You can just tell by the look on her face.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, not haughty, not puffed up, really bright countenance, but you could just kind of tell, hey, I've seen the downside of life.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where David's coming from.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Hey, I don't look down on people, I don't think.
SPEAKER_01: How could he do that?
SPEAKER_01: What was she thinking?
SPEAKER_01: Man, I would never do that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the New Testament equivalent of this kind of posture is in John chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: Don't turn there.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but there's a story.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is talking in the temple, kind of like this.
SPEAKER_01: He's sitting there talking, and the Pharisees are kind of like the religious police of the day.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a neighborhood association, that's what the Pharisees were like.
SPEAKER_01: The people that send you a letter and say, Did you realize your trash can was left out four hours too long?
SPEAKER_01: If it bothers you that much, come put it in my garage.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know who you people think you are, but get a life, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Pharisees were like.
SPEAKER_01: And so they're kind of like, everybody, when Jesus would talk, I mean, the place was full, and people were kind of like, Oh, this is awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And they would look at the Pharisees and say, We like this guy.
SPEAKER_01: We can't stand you guys.
SPEAKER_01: You guys are like a bunch of religious blowhards.
SPEAKER_01: No one wants to hear you anymore.
SPEAKER_01: And so they were like, We got to get Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is talking about love and forgiveness and all this stuff, and they catch a woman in the act of adultery.
SPEAKER_01: They drag her out of bed, throw her scantily clad at the feet of Jesus, and they said, Teacher, and the law of Moses commands us to stone such women.
SPEAKER_01: What do you say?
SPEAKER_01: And they got Jesus on the horns of a dilemma.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, you can't pin Jesus down, he's smarter than you.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus just kind of stoops down and starts writing in the sand, and they're kind of like, Come on, give us an answer.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the thing if he says stone her, all these people were like, You're not a loving God.
SPEAKER_01: You just what you gave those people permission to stone that woman to death.
SPEAKER_01: But if he lets her go, he violates the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_01: And so every people always think they got Jesus backed into a corner.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus isn't like, oh, what are you saying?
SPEAKER_01: He gets up, brushes the dirt off his hands, he says, I tell you what, whoever is without sin, you'll be the first person to cast a stone at her.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says that they dropped their rocks and they walked away.
SPEAKER_01: I said all that to say this.
SPEAKER_01: Hear what the Bible says they dropped their rocks and they walked away.
SPEAKER_01: The older ones first.
SPEAKER_01: Because these men had lived long enough to realize, who am I to condemn this woman?
SPEAKER_01: And they just put their rocks down, like, never mind, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: Because, see, what it was, see, yeah, I remember.
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
SPEAKER_01: David writes from that perspective in the 131st Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Lord, I'm not haughty, my heart's not prideful, my eyes aren't really lifted up.
SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, most of us, if I ask you, hey, are you prideful?
SPEAKER_01: You'd go, No.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Did my husband say something?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: No, we would never say that.
SPEAKER_01: But uh we wouldn't consider ourselves prideful or haughty.
SPEAKER_01: But I think it helps us to have some way of kind of measuring these unwelcome realities in our life because they can kind of seep in if we're not careful.
SPEAKER_01: So here's three ways to know if you struggle with pride or this sense of kind of looking down on people.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the first one you're more aware of what everybody else is doing than we are of who we are becoming.
SPEAKER_01: You're more aware of what everybody else is doing than you are aware of who you are becoming.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, uh, you cannot celebrate your success, so I celebrate other people's failure.
SPEAKER_01: I can't celebrate my success, so I celebrate other people's failure.
SPEAKER_01: I just kind of look around and I just obsess and I kind of keep score.
SPEAKER_01: The third one is this uh I evaluate instead of experience.
SPEAKER_01: I evaluate instead of experience.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, I can't go to anything.
SPEAKER_01: I can't go to church, to a movie, to a play, to a dinner, and just let it happen without just kind of thinking, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Now, my wife last night, we were on a walk last night, and she's like, hey, so what are you preaching on tomorrow?
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, I'm preaching to myself because here's the thing I have a lot of opinions.
