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 me uh tell you what we just sang about.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to understand what the Bible means, what the great hymns of the faith mean when they talk about redeeming love.
SPEAKER_01: There's a difference in redeeming love and just natural love.
SPEAKER_01: Natural love stays where it is and tells you how it feels about you.
SPEAKER_01: I love you, I want you, I desire you, you're my soulmate, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: It just stays where it is and kind of tells you, it's how I feel.
SPEAKER_01: Redeeming love comes to where you are, accepts you as you are, and makes an exchange.
SPEAKER_01: It gives something to own you, possess you, and take you to be with it.
SPEAKER_01: Big difference in the two.
SPEAKER_01: Big difference.
SPEAKER_01: Loving someone is just, hey, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: You stay where you are, and you tell them how you feel.
SPEAKER_01: Redeeming love comes to where you are.
SPEAKER_01: So what that means is that wherever you are today in this room, spiritually, you may be an atheist, an agnostic, a jaded cynic, a fed up person who's down on religion.
SPEAKER_01: Good news today, the Bible's not about religion, it's about a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Redeeming love comes to where you are.
SPEAKER_01: So wherever you are, the God of the Bible, the only God who is, is willing to come to you and give himself for you.
SPEAKER_01: So you could be, your life could be connected to who he is and how he is in this world.
SPEAKER_01: That's the difference in redeeming love and just what we talk about is love.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray and think about this some more.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: God, thanks for the truth of your word.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks that you come to us.
SPEAKER_01: You left the sanctity and the security of heaven to come to earth because you have redeeming love for your people.
SPEAKER_01: And you've come to redeem and to restore, to seek that which was lost, to give back what we forfeit through disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: Even though we knew better, God, we did it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says you've loved us with an everlasting love, with a love that redeems, that does for us what we could never do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: So open up our the ears of our heart and the eyes of our soul to hear and see this today.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, say something today that has our name on it.
SPEAKER_01: Say something today that is so consequential in the life of a seven-year-old girl in this room right now that when she's 77, she still giggles about it.
SPEAKER_01: Only the Bible has that capacity.
SPEAKER_01: So we give ourselves to that now, and we do it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a Bible, you take it and open up to 2 Samuel chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Samuel chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a Bible, it's one of row, I'm on page 259.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you about the beauty of God's heart.
SPEAKER_01: The beauty of God's heart from 2 Samuel chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: And while you're finding 2 Samuel, it's kind of towards the front of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh and while you're finding that, I was going to say there's kind of a progression.
SPEAKER_01: This is where we'll end up, but let me just tell you where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: There's kind of a progression in the way you think about your heart.
SPEAKER_01: When I talk about the beauty of God's heart, uh, you start off with what I call your old heart, your natural heart, and the Bible does not place a lot of value on that.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, the Bible says that by nature our heart is pretty corrupt, it's pretty deceitful.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, it says it's deceitful above everything else and beyond cure.
SPEAKER_01: There's no fix for the problem of our depraved heart.
SPEAKER_01: That the Bible uses such strong language because it wants us to understand the magnitude of God's mercy.
SPEAKER_01: So the human heart is by nature sinful, alienated, and hostile towards God, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so that's where we all start off with that heart.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible also says when you become a Christian, God gives you a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: He attacks the problem at its core, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so there's old heart, there's new heart for the Christian, and then there's God's heart.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to talk to you today.
SPEAKER_01: I want to stay right here, talk to you today about the beauty of God's heart in such a way that it makes you want to leave your old heart, which means if you're in this room today and you've never begun a relationship with Christ, my goal in speaking to you this morning is I want you to consider a relationship with this God because you see the beauty of his heart through the lens of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because your old heart's never gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01: Your heart can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: And so when your friends say to you, well-intentioned things like follow your heart, that's not good advice.
SPEAKER_01: It's not, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you what I mean from the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Samuel chapter 7, start reading verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: And then King David went in and he sat before the Lord and he said, Who am I, O Lord, and what is my house that you've brought me thus far?
