Let's see. So we are going to do something a little shorter this morning than normal. I know it may sound impossible, but it's possible. I have less words on my page than I normally do Almost half as much. Thank you, sweetheart.
Speaker 1:November I attended a retreat along with some of you, and that retreat was the goal of it was to kind of gain a healthy knowledge of self in light of who God is and what he's done for us in Christ. And so in the next 10 to 15 minutes it's the goal. I want to give us just a tiny taste of kind of what was experienced a little bit on that retreat, but through a specific lens. What I want to do is kind of wet our appetite this morning, and so this is kind of like you know, showing up to a, a course dinner. My friend John Anderson I used to work with at Dork Creek. He's responsible for the most favorite dinner I've ever had in my life. It was at Lombardinos on the west side. I don't know if you've been. It's great. We showed up at like 630 and we didn't leave until like 1030. And it was just like spending time. Food would come, we're talking, enjoying time with friends, and then you would all of a sudden just kind of realized that more food had come and you were somehow hungry again, and that happened like five times. And so it was this idea of we had little little bites here and there kind of wet our appetite for what was to come. And so this morning I want to wet our appetite for what's going to come next week, where next week I'm going to unpack more fully our vision, a bit of which I shared at the family meeting a couple of weeks ago at my house, and what it's going to look like for the next three years.
Speaker 1:Here at East Side Church. We want to focus on kind of what we want to set us up for, and so this morning I just want to kind of introduce a little bit of that and kind of unpack some of what is this healthy knowledge of who we are in light of who God is, in light of what he's done for us in Christ. So before we get there, let's pray. Father. God, we just thank you again for this time and just with my brothers and sisters just so grateful for Lapham, grateful for Linda and for Dustin and the whole staff here Got to pray that you would just be blessing them and the works of their hands as they work with these kids and parents and just seek to make a difference in this city when it comes to education. Father, we want to be alongside of them, so I pray that you would give us wisdom and just how we can do that in this coming new year. Father, thank you for all you've provided for us. Again in Christ, help us to see him now. Spirit In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we're going to do some little interactive here.
Speaker 1:I have two questions and I want you to kind of like say your answers out loud, okay? The first question is this what does God want from us? Praise good Worship, yes. What are some other things? Obedience, relationship, love Us. I like that.
Speaker 1:We might say like a submission of our self-will. What was it, buddy, to believe? Faith, yes, absolutely Trust Things like loyalty, devotion, following after him, doing his will, serving, giving him our anxious thoughts, abiding in him, casting our burdens on him. Here's your second question. What does God want for us? Freedom, purpose, love Say that again, yeah. Rejuvenation, peace, things like adoption, holiness, eternal life, hope, communion with him kind of encapsulating this idea of relationship or rejuvenation, to be with him, to rest with him an abundant life, a fullness of joy In our humanity.
Speaker 1:I think we often grapple with the tension that can come between our actions for God and our relationship with God. We find ourselves striving to meet a checklist of religious duties, sometimes losing sight of the relationship that is meant to be at the heart of our faith. I know I'm there often, and this morning, in these next minutes together, I want to realign our focus. I want to move us from this life of just kind of thinking about how are we acting for God to a life that's deeply rooted in a dynamic relationship with Christ. And so, as we get into this, I want to raise just four kind of ways of looking at this Self-awareness, self-acceptance, relational connection with God and transformation in Christ. It's four things. We're going to move quickly through them and we're just wetting our appetites this morning, and I know that some of these things can seem like they're a little squishy. I want you to remember we're looking at this through the lens of what God wants from us and what God wants for us. That's going to guide us today.
Speaker 1:Through self-awareness, we begin to grasp the depth of what God wants for us, his desires for our joy, peace, abundant life. And this understanding then leads us into a self-acceptance where we learn to embrace ourselves as we are cherished, valued by God, which in turn shapes our response to what he desires from us. So let's look at self-awareness first. I invite you to open your hearts, open your minds, to what God may reveal to you this morning. My hope is that this brief exploration deepens your relationship with Him, and this is what we kind of tip over to this new year.
Speaker 1:When it comes to self-awareness, digging into our identity in God, we come on a journey of discovery, a journey that begins with a recognition of what God strongly desires for us. See, god wants us to experience an abundant life, rich in joy, peace, deeply rooted in a union with Him that cannot be severed. It's not just a theological concept, family, it's a tangible reality. Jesus promises this in John 10.10, and I hope that when we say abundant life, we can't help but hear Jesus' words when he says I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. And this fullness of life is a comprehensive package of all of God's blessings. They all find their yes, their amen, in Christ. This includes joy, peace and that intimate relationship with Christ.
