back to indexAll Church Retreat Session 1
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we can put on Sweet the Sounds of Saving Grace, right? 00:01:38.000 |
Yeah, so in there we have Sweet the Sounds of Saving Grace, 00:05:47.000 |
♪ I've never looked my face down to the floor ♪ 00:06:08.000 |
♪ And won't you die that I might reap what you sow ♪ 00:06:15.000 |
♪ And you hope that I might be your new creation ♪ 00:06:48.000 |
♪ I had all the rocks and heart made of stone ♪ 00:07:05.000 |
♪ Upon my darkened heart the light of Christ I shone ♪ 00:07:12.000 |
♪ I'm haunted to a kingdom that cannot be shaken ♪ 00:07:19.000 |
♪ I've been a citizen by grace, grace alone ♪ 00:07:49.000 |
♪ I will raise the anthem by grace, grace alone ♪ 00:08:55.000 |
You want me to close the prayer or you want me to... 00:09:57.000 |
And there are a lot of seats right here up at the front, 00:10:00.000 |
so for those of you guys who are in the far, far back 00:10:05.000 |
please make your way forward and take a seat. 00:10:07.000 |
We'll give you guys just one minute or so to get situated, 00:10:11.000 |
and we'll begin our first session of this retreat. 00:11:20.860 |
One final call for those of you guys who can hear my voice out there in the foyer, please 00:11:26.860 |
Because some of the rows are long, if you have seats that are open right in the center, 00:11:32.500 |
please be sure to squeeze in or just look behind you and wave your friends in so that 00:11:39.340 |
For those of you guys who are still by the snack area, you guys can grab your things 00:11:43.120 |
and then make sure you come on over, take a seat. 00:11:45.780 |
We'll get started in just a couple, one minute. 00:14:11.860 |
Before we begin our service, let's just take a moment to prepare our hearts for coming 00:14:25.860 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you God for the grace, mercy and love that you've shown us 00:14:56.820 |
God, for some reason, God, you chose to love us and your son to die for our sins. 00:15:10.580 |
Worshiping you God, with all our hearts and gratitude and also holding your scripture 00:15:18.900 |
God to our heart, the word that you've given us Lord, that we can come to know our God, 00:16:33.900 |
♪ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim ♪ 00:17:30.560 |
♪ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim ♪ 00:17:48.020 |
♪ His words shall not fail you, He promised ♪ 00:18:27.120 |
♪ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim ♪ 00:18:52.440 |
♪ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim ♪ 00:19:06.560 |
♪ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim ♪ 00:20:22.060 |
♪ And in your presence all my fears are washed away ♪ 00:20:54.200 |
♪ Hear the sound of hearts returning to you ♪ 00:21:34.000 |
♪ 'Cause in your presence all my fears are washed away ♪ 00:22:20.680 |
♪ In your presence all my strength are washed away ♪ 00:22:25.680 |
♪ In your presence all my fears are washed away ♪ 00:22:46.240 |
♪ In your presence all my fears are washed away ♪ 00:28:35.900 |
♪ How sweet the sounds of your saving grace ♪ 00:29:42.900 |
At this time, I'd like to give just one announcement 00:29:44.900 |
and have the privilege of introducing to you our speaker. 00:29:51.900 |
and his wife, Janie Street, with us for this weekend. 00:29:54.900 |
It's gonna be a great weekend for us to fellowship 00:30:08.900 |
and I wanna just briefly mention them to you. 00:30:14.900 |
and Dr. Street and Mrs. Street have put this together. 00:30:18.900 |
This is a great book as a resource in your library 00:30:21.900 |
as it goes over the most common issues and struggles 00:30:24.900 |
that people experience with their mental, spiritual, 00:30:33.900 |
as anxiety, depressions, thoughts, and so forth. 00:30:36.900 |
It's a great book to have that they've written. 00:30:52.900 |
various struggles that we have on a common basis. 00:30:56.900 |
Also, most recently, Dr. Street has put together this book, 00:31:12.900 |
if you wanna go deep into the question of why 00:31:20.900 |
of what are the motivations, what are the idols, 00:31:24.900 |
And so this is a very, very valuable book to have. 00:31:31.900 |
And the way that we're going to do this is, as you know, 00:31:33.900 |
later this afternoon at 3.30, we're gonna be doing a Q&A. 00:31:37.900 |
And the way that we're going to be receiving your questions 00:31:40.900 |
and how you can submit those is by texting in a number 00:31:43.900 |
that's going to be posted on our Community Retreat 00:31:48.900 |
That number will be posted, and so don't worry about it now. 00:32:00.900 |
I'm gonna save the third copy for our next session. 00:32:05.900 |
when you hear certain things that you're curious about 00:32:07.900 |
and wanna ask a follow-up question from the sessions, 00:32:10.900 |
or you just have questions related to just a broader topic 00:32:24.900 |
And then at this time, I'd like to just highlight 00:32:26.900 |
several things about Dr. Street, our speaker. 00:32:37.900 |
but I'd like to highlight that he is currently 00:32:39.900 |
a teaching professor and the chair of the Master of Arts 00:32:42.900 |
in Biblical Counseling at the Masters University and Seminary, 00:32:48.900 |