SPEAKER_01: And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: You've spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: And what more can David say to you?
SPEAKER_01: For you know your servant, O Lord God, because of your promise, and according to your heart, your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness to make your servant know it.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, you are great, O Lord God, for there's none like you, and there's no God besides you, according to all we have heard with our ears.
SPEAKER_01: We'll just stop right there.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what do I mean when I talk about the beauty of God's heart?
SPEAKER_01: When you see the beauty of God's heart, you begin to understand and see how God relates to humanity.
SPEAKER_01: And there's four things I want to point to, just kind of see from from the perspective of God's heart.
SPEAKER_01: This is how God relates to humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, with initiation in mind.
SPEAKER_01: With any initiation in mind.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the first word of verse 18 where he first started reading.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Then King David went in and sat before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Then the word then implies that some stuff happened back here.
SPEAKER_01: And so whatever David does is a response to what God has already done.
SPEAKER_01: There's two words I want you to understand today.
SPEAKER_01: More importantly, I think there's two words that the Bible wants us to understand.
SPEAKER_01: And the words are initiation and response.
SPEAKER_01: Initiation and response.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we live in a culture that kind of says we initiate.
SPEAKER_01: We do, we're the master of our own destiny, we're in charge of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so we come up with ideas and we initiate and God responds.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the problem with that.
SPEAKER_01: If you live in this rhythmic pattern of you initiate, you you come up with stuff, you do it, and then God responds, what happens is that for you, God becomes therapeutic, God becomes relief and forgiveness, but God's never the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're initiating, you're you're deciding what you want to do because typically you're following your heart, and that requires what happens, we make sinful decisions.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible uses that kind of language.
SPEAKER_01: It's sin, it's not just, hey, what's my best idea?
SPEAKER_01: It's sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so for you, if you're not careful, you teach yourself that all God gives is forgiveness and a second chance, but he's never the capacity to not sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so you got to be careful.
SPEAKER_01: So initiation and response, that's what we do.
SPEAKER_01: We think we initiate, God responds, and so God exists to fix our life.
SPEAKER_01: That's not biblical.
SPEAKER_01: The biblical order is this God initiates and we respond.
SPEAKER_01: God initiates and we respond.
SPEAKER_01: And so the pressure's off your entire life.
SPEAKER_01: You could never outgrow.
SPEAKER_01: This rhythm of creation is so big, you can live to be 140.
SPEAKER_01: None of you will, but you would never outgrow that.
SPEAKER_01: God initiates and you respond.
SPEAKER_01: You have to understand the order.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you'll be confused as to who gets the glory for your life.
SPEAKER_01: Which is one of the reasons we like to initiate because we like to point at and to kind of say, now I'm not saying don't have initiative.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying don't start a business, don't start a relationship, all that.
SPEAKER_01: But you should do that out of response to how you feel God is leading in your life.
SPEAKER_01: David says this word, then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, Who am I, Lord God?
SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you were so overwhelmed by the goodness of God, you just went in and sat down and just kind of said to the Lord, This is more than I can take.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've got to, I've got to, this is so overwhelming.
SPEAKER_01: I've got to not do anything for the next few minutes just to kind of get my head around it.
SPEAKER_01: I've got to do some Lamas breathing.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is beyond anything I could ask or imagine.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's happening right here in this prayer of gratitude that kind of flows out of the heart of David.
SPEAKER_01: And he just begins it all with a little word, then.
SPEAKER_01: Then.
SPEAKER_01: And because what's happened is that God just told him, by the way, you're gonna have a descendant, one of your descendants on the throne forever.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not gonna take away my steadfast love from your son Jonathan.
SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna build for me a house.
SPEAKER_01: Your son is gonna build me a habitation for my dwelling, and it's gonna be incredible.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not gonna take away my steadfast love from him like I did Saul.
SPEAKER_01: And David is overwhelmed by this.