SPEAKER_01: Just ask me, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Now, I hear you laughing, you self-righteous weasels.
SPEAKER_01: Um but but here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: I said this to my wife, she said, babe, uh, I mean, you you you have really strong opinions about things, and and and you always think you're right.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Absolutely, I do.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, don't be afraid of the person who speaks up and thinks they're right.
SPEAKER_01: Be afraid of the person who knows they're wrong and speaks up anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Who doesn't think they're right?
SPEAKER_01: That's the sociopath or a politician, either one.
SPEAKER_01: But but but I mean, everyone thinks they're right.
SPEAKER_01: But when he says, hey, I evaluate instead of experience, the big joke in my family is that my wife and kids are always like, put your chalk up.
SPEAKER_01: Because I said one time, if I had a piece of chalk, I could just put an X and tell everybody where to stand.
SPEAKER_01: And the world would be more efficient that way.
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday I'm sitting in traffic and I was so glad my wife and kids weren't with me because there was a car parked in front of me right over here off 99 in Bel Air, and it had a bumper stick on the back window and it said, Got chalk?
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, ooh.
SPEAKER_01: No, but I wish I did.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's my first initial response to think is to evaluate.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of just experience, let it just kind of happen, let it just kind of flow, let it just kind of unfold.
SPEAKER_01: And I have to ask myself, hey, am I evaluating this or am I just experiencing this?
SPEAKER_01: The second question that this psalm asks us is this what is beyond me?
SPEAKER_01: What is beyond me?
SPEAKER_01: After David says, Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high, he says this great statement.
SPEAKER_01: I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
SPEAKER_01: But now, hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: I do not occupy myself with things too great or too marvelous for me.
SPEAKER_01: Since the beginning of time, mankind has wanted to know what only God can know.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Back in the garden when the serpent tested, when the when the devil tempted Adam and Eve, remember what he said?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Hey, God's afraid that you're gonna know what he's gonna do, you're gonna be like him, knowing good and evil.
SPEAKER_01: And they were like, Oh, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: You may have yourself a point there.
SPEAKER_01: We better explore this.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the reality: we're never gonna know what only God can know.
SPEAKER_01: So when it backs up now, by the way, when he says, I don't concern myself with with with uh uh things too great, I don't occupy myself with with things too great or too marvelous for me.
SPEAKER_01: He the Bible's not saying don't have opinions about stuff.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's not saying, hey, don't talk about the fact that that James Comey got fired and and and you you you got opinions about why he got fired.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is there's things that only God can know and there's things that you can know.
SPEAKER_01: And look at me, beloved, and God's in charge of those two areas, not you and I.
SPEAKER_01: You're not the spiritual person just because you're always asking the impossible question.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a couple of things to help you kind of calibrate this reality to around the question of what is beyond me.
SPEAKER_01: I had a professor, I first got really uh I said last week in one of the services, I don't know if it was this one, but in our relationship with God, we moved through three phases in life.
SPEAKER_01: There's there's zeal, there's knowledge, and then there's intimacy.
SPEAKER_01: Uh when I was in college, I was full of zeal.
SPEAKER_01: And I had a professor that just smile, look at us, kind of like boys, boys, boys.
SPEAKER_01: And he used to tell us this, he said, around God, there's this cloud of unknowing.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What?
SPEAKER_01: Shut up, that don't make no sense.
SPEAKER_01: And he would say, There's a cloud of unknowing around God.
SPEAKER_01: The closer you get to God, the bigger questions you're going to have.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, that don't make any sense.
SPEAKER_01: Seems like the closer you get to God, the better Christian you become, the more answers you have, and the more you get it all figured out.
SPEAKER_01: And he looked at us kind of like, You you guys really think that?
SPEAKER_01: You 19, 20, 21-year-old little boys think that is the reality?
SPEAKER_01: That is never gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: So instead, he would just smile at us and say, Hey boys, there's a cloud of unknowing around God.
SPEAKER_01: And we were just kind of like, Yeah, that was my response when he would tell me that.