Speaker 1:As we embrace this understanding, our perspective undergoes this shift. The purpose of understanding what God has for us is that we begin to perceive our actions, those things that God desires from us, such as obedience, worship and service, not as burdens, not as tasks on a to-do list, but as natural, heartfelt expressions of our relationship with Him. These things become less about fulfilling obligations, less about making sure God's okay with us, and more about responding in love to the one who first loved us. Think back to Psalm 139. It's just profound statement of God's intimate knowledge and care for us.
Speaker 1:King David, the Psalmist here, is marveling at how thoroughly he's known by God, and I know we've spent some time, even over this fall, using this as a call to worship, praying our way through it, even at one point in time. Pull that out again as we come back to the New Year. But do you remember what David says? He says this to God you have searched me, lord, you know me. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and the bit that goes in between that, I think, is the most significant. You have seen my thoughts from afar Before a word is on my tongue. You, lord, know it completely. Let's just think back till we woke up from this morning and the words that have been on our tongues. God knows them completely. And yet, and he searches us completely, and yet the psalmist says we are fearfully, we are wonderfully made.
Speaker 1:This isn't just poetic language, it's declaration of value, of purpose in God's eyes. I mean, we're not accidents, we're masterpieces of divine craftsmanship, each with a unique role in this story that our God is telling. And this kind of self-awareness, this recognition of being fearfully and wonderfully made, is crucial Because it helps us to understand our identity is not defined by what we do, but by who we are. You've heard me say who's. We are right, that's what defines our identity and this lays the foundation for our aligning our lives with God's desires for us and from us.
Speaker 1:See, sometimes we can start out on the from us side and we get stuck there, doing to do, after, to do, after, to do, after to do, and we miss the for us. And sometimes then we can go to the other side. We just want to receive, we want to just all these things that God has for us, and we miss the delight in living for him. When we comprehend the depth of his love, his care, our actions will naturally align with his will. That's the work of the spirit in us. Obedience becomes joy, becomes worship, becomes a response out of a grateful heart. Service becomes an expression of love. Therefore, as we reflect on our identity in God, we need to embrace this dual understanding that what God desires for us is the framework from which we joyfully fulfill what he desires from us and, doing so, we step into a life of true abundance, peace and joy, a life in perfect harmony with our creator's design and purpose for us to live lives of worship.
Speaker 1:Let's talk number two self acceptance. Self acceptance in Christ is another profound journey that begins with a deep understanding and acceptance of what God wants for us. Their origin point is the same. See, god desires to envelop us in His love, providing us with spiritual rest and nurturing us with His unending grace. You remember this recent Advent series? We're talking about the darkness of this world. All fall, we've been in Ecclesiastes, havel, all of the things that just seem like they're vaporous smoke, and yet they call us to put our hope and our attention and our value into them. But God says no. God desires to envelop us in His love, provide us with this spiritual rest, his unending grace. And this self-acceptance is about realizing that we are already known and deeply loved by God, exactly as we are right now.
Speaker 1:Pastor friend of mine once asked me. He said Ben, do you realize that God is just as pleased now as he is with the future version of you, as he is with the previous version of you, because our works do not weigh in the balance at all of God's acceptance of us? We can't misunderstand these. Things he wants for us are designed to be the environment in which we live for Him, the things he wants from us. There is a relationship God has said it beautifully on Christmas Eve just a week ago With Lordship comes obeying some rules. You can't say, yes, I believe in God but live for clearly other things. That doesn't work that way. But as we realize that we are accepted by God and loved by Him beyond our wildest earthly imaginations family, this has a transformative effect on our lives, how we view ourselves, how we view one another. It means that our journey towards what God wants from us, submitting our self-will, giving over our anxious thoughts to Him, demonstrating our loyalty to His Lordship doesn't become a hardship, doesn't become this striving or self-imposed pressure. Instead, it becomes this natural response of profound love, acceptance, because we've already received it all from Him. Second Corinthians, 12, 9,.