SPEAKER_01: And he just kind of goes in before God and he's just like, oh my goodness, this is more than I can take.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the Bible's very clear that you're not here to initiate, but you're here to respond, which means you need to have a clear sense of who God is, what he's done, and what he's capable of doing.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, what happens you go through life just trying to be noticed instead of trying to be faithful?
SPEAKER_01: You say, where do you get that?
SPEAKER_01: This rhythm of Genesis 1, verse 1, very beginning.
SPEAKER_01: Hear these words in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.
SPEAKER_01: And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, And God said, God initiated, He's the first movement, He's the first mover.
SPEAKER_01: God said, and beloved, everything that comes after that is just response.
SPEAKER_01: It's just because God initiates with things in mind, with stuff in mind.
SPEAKER_01: Boys and girls there in the room with us today for family worship.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_01: But in your eight-year-old mind, you're old enough to understand this.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: God has greatness in his heart with your name on it.
SPEAKER_01: He has good stuff in your heart, in his heart for you and towards you.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you get in bed tonight, you need to say to your mom and dad, you know what, I don't want to miss out on anything that God has in his heart for me.
SPEAKER_01: So pray, mommy, that I just experience all the greatness that's in God's heart for me.
SPEAKER_01: And prepare for mommy to go to the ugly cry.
SPEAKER_01: Because we don't think in those terms.
SPEAKER_01: We just think of initiation and then God responds and we kind of screw it up.
SPEAKER_01: God says, I'm the first mover shaker.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the one that sets this all in motion, and your life just gets to be a life of response.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
SPEAKER_01: Because there's no doubt as to who gets the glory.
SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt from anybody involved.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, how does God relate to humanity because of the beauty of his heart with house in mind?
SPEAKER_01: With house in mind.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that's not a wise cracking ER doctor that used to be on TV.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you in your mind went there.
SPEAKER_01: With house in mind.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: He says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says that then David, King David, went in and sat before the Lord and he said, Who am I, O Lord, and what is my house?
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
SPEAKER_01: What is my house?
SPEAKER_01: Not his domicile, not his 3,200 square feet, four-bedroom, three and a half bath.
SPEAKER_01: Not talking about that.
SPEAKER_01: What is my house?
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about his legacy and his lineage, those who come after him.
SPEAKER_01: And look what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: What is my house that you brought me thus far?
SPEAKER_01: And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, oh Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: You've spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come.
SPEAKER_01: And this is instruction for mankind, oh Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, David is saying, this doesn't just apply to me.
SPEAKER_01: You need to think, you need to learn to think about God in terms of your house because God's thinking about you in terms of your house.
SPEAKER_01: One of the ways that you express spiritual maturity is you begin to think about God in the ways that God thinks about you.
SPEAKER_01: And he relates to you with house in mind.
SPEAKER_01: Again, when the Bible talks about house, it's not your physical dwelling, it's your legacy.
SPEAKER_01: It's your kids, it's your grandkids, it's your great-grandkids for generations to come.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're not careful, you'll get stuck in thinking about God in such small ways, not only about yourself, and you'll convey to God, hey, really, the things I'm really passionate about, they just have to do with me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of all about me.
SPEAKER_01: And God, I want you to be all about me.
SPEAKER_01: And God will say to you, that's too small.
SPEAKER_01: That's too small.
SPEAKER_01: I I think He got the binoculars turned around.
SPEAKER_01: You're looking to the wrong end.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I say he thinks about you with house in mind, you ever been around someone, and the biggest thing they can talk about is their last vacation or their next vacation or what they ate last or the latest gadget they bought or what they got on good on Black Friday or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Now, to be clear, none of that in itself is bad.
SPEAKER_01: But hear me clearly, if that's all there is, that's not bad, it's tragic.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is a person that did not learn to think about themselves in the ways that God thinks about them, that God thinks about you with house in mind, and you should as well.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
SPEAKER_01: What that means, men, is that you should not do the way you break some of the bad habits you have is that you think I do not want my children and my grandchildren to struggle with this.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, I'm gonna kill it now in my generation.