SPEAKER_01: I would be like, No, don't tell me that.
SPEAKER_01: Because here was here, when I was full of zeal, here's what I would do.
SPEAKER_01: I took it as a challenge.
SPEAKER_01: Type A, personality type, battery.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we'll see about that.
SPEAKER_01: It's on.
SPEAKER_01: Because I I just because the way I grew up, I was self- I had to be self-reliant and I had to work hard.
SPEAKER_01: I said this to my wife this week.
SPEAKER_01: This is not good, but I meant it.
SPEAKER_01: My wife's like, I'm concerned about you.
SPEAKER_01: You got this going on, you got that going on, and you're going to Brooklyn and you get back and you got a full schedule the next week.
SPEAKER_01: You got a lot of this and a lot of that.
SPEAKER_01: And I said to my wife, hey, if you see me in a fight with a bear, pour honey on me and help the bear.
SPEAKER_01: And she just looked at me like, What?
SPEAKER_01: Pour honey on me and help the bear.
SPEAKER_01: I thought that was so funny.
SPEAKER_01: I said it about six more times that day.
SPEAKER_01: That night she came to me and she said, Babe, is there anything I can do while you're gone?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Pour honey on me.
SPEAKER_01: And I started saying, Deaf leopard, pour some sugar on me.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, Mr.
SPEAKER_01: I got I said, No, just here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: When the chips are down, I'm gonna get my work done.
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about me.
SPEAKER_01: I may I may be tired.
SPEAKER_01: So what people are tired.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, but see, why you gotta like e everything's a fight.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a fight, but just if you see me in a fight with a bear, pour honey on me and help the bear.
SPEAKER_01: She's like, uh sometimes just helping you is just this impossible thing.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Maybe I don't need the help.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Oh, you need lots of help.
SPEAKER_01: And then she walked out of the room and the conversation was over.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but see, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: When it comes to asking the question, what is beyond me?
SPEAKER_01: You have to embrace and so some of you have big questions, and you may think, I got big questions about God, so I'm miles from God.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER_01: What if it means you're really actually closer to God than you give yourself credit for?
SPEAKER_01: What if my professor from college is right?
SPEAKER_01: And I think he is.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Men, the closer you get to God, the more you're gonna have these questions, but you have a greater capacity to live with the questions.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a couple things to kind of help you calibrate the realities about the unknowable.
SPEAKER_01: First one is this right here.
SPEAKER_01: Knowledge is one of the things that separates God from his creation.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you can know everything that God would know, that God knows, then God becomes unnecessary for you.
SPEAKER_01: He's a non-essential uh entity.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says it like this.
SPEAKER_01: God says it in Isaiah 55, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways than my ways, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: God says, Hey, I think on a plane that's so far above you, I'm not belittling you, I'm not making fun of you.
SPEAKER_01: What God is really saying is, you can trust me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm working on a level that you can't understand.
SPEAKER_01: You're looking at it from about four feet above it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at looking at it from four million miles above it, and I see a bigger picture than you do.
SPEAKER_01: But the way he says it in the Bible is, hey, my thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you gotta ask yourself: Do you know enough about God to trust his thoughts and his ways?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you have a little bit of self-reliance that you like me, the little orphan in me that kind of says, I'm gonna take care of it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_01: I got it.
SPEAKER_01: Bible also says this in Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 29, it says the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.
SPEAKER_01: Here's this last part that we may do all the words of the of this law.
SPEAKER_01: That we may do all the words of this law.
SPEAKER_01: The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may do all the words of the law.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I say that again?
SPEAKER_01: Because everything we need for life and godliness has already been revealed to us in this book.
SPEAKER_01: God's not holding back on us, He's not holding out.
SPEAKER_01: There's not a secret mystery.
SPEAKER_01: Stop buying the books at the bookstore they sell you.
SPEAKER_01: Three keys to unlocking the victorious life.
SPEAKER_01: That's just people making money off of you.
SPEAKER_01: No, God's not withheld from you.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that we need to be who the Bible calls us to be and who God created us to be has been revealed to us.