Speaker 1:Apostle Paul is giving us an insight. He asks God to remove this specific hardship, right this thorn in His side, this struggle from Him. And God's response to Him three times is my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. See our weaknesses, our limitations, aren't just obstacles to be overcome by our self-will. They're the very context in which God's grace is most vividly displayed. Do you see Our weaknesses, our limitations, are not merely obstacles to be overcome. They are the context in which God's grace is most vividly displayed. And this perspective should give us a view of our limitations not as failures, not as inadequacies, but as opportunities for God's strength and grace to be manifested in our lives. How often do we self-protect, how often do we try to shield ourselves, put out a view of ourselves to other people that we think they want to see or that we think they will be more pleased with Understanding the self-acceptance that is possible for us because we have God's perspective on us and not our own, because we have God's perspective on us and not someone else's words, his love, his rest, his nurturing, becomes this understanding that gently guides us towards all that he desires us to live like, and in doing so we find ourselves living in this sweet spot of God's grace. Our limitations are transformed into testimonies of his strengths. What would the community around us be like if that were true, if our limitations brought about testimonies of God's grace and strength in our lives? Family, our culture doesn't know what to do with that. They don't understand it, and I know many of you have interacted with people, shared such testimonies and gotten just disbelief back. Like why are you even telling me that I don't know what to do with that level of self-acceptance? It's only possible because of Christ.
Speaker 1:Third, our relational connection with God. I'm trying to go so fast. The relational connection that we have with God stands as the cornerstone of our spiritual journey. We've unpacked this already, but I want us to just take a little bit of a deeper look at this. See, this connection that we have with God is rooted in what God passionately wants for us. See, the experience that God wants us to have in relationship with Him isn't purely the things that we do for Him. Predominantly, it's the things that he has done for us. That's what he wants our experience of relationship with him to be these gifts from God, these profound expressions of his love, his desire for this deep and ongoing and deepening relationship. I just want you to take stock of your relationship with God for a moment.
Speaker 1:Where, where's it at? You know our culture in the West. We love graphs and charts. You know, I think, a lot of us. We come into the faith, whether we're practically born into it, grow up in the church. There's growth at times, but over time, I think predominantly what happens is it starts to kind of level a little bit. This happens in our human relationships too. God wants a deepening relationship with us over time and always and as we abide with him. That's how this happens.
Speaker 1:But our culture, our culture, is not about abiding. No, abiding is slow, Abiding is anti-progress, abiding kind of looks like dependence. Right? What's the American dream? I just walked back to the future recently. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, right? What does Jesus say to that? This is where it gets hard. What does Jesus say? John 15-5. He says I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I and you, you will bear much fruit. It's this last part. Apart from me, you can do nothing. But I don't want us to mistake that for some kind of passive, just kind of like okay, jesus, take the wheel, you got to do it. Family, this is not a passive state, it's active, it's living, it's breathing, it's relationship where we draw strength, we draw strength, we draw strength, we draw strength, we draw strength, we draw strength, we draw relationship where we draw strength and nourishment and direction from Him.
Speaker 1:Jesus is so specific in the illustrations he uses. Have you noticed this? He's the one who created everything Hebrews tells us. Hold it together by the word of His power. Like he invented sheep. That's really cool. He invented vines. He designed how they would function, and so when he uses this, I imagine part of Him is just kind of like he's been waiting For a long time. He's like I know what. I'm going to use this. This is going to be a perfect illustration, because what happens when you take that branch off the vine? It dies. Right, I mean, we know this, but let's wake our hearts up to it again.