SPEAKER_01: Ladies, you say, I don't want my daughters to have this kind of plaguing insecurity about themselves and their body.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want them, regardless of how good they look, they still feel like they don't measure up.
SPEAKER_01: You deal with that now so that the generations that come after you don't have to struggle with it.
SPEAKER_01: When I say that God thinks about you with house in mind, here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: This is Exodus 34, verse 6 and 7.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord, now God has given the Ten Commandments to Moses to give you the context, and God self-disclosures.
SPEAKER_01: God says, This is who I am, and this is what I'm like.
SPEAKER_01: He says, The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.
SPEAKER_01: Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
SPEAKER_01: See, God relates to you with your house and mind.
SPEAKER_01: And David says right here, this is doesn't just apply to me.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't some one-off random Bible sentence buried in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: He says, This is instruction for mankind.
SPEAKER_01: One of the ways I was talking to a friend of mine a while back, and he said, When did you really get consistent in your Christian life?
SPEAKER_01: Which I thought was a great question.
SPEAKER_01: I said, when I begin to think about my house, not just myself.
SPEAKER_01: There are things that my wife and I have the responsibility of setting our daughters on this Godward trajectory by the way we live, by the things we do, by the things we don't do, by the things they see us enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: Now ask yourself, if God would have said to you what he said to Moses, hey, not just the great part, hey, I'm I'm a God of steadfast love and faithfulness, I keep steadfast love for thousands, forgiven iniquity and transgression and sin, but who by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine hearing something like that today?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, in our culture in 2018, with all the political correctness around us, would you not sue God for mental duress?
SPEAKER_01: Would you not be like, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: I can't take the pressure.
SPEAKER_01: Would you be overwhelmed?
SPEAKER_01: Would you be mad?
SPEAKER_01: Would you be concerned?
SPEAKER_01: Would you feel this pressure?
SPEAKER_01: You know what Moses did?
SPEAKER_01: The next verse, verse 8 says this.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
SPEAKER_01: Moses was so moved by this, beloved, that he goes on to say the next few verses, hey God, if you'll take us for your inheritance and have us as your people and go with us, that would be the biggest desire of our heart.
SPEAKER_01: We want to be in relationship with a God that is balanced like this, with a God that thinks about me in bigger terms than I think about you.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's not a condemnation of the smallness of how you think.
SPEAKER_01: It's an invitation to think bigger.
SPEAKER_01: It's an invitation as a 16-year-old girl to say, I don't want to think like every other 16-year-old girl in my school.
SPEAKER_01: I want to think about my house.
SPEAKER_01: I want to think about my children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren and my great-great-great-grandchildren and great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren who will barely remember your name.
SPEAKER_01: Yep, somebody will say, Well, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: It was your great-great-great-great great great-great-grandma that really kind of was a chain breaker and a difference maker in our family.
SPEAKER_01: She was the woman that God used to change the destiny of our family.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine that conversation around Thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_01: Six generations from now?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, hey man, they're with me this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Don't talk about that.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I mean when I say this is how God talks about you with house in mind.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, he relates to humanity with knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: With knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: He says, and what more can David say to you?
SPEAKER_01: For you know your servant, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: Just hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: And what more can your servant say to you?
SPEAKER_01: For hear this.
SPEAKER_01: For you know your servant, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: David is so bothered by this, he talks about himself in third person.
SPEAKER_01: What more can David say to you?
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like it's called disassociation in counseling.
SPEAKER_01: He just kind of did, he puts this off, he stands outside of it and says, What more can David say to you?
SPEAKER_01: What more can David say to you, Lord?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, for you know your servant.
SPEAKER_01: Now that cuts both ways.
SPEAKER_01: God knows him, and David knows that God knows him.
SPEAKER_01: It's one thing for you to say, Oh, yeah, I think God knows everything.
SPEAKER_01: It's another thing for you to say, I know that God knows everything.
SPEAKER_01: You know the difference in that?