SPEAKER_01: God is not stingy, He doesn't hold back and He doesn't hold out.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: You got to get this in your head.
SPEAKER_01: The second kind of calibrating reality lets us kind of live with the, hey, there's things I'm never gonna know in this life or understand, or maybe not even agree with.
SPEAKER_01: But here's something that helps us calibrate that.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, is it not knowing is part of the human experience.
SPEAKER_01: Not knowing is part of the human experience.
SPEAKER_01: First Corinthians chapter 13, starting in verse 9, Paul says this He says, For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
SPEAKER_01: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
SPEAKER_01: When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
SPEAKER_01: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know in part, then shall I know fully, even as I've been fully known.
SPEAKER_01: So now faith, hope, and love abide.
SPEAKER_01: These three, but the greatest of these is love.
SPEAKER_01: Here, Paul makes a great distinction between the now and the then.
SPEAKER_01: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at me, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: You ever have something happen tragic in your life, and you think, how could a good God let that happen?
SPEAKER_01: You ever have something happen and you think, man, if God's really real, it seems like he could do something about that.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the reality.
SPEAKER_01: Here we look through a mirror dimly.
SPEAKER_01: You're never gonna see it fully as clearly as possible.
SPEAKER_01: You're never gonna understand it.
SPEAKER_01: We had a dear friend of mine, man, our church passed away this past Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01: Got up, didn't feel good on Wednesday morning, he died later that night.
SPEAKER_01: I sat in the hospital with his family.
SPEAKER_01: They left, and I said, Say, would it be meanful if I stayed with his body while waiting for the funeral home?
SPEAKER_01: They said, That'd be great.
SPEAKER_01: I sat in there, almost a little before four in the morning, the funeral home guy shows up.
SPEAKER_01: Nurse kept coming in.
SPEAKER_01: She's like, Excuse me, are you okay?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yep.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, sir, this is a this could take a while.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, because I saw a lonesome dove, I said, Well, he didn't ask me to take him back to Texas and bury him, so I'll be okay.
SPEAKER_01: Only one guy that works the late shift at the hospital got that.
SPEAKER_01: And one lady came in and said, Now, who are you in relation to him?
SPEAKER_01: Are you as I said, I'm his pastor.
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's this is what it means to pastor people.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean you get up and pontificate on Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_01: It means you're here in the warp and woof of life.
SPEAKER_01: Ziggy's my friend.
SPEAKER_01: I ain't leaving until they come to get him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, by the way, that's not him, that's just the tent he lived in.
SPEAKER_01: As soon as he died, that sucker went to heaven, so I'm a little jealous of him.
SPEAKER_01: And this lady looked at me like, okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: That's enough.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: You just stayed there on the couch, my man, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I don't see the Bible says that, hey, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then, hey, but then face to face, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: That means that some things you're not gonna understand this side of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't mean that God's not good or God's holding back or God's holding out.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully.
SPEAKER_01: Can you be okay just knowing what you can know, just in part?
SPEAKER_01: Because the part that we can know is enough to blow your mind and fulfill your lifetime.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a real practical question for you.
SPEAKER_01: Would you rather be known as a smart person or a loving person?
SPEAKER_01: Because he says, hey, so now faith, hope, and love abide, these three.
SPEAKER_01: But the greatest of these is love.
SPEAKER_01: Now, by the way, for you engineer types in the room, I'm not saying don't be smart.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that at all.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying don't pride yourself in your intellect and don't relate to God out of your intellect.
SPEAKER_01: Relate to God out of a place of intimacy, proximity.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to be close to you.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a third calibrating reality that helps us kind of understand the unknowable.
SPEAKER_01: It's this not knowing makes faith necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Not knowing is what makes faith necessary.
SPEAKER_01: You say, how do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
SPEAKER_01: You're smart people.
SPEAKER_01: If you knew, why would you have to have faith?
SPEAKER_01: If you could know everything, then it's just math.
SPEAKER_01: It's not music.
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't need faith.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says this about faith, defines faith in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: It says, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you came to my house right now, you could follow me home after church, wouldn't bother me at all.