Speaker 1:Apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do nothing. This relationship with God also involves living in the reality of our limitations, and they come in the form of anxiety in our lives, right when we feel we run into something that we cannot accomplish or we have a hand in a set of circumstances that we can do nothing about, and the anxiety starts to rise. Peter writes good encouragement in 1 Peter 570, says cast all your anxiety on Christ because he cares for you. And this act of casting our burdens is a powerful expression of reliance on God, saying we can't, but you can. We're abiding in you, Jesus. He is both willing and able to carry them for us. Moreover, our devotion to God is an outgrowth of our realization of what he wants for us. You see, there's this reciprocal relationship. This devotion goes beyond real dualistic practices. It's a devotion of heart, of mind, of soul. I want you to think about the most significant relationships that you have earthly relationships. It's not always like this, but oftentimes, I think there's a certain sense of which we're willing. We're willing to show up, we're willing to do whatever it is the other person needs from us. We have a love for them, we have a desire for them because of our time spent together, because of the love we have. It's one of the profound impacts that COVID had on us. We're still recovering from the separation, the four months just in our houses. Some of us spent time with more people than others in that setting. I was around a lot of people during that time. We have a lot of kids in our house, but when we're away from people, what was one of the things that we continued to say to you all through the pandemic? Have mercy on one another, think highly of one another, because we don't automatically think highly of one another when there is space and separation. And so as we spend time with God, the things that he wants for us or filled with love for him, and that relational connection is strengthened, becomes more than this religious requirement of the things he wants for us. So our self-awareness and our self-acceptance is designed to produce this relational connection with God, and the byproduct of that is a transformation into true self. Camille, we were created for the presence of God. We were created to be in his presence, getting everything that we need from him, in communion with him and in relationship with one another. And as we are transformed in Christ, there's a recovery of real humanity. That's going on. It's a profound process and it calls for a complete reorientation of our lives, and so one of the things that we have been talking about is what it looks like to be a people who want to live like Jesus, speak of Jesus, because we love Jesus, and we want to do this because we want everyone in Madison and Dane County and beyond to have a daily encounter with Jesus in word and deed. Right, there's a reason that we exist as a church, but what we've realized and this is really what we're going to unpack next Sunday what we've realized is that these goals are that these desires to love, live like, speak of Jesus, that everyone have an encounter with him daily, word and deed, so being served, being spoken to of the gospel, they have to come from somewhere deeper, they have to come from somewhere further upstream. Otherwise, what ends up happening? We end up manifesting all the things and what God wants from us to accomplish our mission, to realize our vision, and we don't experience any of the things that he wants for us. And so we want to reorganize our life around three goals. We want to reprioritize our life around three goals being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus and doing what Jesus did, and actually it's doing what Jesus would do. Right, bring back the bracelets I may. We may see about that. Being with Jesus is about cultivating an intimate personal relationship with Christ. It's about spending time in his presence through prayer, meditation, reading his word. Being with Jesus is the foundation of our transformation. It's in his presence that we find peace, guidance, we receive the assurance of his love for us and ultimately we become like him. For those of you in long-term, committed relationships, you're more like your spouse now than you were when you first got married. Right? Brothers and sisters share characteristics, for better or for worse, with one another, partly because of genetics, but also we know firsthand, it's not always genetics Right. They take on the characteristics of the people that they're around most of the time. To be with Christ leads to becoming like Him. Do you see, experiencing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and beginning to express them as second nature, adopting His attitudes, his love for others, his humility this is what holiness is. This becomes a set apart, a different way of living. Doing what Jesus did is about putting our faith into action. But we're not first century Jewish carpenters, right? So it's, what would Jesus do if he went to work for you this week? What would Jesus do if he came home at the end of the work day and interacted with your family. What would Jesus do if he was running bedtime? Jesus' life was marked by service, compassion, commitment to the will of God. Doing what Jesus did means extending love to the marginalized, standing for justice, being a light in the darkness. This is where our transformation starts to become visible, reflecting Christ in our actions. And so, as we stand here at the beginning of a new year, my hope and my prayer for all of us is that we would grow in our self-awareness, according to God, who we are, what he desires for us, and that that would lead to a kind of self-acceptance that is not common in our culture, because it can't be earned, it's given, and that our relationship with God would grow and be strong as we reprioritize our life around being with Jesus, becoming like Him and doing what he did. So we're going to spend a little bit of time in personal prayer right now, and I just want you to take maybe something that the Spirit laid on your heart during this time and I want you to just walk through that. I want to see do I have things written down here for you, because I'm going to tell you to ignore them for the sake of our time. This year we are focusing on prayer for the first four months, so January through April we're going to be kind of giving some different instructions, of ways that you can kind of put an x-ray on your prayer life. Take the pulse, see what's going on. How is it? For some of you, it's flourishing. Continue, teach others. For some of you, you need to be taught how to pray. You need to be taught what it looks like to commune with God. So right now I just want you to take stock of where you're at, maybe with something with self-awareness, self-acceptance, maybe how that plays into your relationship with Him. Just take some time and just be with the Lord now. And kids, if you're doing activities, I just encourage you to put them to the side, and you can do this too. Ask God to reveal Himself to you as you just spend a couple of minutes praying and then we're going to sing again together. I'll call the band up when I close this in prayer.