SPEAKER_01: You stop trying to convince everybody you're something you're not.
SPEAKER_01: And David is like Ricky Henderson.
SPEAKER_01: He talks about himself in the third person.
SPEAKER_01: Today, Ricky is the greatest.
SPEAKER_01: What more can your servant David say?
SPEAKER_01: And God's like, hey, you ain't gotta go third person on me.
SPEAKER_01: You and I both know.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that a big deal?
SPEAKER_01: In case you don't know, David was a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: Only people in the Old Testament, in the whole Bible, it's said that is set of.
SPEAKER_01: He also committed adultery, hooked up with a woman and got her pregnant to cover himself.
SPEAKER_01: He had her husband killed in war to look noble.
SPEAKER_01: And God just kind of sent a prophet named Nathan to confront him and say, Hey, uh-uh.
SPEAKER_01: You can con everybody else, but you can't con me, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so this prophet confronts David.
SPEAKER_01: David falls to the ground and repents.
SPEAKER_01: We say about it a few minutes ago, a few minutes ago.
SPEAKER_01: There's a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.
SPEAKER_01: That means that what David experienced in the Old Testament, you can experience today, is that regardless of what you've ever done, God has the capacity and the willingness to forgive you.
SPEAKER_01: So you don't have to hide today.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to sleek out of here kind of going, man, that kind of got personal in a real hurry.
SPEAKER_01: No, because he relates to you with knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing would bring more authenticity to your life than this simple verse.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of overselling it, trying to make himself look like something he wasn't, David was just, hey, what more can I say?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know me, which means you know everything I've ever done.
SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself this question.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, am I just content to say, oh, God knows?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you realize what you mean when you say, hey, God knows me?
SPEAKER_01: This is the kind of knowledge that David talked about.
SPEAKER_01: He writes this, same David, 139th Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: He writes these words, Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me.
SPEAKER_01: You know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar, you search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
SPEAKER_01: Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all together.
SPEAKER_01: You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
SPEAKER_01: Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
SPEAKER_01: It is high.
SPEAKER_01: I cannot attain it.
SPEAKER_01: Translation, God, I can't get my head around how intimately that you know me.
SPEAKER_01: The fourth way that God relates to humanity is simply this, with greatness in mind.
SPEAKER_01: With greatness in mind.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want you to listen carefully, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not one of those prosperity preachers you see on TV that's kind of like, oh, God wants everyone to be rich.
SPEAKER_01: It's nowhere in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So when I say with greatness in mind, where do I get that?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Because of your promise and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness to make your servant know it.
SPEAKER_01: Because of your kindness, excuse me, because of your promise and according to your own heart, God, you have brought about all this greatness to make your servant know it.
SPEAKER_01: Remember where we started this morning by saying that God initiates and we respond.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: Look at these two things that David says.
SPEAKER_01: This is what caused this to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Because of your promise, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because of your promise.
SPEAKER_01: And then secondly, because according to your own heart.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, it's what I started off saying earlier.
SPEAKER_01: There's three ways that people relate to God.
SPEAKER_01: You relate out of your old, I call your old heart, your natural heart, which is true.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible talks about it in Jeremiah chapter 17.
SPEAKER_01: It says this it says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.
SPEAKER_01: Who can understand it?
SPEAKER_01: I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, when I say your old heart, I mean just the natural heart you were born with.
SPEAKER_01: Your natural disposition towards God is that you have this inability to do what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Recently, I'm meeting with somebody in counseling, and the man said to me, I could never live like the Bible talks about.
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't say, Oh, yes, you can.
SPEAKER_01: You just gotta try harder.
SPEAKER_01: I looked at him and said, You're exactly right.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot.
SPEAKER_01: You do not capacity, you do not possess the capacity to fulfill the demands of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It is impossible to the natural man.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, What do you mean, natural?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you are as you were the day you were born.
SPEAKER_01: You were born in sin and you have chosen to sin.
SPEAKER_01: So you're a sinner by nature and by choice.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, That doesn't sound very encouraging.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, It is actually, it sounds bad, but it's very encouraging.