SPEAKER_01: My wife would be mortified, okay?
SPEAKER_01: She would run in before you and pick everything up, and I'd come in and go, Welcome to the shingle la.
SPEAKER_01: If you follow me into my bedroom, into our master bathroom, we have a little door, a little room where the little uh the little throne is, uh, and on the wall above the throne, it's Hebrews 11:1.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: As your pastor, as a man that's been a Christian since 1982, sometimes I'm kind of like, could we just see a little bit more?
SPEAKER_01: Could pull the curtain back just a little bit so I could see a little bit more?
SPEAKER_01: And I have to remind myself, every day when I go in that room, I look and I see that and I think it is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
SPEAKER_01: That's why my that's my faith.
SPEAKER_01: Because if I could see it and I could know it, I become faithless in a heartbeat.
SPEAKER_01: And I take matters into my own hands.
SPEAKER_01: I'm pouring honey on me and getting somebody else to help the bear.
SPEAKER_01: And the reality is that not knowing makes faith necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Third question that this short little psalm asks is this How is my soul?
SPEAKER_01: How is my soul?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: He said, But I've calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.
SPEAKER_01: Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
SPEAKER_01: How is my soul?
SPEAKER_01: Now, he says, like a weaned child with its mother.
SPEAKER_01: A weaned child is a child that's with its mother because it doesn't need anything.
SPEAKER_01: It just wants to be with her.
SPEAKER_01: I saw it in my house on Sunday night.
SPEAKER_01: Our daughter got home from college.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because she was supposed to get home, supposed to check out on Saturday and get up and come home Sunday, and then it was like, Oh, I'm gonna be late, I'm gonna be late, I'm gonna be late.
SPEAKER_01: So she got home.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, what's his name?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Dad, he helped me pack.
SPEAKER_01: What's his name?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, uh, uh, uh.
SPEAKER_01: And then she went in.
SPEAKER_01: My wife just got home from Florida, a week of taking care of her parents.
SPEAKER_01: She's exhausted, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Our kid gets home about 9, 15, 9:30.
SPEAKER_01: About 10 o'clock, my wife's like, all right, y'all gotta go.
SPEAKER_01: I'm tired, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: My 13-year-old leaves, I leave, and then I'm like, hey, we're we're missing a kid.
SPEAKER_01: 15 minutes later, go in there, and our daughter, 19-year-old daughter, 5'9, 5'10, is stretched out.
SPEAKER_01: My wife's under the covers.
SPEAKER_01: She's laid on top of my wife, with like this, with her chin on her hands, right here on my wife's head, right here.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I cracked the door, and I was trying to get my wife's attention because my wife and master's and my wife's just petting her hair like a kitty.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, what's wrong with you two?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm trying to get my wife's attention, like, you want me to get it out of here?
SPEAKER_01: And my wife never looks up, and she's just and I'm thinking, man, ain't you hot under them covers, that person on top of you?
SPEAKER_01: Remember when mom, when your kid was about 10 months old, they were old enough to walk but didn't want to?
SPEAKER_01: And they would lay on you in the summer, and you're kind of like, I might as well just duct tape a potbelly stove to me right here.
SPEAKER_01: But you didn't move them off of you.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you're a mom.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't mind the sweat, you're just kind of like, uh.
SPEAKER_01: I went back, I was so bothered.
SPEAKER_01: I went back about 20 minutes later and I was kind of like, open the door.
SPEAKER_01: Neither one of them looked up again.
SPEAKER_01: Madison was still, my wife was still just like, mmm.
SPEAKER_01: And it dawned on me.
SPEAKER_01: This is the 131st Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: This is the weaned child on her mother.
SPEAKER_01: She just wants to be with her.
SPEAKER_01: Now, earlier in the night, they all three piled in there on me.
SPEAKER_01: I was trying to watch basketball.
SPEAKER_01: They all three walked in my room.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, whoa, where's my put my hand on my bill phone?
SPEAKER_01: What do y'all want?
SPEAKER_01: They piled up on the bed.