SPEAKER_01: If you can get to the point where you admit the truth about yourself, and then the fact that Jesus came to save makes a huge difference in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Well, I'm not there yet.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, I'm not, I'm not trying to pressure you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying I'm agreeing with you.
SPEAKER_01: You are incapable because of your heart, your old natural heart.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the first.
SPEAKER_01: People, everybody is born with that, that, that, that heart that is sinful and incapable of doing what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like great ideas.
SPEAKER_01: It motivates you for a few days, and eventually, you go back to who you've always been.
SPEAKER_01: There's old heart.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the progression.
SPEAKER_01: Old heart.
SPEAKER_01: Second step, new heart.
SPEAKER_01: New heart.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 25.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your unclean uncleannesses and from all your idols.
SPEAKER_01: I will cleanse you.
SPEAKER_01: And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.
SPEAKER_01: I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_01: I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, look at me.
SPEAKER_01: God would never ask you to do what you do not have the capacity to do.
SPEAKER_01: That's why He changes your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Recently I'm having a conversation with some friends, and one of them said, Well, you know, our heart's just wicked, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Mine's not.
SPEAKER_01: Now, on the surface, that sounds arrogant.
SPEAKER_01: If you were there, you'd have been like, What?
SPEAKER_01: Why do you say those crazy things?
SPEAKER_01: I want to say about myself what the Bible says about me.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible says when I became a Christian in July of 1982, that God took out my old heart, he gave me a new heart, he put his spirit in me, and he moves me to follow his decrees.
SPEAKER_01: And so not only do I have the capacity, but I have the willingness.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: Not only do I have the capacity, oh, I could if I chose to, but I have the willingness.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because my heart is disposed to do the things that God wants me to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like, now there's times it's difficult.
SPEAKER_01: There's sometimes when it's just kind of like, uh sometimes I'm talking to my wife and I'm just thinking, just do what I'm asking you to do.
SPEAKER_01: And she asks me, I don't like when I ask somebody to do something and they ask me questions about what I'm asking them to do.
SPEAKER_01: I know that doesn't bother you, but in my mind I just think, you could have already done it.
SPEAKER_01: You could have already done it.
SPEAKER_01: But I don't say that.
SPEAKER_01: I just kind of look at her and she goes, Are you getting frustrated?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not getting frustrated.
SPEAKER_01: I can feel frustration kind of coming, but it's not here yet.
SPEAKER_01: Keep asking me questions.
SPEAKER_01: Because in my mind, I'm just, she said, Well, I want you to come to me and ask me, but I just want clarification.
SPEAKER_01: And in my mind, I'm like, and I say every once in a while, I could have already done it and been done by now.
SPEAKER_01: But we wouldn't understand each other better.
SPEAKER_01: I can live with that.
SPEAKER_01: But I don't say that either.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: Because my heart has a willingness that I by nature don't possess.
SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself today, do you have that willingness?
SPEAKER_01: Because God doesn't just say, hey, do your best.
SPEAKER_01: Good luck.
SPEAKER_01: He takes out your heart of stone.
SPEAKER_01: He gives you a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_01: So there's your old heart.
SPEAKER_01: When you become a Christian, there's a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where I'm talking to you from today.
SPEAKER_01: There's God's heart.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean, God's heart?
SPEAKER_01: Look at what David says.
SPEAKER_01: If you know your servant, I stayed up and watched the AM game.
SPEAKER_01: Can you believe that?
SPEAKER_01: My 84-year-old father-in-law stayed up.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what?
SPEAKER_01: This thing went into seven hours.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, gee, whiz.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: Because of your promise and according to your own heart.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that?
SPEAKER_01: According to your own heart, you've brought about all this greatness to make your servant know it.
SPEAKER_01: I love, when I say God's heart, I mean the experience of the greatness that can only be found in God's heart.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what David says here.
SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
SPEAKER_01: God has to make him know it.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't just tell him, hey, this is available and it exists, but he says, hey, this is this is so beyond my capacity.