SPEAKER_01: We just want to be with you, Dad.
SPEAKER_01: After about three minutes, that's enough of that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm all filled up with being with dad.
SPEAKER_01: Our daughter laid on my wife for over an hour and talked nonstop.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because she doesn't need her mom in ways she used to need her.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a kid and you got a mom, sometimes you just need to be with your mom and not need anything.
SPEAKER_01: Just be with her.
SPEAKER_01: Just connect with her on a level that words can't carry the weight of what's actually happening.
SPEAKER_01: So when I ask, how is your soul?
SPEAKER_01: I'm asking that because it's here.
SPEAKER_01: David says, hey, I I've calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.
SPEAKER_01: Like that's what my soul is like within me.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I say how, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Your soul is this calibrating reality of your life, which is why in 3 John chapter 2, 3 John, it's a book of the Bible, but it's only one chapter long.
SPEAKER_01: So if you ever want to impress your friends, just read 3 John.
SPEAKER_01: What did you do there?
SPEAKER_01: I read an entire book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but chapter 2, John says this to his friend, he's writing to it.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Hey, I pray that you get along and prosper even as your soul prospers.
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like an arm loan, it's like an adjustable rate mortgage.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that you get along and prosper even as your soul prospers.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you prosper beyond your soul, you'll become prideful and haughty and look down on people.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll hope in your stuff and your money more than you hope in God.
SPEAKER_01: And so he says, Hey, I pray that you get along and prosper even as your soul prospers.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I say soul, I know we don't talk a lot about soul, and it's kind of like if I have lunch with you at some point over the conversation, or the second or third time we have lunch, I'm gonna look you in the eye and say, How is your soul?
SPEAKER_01: And here's why.
SPEAKER_01: You just think of it like three circles.
SPEAKER_01: Right over here, you have the physical, we do life in the physical.
SPEAKER_01: We eat, we sleep, we drink, we go to work, we drive, we pay bills.
SPEAKER_01: That's all physical.
SPEAKER_01: But doing life in the realm of the physical, it creates the emotional.
SPEAKER_01: That's the second circle.
SPEAKER_01: And so you got all these emotions, all these feelings.
SPEAKER_01: People come to me for counseling because of what they're feeling, not because of what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01: They come to me, they say, I'm depressed, uh, my marriage is in a bad place, my kids are on my last nerve, something's going on, I'm concerned, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: Rarely do people come in this third circle is your soul.
SPEAKER_01: It's the spiritual.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I say your soul is a calibrated reality of your life, I mean that.
SPEAKER_01: Which what that means is you've got to stop thinking of your soul in terms of relief and start thinking about it in terms of priority.
SPEAKER_01: Because what we do is we do life in the physical and then we try to manage the emotions that just kind of stirs up over here.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I feel this because of that.
SPEAKER_01: But rarely do we say, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: You know when we think about the spiritual?
SPEAKER_01: When things go bad, when something tragic happens.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody thinks about the spiritual.
SPEAKER_01: Remember 9-11?
SPEAKER_01: Remember when that happened?
SPEAKER_01: Churches were packed for two Sundays.
SPEAKER_01: And then we jump right back in the physical.
SPEAKER_01: All right, we're safe.
SPEAKER_01: In George Bush we trust.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible says, hey, this ought to be the priority right here.
SPEAKER_01: This this ought to be, you ought to ask yourself, hey, how's my soul?
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh John Ortberg wrote a book a couple years ago called Soul Keeping.
SPEAKER_01: And in the book, he says, your soul needs nine things.
SPEAKER_01: Let me list them off for you.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, each one of these is a chapter in the book, so I'm not going to go into detail.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to point to these nine things that your soul needs.
SPEAKER_01: He says, number one, you need a keeper.
SPEAKER_01: You need a keeper, you need a center.
SPEAKER_01: A center.
SPEAKER_01: You need a future.
SPEAKER_01: You know what that means?
SPEAKER_01: That means if all you think about is this life and getting ahead in this life.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Paul said it in 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_01: If only in this life we have hope in Christ, we're to be pitied above all men.