SPEAKER_01: God had to make me know this.
SPEAKER_01: Now, notice how verse 22 starts, and we'll be done this morning.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, you are great, O Lord God, for there's none like you, there's no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we started off in verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: David said, Then.
SPEAKER_01: Remember?
SPEAKER_01: Something happened before then.
SPEAKER_01: And then David goes in.
SPEAKER_01: God initiates, David responds.
SPEAKER_01: Now, verse 22, he says, Therefore, therefore, because this just happened, I'm going to speak this way about God.
SPEAKER_01: What am I saying?
SPEAKER_01: I just want to close.
SPEAKER_01: Once you see again, it's God initiating and David responding.
SPEAKER_01: I want to close this morning with two questions for you just to, for your consideration, just to kind of think about.
SPEAKER_01: And the first one is simply this What if this is the way God designed life to be?
SPEAKER_01: What if this is really the way God designed life to be?
SPEAKER_01: This being kind of this rhythm of creation.
SPEAKER_01: God initiates and you respond.
SPEAKER_01: What if that's really the way God designed life to be?
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to come out with it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying you can't have initiative, can't have a work ethic and a drive in life.
SPEAKER_01: You should have all that.
SPEAKER_01: But all you should also live as if this all comes from God.
SPEAKER_01: God initiates, I respond.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the second question I want us to think about.
SPEAKER_01: Can you be trusted with the greatness of God's heart?
SPEAKER_01: Because here, unless you start thinking about things like this, here's what's going to happen one day.
SPEAKER_01: As good as your life is, as much stuff as you possess, or as little as you possess, or whatever, as good as it, I mean, it could possibly be, you'll have this nagging sense that there's something missing.
SPEAKER_01: There's something missing.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_01: I remember a while back I saw Tom Brady interviewed.
SPEAKER_01: Tom Brady is the quarterback for the New England Patriots.
SPEAKER_01: He's married to a supermodel.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, did he make a deal with the devil or what?
SPEAKER_01: He's got beautiful kids.
SPEAKER_01: He's got all the money he needs in life.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna play football until he's 50.
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, he's got some kind of diet that's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: And in the interview, the guy interviewed him, he said, You've won, I think, four Super Bowls, and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, So, what's life all about for Tom Brady?
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, basically, what is the purpose of your life?
SPEAKER_01: And Tom Brady said, I don't know what it is, but I hope this isn't it.
SPEAKER_01: Four Super Bowls.
SPEAKER_01: Supermodel wife.
SPEAKER_01: Have you seen her, men?
SPEAKER_01: Now they're all like, no.
SPEAKER_01: He has a wife?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: That's a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: She's had a bunch of kids, and she still looks like a supermodel.
SPEAKER_01: And you're like, shut up.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: And that man said into the camera, I don't know what the purpose of my life is or why I'm here, but I hope this isn't it.
SPEAKER_01: Translation, please tell me there's something more.
SPEAKER_01: Please tell me there's something more.
SPEAKER_01: Please don't tell me this is it.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm here to tell you on this Sunday after Thanksgiving, where you think naturally, everyone thinks about what am I grateful for?
SPEAKER_01: What am I thankful for?
SPEAKER_01: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: Be thankful for this.
SPEAKER_01: That there's greatness in God's heart with your name on it.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what David says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Because of your promise and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness to make your servant know it.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just asking you to think about what is the perspective from which you relate to God.
SPEAKER_01: Do you relate out of this old heart?
SPEAKER_01: God, I'm trying.
SPEAKER_01: Here's 20 bucks.
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying.
SPEAKER_01: You get a new heart, which is great.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Christianity is.
SPEAKER_01: It's a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: I have a capacity I didn't have before.
SPEAKER_01: I have a capacity to do what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's God's heart.
SPEAKER_01: Because of your promise and according to your own heart.
SPEAKER_01: Would you just be willing to do life from the perspective of God's heart?
SPEAKER_01: Just God, I believe that you have things in store for me that are beyond anything I could come up with on my own.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be a man that can be trusted with that.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a woman that can be trusted with that.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a nine-year-old.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to think about God in terms of my house, not just me and my third-grade buddies.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm thinking way down the road, God.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be a chainbreaker and a person that kind of alters the moral arc of my generation and my family.
SPEAKER_01: God has that much greatness in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a guest, we like to teach the Bible and just give you some space to think about it.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we do right now is that we just kind of do nothing to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Clyde or worship pastor will come and he'll just kind of play, may sing something over you.
SPEAKER_01: But just ask yourself those two questions we put up on the screen earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Just very simply.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what if this is the way God designed life to be?
SPEAKER_01: And can you be trusted with the greatness that's in God's heart?
SPEAKER_01: Let's think about this for just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we're grateful today that you love us with a redeeming love.
SPEAKER_01: You love us in a way that we're incapable of understanding, apart from just experiencing it, of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, let us taste and let us see so that we can respond accordingly.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, the Bible tells us that you think about us in ways that we don't think about you.
SPEAKER_01: And it tells us that not to shame us, but to invite us to kind of raise the way we think about you.
SPEAKER_01: We think about our lives in terms of something bigger and beyond just us, but our house.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, I pray for men and women, students and children that have the capacity to think about their house today and to say, God, I'm I'm not just living for myself, I'm living for generations who'll come after me.
SPEAKER_01: And God, make of us a people of legacy and lineage.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we believe that there's greatness in your heart with our name on it.
SPEAKER_01: And we trust your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And we just say, Lord, uh, whatever you say will do.
SPEAKER_01: This is our commitment to you, God.
SPEAKER_01: We offer this in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for your presence here today.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a guest, hopefully you've had an opportunity to reach up and pull a guest card out of the pocket card holder on your row.
SPEAKER_01: Uh fill that out.
SPEAKER_01: And on your way out here in just a minute, if you just drop all these wooden boxes by the doors, uh, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_01: We'd we'd love to have a record uh that you are with us today.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to just show up uninvited into your life.
SPEAKER_01: You'll get a phone call probably from our connections, Pastor Travis.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we just think that you matter to God, and because that you matter to us, we believe that finding the right church for you and your family is an important and necessary decision.
SPEAKER_01: And look at me, before you pinch the baby and get out of here.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: If you're looking, if you're visiting today and you're looking for a church, I don't want to just be the guy that stands up here and talks to you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be the guy that knows you, your name.
SPEAKER_01: I want to know your kids' name.
SPEAKER_01: If your kids see me at the store, I want them to go, oh, look, there's Pastor Neil.
SPEAKER_01: Uh my friend uh Lydia this morning brought me a Tootsie Roll in an envelope.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, I wanted you to have some of my candy.
SPEAKER_01: I come in your office every Sunday and get your candy.
SPEAKER_01: Here's some of my candy.
SPEAKER_01: I could have balled.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, thank you for the Tooty Roll.
SPEAKER_01: Lydia knows my name.
SPEAKER_01: And I know Lydia's name.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so that's the kind of relationship we want to have with you.
SPEAKER_01: We want you, we don't want you just to come into a building and then leave anonymously.
SPEAKER_01: We want to get to know you at a pace you're comfortable with, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So just relax.
SPEAKER_01: You be yourself, we'll be ourselves, okay?
SPEAKER_01: For the rest of us that call this your church home, uh, these wooden boxes by the doors are the way, if you worship God through obedience or generosity, that's where you would do that as well today.
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me if you have any questions about anything you heard, or if this is your first, second, or third time to visit our church, we'd like to meet you and put a name with a face.
SPEAKER_01: So myself and some of our pastors will be available down front.
SPEAKER_01: Just come up and introduce yourself, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: Your God is faithful.
SPEAKER_01: He makes and keeps his promises.
SPEAKER_01: And his heart is good.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now and entrust yourself both to the promises and to the heart of God.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.