SPEAKER_01: Your soul needs a future.
SPEAKER_01: Your soul is gonna live beyond this world.
SPEAKER_01: So you should be thinking beyond this world.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I mean when I say your soul needs a future.
SPEAKER_01: Your soul needs to be with God.
SPEAKER_01: Your soul needs to rest.
SPEAKER_01: My wife asked me, she goes, What are you getting plans for Sunday?
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of forgot it was Mother's Day because she ain't my mom.
SPEAKER_01: My mom's Judy.
SPEAKER_01: Judy's a long way from here.
SPEAKER_01: I got two kids.
SPEAKER_01: It's your responsibility to wind down your mother.
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, I was supposed to be involved in that.
SPEAKER_01: The way it got driven home to me was she said, You got plans for Sunday?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, I want to lay on my bed and watch the Spurs beat the Golden State Warriors at 2:30.
SPEAKER_01: And my wife, you know how she, they don't say anything, guys.
SPEAKER_01: They kind of look at you like, oh.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Why?
SPEAKER_01: Am I forgetting something?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it is Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, y'all feel free to do whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Madison can drive.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you forgot that.
SPEAKER_01: She got her own car.
SPEAKER_01: I'm paying for that.
SPEAKER_01: So apparently I'm gonna tape the game so no one no one texts me the score, and I'll watch it later tonight because it's Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_01: You're not my mom, but I guess I'm involved now, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So, uh, because my soul needs rest.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, another thing your soul needs, your soul needs freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Your soul needs freedom.
SPEAKER_01: You you you just your soul needs to kind of experience what you were created for.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says it like this in the book of Galatians.
SPEAKER_01: It was for freedom that Christ set us free.
SPEAKER_01: You need freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Your soul needs blessing, it needs satisfaction, and it needs gratitude, it needs blessing.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you need to experience something that is not your doing, that humbles you and overwhelms you.
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my gosh, are you serious?
SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's that's phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01: It needs satisfaction.
SPEAKER_01: If your soul doesn't find satisfaction, it's David in the 63rd Psalm, David said, Oh Lord, uh, earnestly I seek you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
SPEAKER_01: God, I'm looking for you because you're the thing that satisfies me.
SPEAKER_01: If not, if you don't, if you don't experience satisfaction in your soul, you're McJagger, you can't get no satisfaction.
SPEAKER_01: So you just settle for whatever comes along, whatever, back to this area here, the emotions, whatever feels good.
SPEAKER_01: Or is that great theologian Sheryl Crow used to sing about if it makes you happy?
SPEAKER_01: Last thing your soul needs is gratitude.
SPEAKER_01: It's gratitude, a sense of, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: There's something bigger and better in me at work here, and I get to be the benefactor of it.
SPEAKER_01: Your soul needs that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why do I list all those things?
SPEAKER_01: Because I want you to look at those nine things, and here's the application part of the sermon.
SPEAKER_01: What's the one thing up there that your soul needs most right now?
SPEAKER_01: The last question this psalm asks us, and we'll be done this morning, is simply this What is my hope in?
SPEAKER_01: David says this in verse 3, O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Israel, hope in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me from this time forth.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why does the Bible say that?
SPEAKER_01: Look at me, and I'll tell you why.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible understands that we get our hope in other things.
SPEAKER_01: We get it in the physical and we get it in the emotional, we get it in work.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.
SPEAKER_01: I get that.
SPEAKER_01: I got bills, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But you're not created to live as a slave to the physical.
SPEAKER_01: You just weren't.
SPEAKER_01: Not the way God set it up.
SPEAKER_01: He says, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: The reason he says from this time forth is look at me, it's never too late to reorient your hope.
SPEAKER_01: It's never too late to kind of, you know what, we're driving hard and pushing for this and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: But I kind of, I haven't forgotten, but if you watch me from a distance, you would think I've forgotten that my hope comes from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I I'm all in.
SPEAKER_01: I believe this wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're not careful, you'll get stuck in this realm and you'll just overheat and boil dry.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you'll be flurry and worry, and at the end of the night, you'll need a little one more pour just to kind of take the edge off.
SPEAKER_01: Or as a friend of mine says, I like Jack and Coke, but now it's a lot more jack and not so much coke.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta get that, you gotta get that proportioned out accordingly, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense to anybody but me?
SPEAKER_01: Say amen.
SPEAKER_01: I knew you were a bunch of lushes.
SPEAKER_01: What's my hope in?
SPEAKER_01: Here's a question that helped you understand what's your hope in, and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_01: What is it that if I lost it, I would feel threatened?
SPEAKER_01: Is it your job?
SPEAKER_01: Jobs are good.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing wrong with having a job.
SPEAKER_01: Don't put your hope in it.
SPEAKER_01: Is it your money?
SPEAKER_01: Money's good.
SPEAKER_01: Preachers all the time make it sound like money's bad.
SPEAKER_01: Money's not bad.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, doesn't it say the love of money is the root of all evil.
SPEAKER_01: Money's indifferent.
SPEAKER_01: It's not good or bad.
SPEAKER_01: It's how you relate to it and respond to it.
SPEAKER_01: But what is it if I lost it, I would feel threatened?
SPEAKER_01: Because if you would feel threatened by losing that, your hope's in the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_01: Don't put your hope in that.
SPEAKER_01: Be aware of it, be in relation to it, but don't hope in it.
SPEAKER_01: See, David says, Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is, base your hope on certainty.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 62, the psalmist says of God that he's my rock in my salvation.
SPEAKER_01: He cannot be changed, he will not be moved.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in the New Testament of God that he's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_01: What is in your life right now that is that consistently sure?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible says, put your hope in this.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: If you're our guest today, just relax.
SPEAKER_01: We like to teach the Bible and then give you some soul space to think about it because we think it's your responsibility to cultivate your soul.
SPEAKER_01: And so every time you are part of our church service, we want you to think about your soul.
SPEAKER_01: We realize that you we live in the physical and we feel in the emotional, but the calibrating reality of your life is your soul, that spiritual dimension of who you are.
SPEAKER_01: You're made in God's image.
SPEAKER_01: And as a result of that, you have the capacity to think spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: So just take the next 30 seconds and just think spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Think about your soul and what it needs.
SPEAKER_01: That baby reminds me that sometimes that's what my prayers sound like to you.
SPEAKER_01: And yet you understand because you're a father.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that the Holy Spirit intervenes, intercedes for us, prays for us with groanings and utterings that are too deep for words.
SPEAKER_01: So as that baby cries out for something.
SPEAKER_01: Let its mom not be embarrassed.
SPEAKER_01: We've all been there before.
SPEAKER_01: Let it remind us that that's our soul's posture towards God.
SPEAKER_01: Our soul is crying out.
SPEAKER_01: Because our soul needs freedom, our soul needs to be with God, our soul needs rest, and our soul needs a keeper and a center and a future.
SPEAKER_01: Let's don't dull our spiritual senses with all the things of this world.
SPEAKER_01: Let's enjoy this world.
SPEAKER_01: Let's not lose sight of what is to come.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, let our soul be within us like a weaned child with its mother.
SPEAKER_01: That's our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Make it our experience, we ask in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you're our guest, let me say thanks for being part of our service.
SPEAKER_01: You're always welcome here.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you do not have to have it all together because none of us do.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: When you came in, you were given a worship folder, has information about our church.
SPEAKER_01: Take that with you.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions, uh feel free to ask myself and some of our staff will be available down front.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, when on the far right side of that thing is a little tear off portion.
SPEAKER_01: Ask for your personal information.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to show up at your house.
SPEAKER_01: We just want you to know that you matter to God, so you matter to us.
SPEAKER_01: So if you've had a chance to fill it out, tear it off.
SPEAKER_01: Drop that in one of these little wooden boxes by the doors.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's also where we receive our offering.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're uh today's the day you worship through giving, that's where you do that as well, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_01: Let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now into the love of God, the sufficiency of Jesus, and the fellowship, the intimate fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless your dismiss.