to teach at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. 00:32:51.900 |
At the Masters Seminary is where I first met Dr. Street. 00:33:03.900 |
a lot of the students huddled together to complain, 00:33:10.900 |
"Well, you know what? I'm getting my money's worth." 00:33:26.900 |
"Forget ministry. I need this now for marriage," 00:33:29.900 |
because it was absolutely vital for my own soul. 00:33:34.900 |
that Dr. Street is the president of the Board of Trustees 00:33:40.900 |
And as you guys know, a good number of our members 00:33:47.900 |
and interested in being trained through that way. 00:33:52.900 |
we continue to train people and disciple people 00:33:54.900 |
essentially how to take care of other people, 00:33:59.900 |
but according to the power of the Scriptures. Amen? 00:34:01.900 |
And so we really want to continue working with the ministry 00:34:06.900 |
and so on that end, Dr. Street has had over 40 years 00:34:09.900 |
of ministry experience involved with training men 00:34:13.900 |
for the ministry according to the high, high, powerful Word of God. 00:34:17.900 |
And we are so grateful that he is here with us this weekend. 00:34:21.900 |
Let's give a warm, warm welcome to Dr. Street. 00:34:36.900 |
It's good to see you again, and you did survive the class, 00:35:01.900 |
All right, we need to deal with a really critical issue 00:35:10.900 |
and that has to do with relationships among believers. 00:35:15.900 |
is going to, in a sense, lay the foundational bedrock 00:35:24.900 |
and what the Bible says about bringing about genuine reconciliation. 00:35:31.900 |
Now, before we do, let's go to the Lord in prayer, 00:35:33.900 |
and then we're going to go right into Scripture if we can. 00:35:37.900 |
Gracious Lord, we're grateful for the opportunity of a retreat like this 00:35:41.900 |
to spend some time focusing upon critical elements of the Word of God 00:35:46.900 |
that deal with our interpersonal relationships with one another. 00:35:50.900 |
And so I pray, Father, that you will use the Word of God, as only you can, 00:35:57.900 |
to bring about the necessary changes in our thinking and in our hearts 00:36:03.900 |
in order to help us be more unified within the body of Christ. 00:36:15.900 |
So we pray that you'll use this as only you can. 00:36:24.900 |
Now, if you take a look at the sheet that you probably have in front of you, 00:36:30.900 |
we want to talk about getting to the heart of conflict. 00:36:34.900 |
Primarily, we want to start there because when you read a lot of books, 00:36:41.900 |
whether they're secular or Christian, whatever the case may be, 00:36:48.900 |
very little is talked about in regards to this issue. 00:36:52.900 |
And in fact, it's almost not mentioned, even among the Christian books, 00:36:56.900 |
which is a very sad thing because this is where everything is going to start 00:37:05.900 |
if there's going to be real, true unity within the body of Christ. 00:37:09.900 |
This is going to affect a husband and wife relationship. 00:37:13.900 |
It's going to affect a parent-child relationship. 00:37:15.900 |
It's going to affect your relationship with your closest friends. 00:37:18.900 |
It's going to affect the way in which you interact with people on the job. 00:37:22.900 |
Everything that we talk about this weekend will affect 00:37:25.900 |
every interpersonal relationship that you have. 00:37:30.900 |
So, we make the little comment in the paper there in front of you 00:37:34.900 |
that every conflict within the church presents the pastor with a great teaching opportunity 00:37:39.900 |
because every conflict within the church is a reminder of how much Christ is needed. 00:37:45.900 |
The source of all conflict begins in the heart. 00:37:52.900 |
We're going to come back to that in a little bit. 00:37:54.900 |
With its cravings and dominant desires which fuel anger, slander, violent reaction, 00:38:00.900 |
it denies the truth and the grace of the gospel in the Christian life 00:38:11.900 |
Now, I want you to grab your Bible just for a moment 00:38:14.900 |
and by way of beginning, let's go over to Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, 00:38:25.900 |
By the way, this is the way to think about it. 00:38:27.900 |
The world talks about it in terms of conflict resolution, 00:38:32.900 |
but that is a very short-sighted and truncated view 00:38:37.900 |
on how to deal with interpersonal relationships. 00:38:40.900 |
Our goal as Christians is not to resolve conflicts. 00:38:47.900 |
Our goal--in fact, some conflicts are not resolvable. 00:38:54.900 |
If possible--sometimes it's not--as far as it depends upon you, 00:38:58.900 |
sometimes it doesn't depend upon you, live at peace with all men. 00:39:04.900 |
So it's not possible to bring about reconciliation or--what can I say? 00:39:08.900 |
It's not possible to bring about some kind of conflict resolution in every situation. 00:39:19.900 |
And in fact, Jesus talks about the fact in verse 9 of Matthew 5, 00:39:26.900 |
You hear Christians talk about, "I need to be a peacemaker," and that's okay. 00:39:30.900 |
That's infinitely better than being a peacekeeper. 00:39:35.900 |
God has called us to be peacemakers, so that's really true. 00:39:39.900 |
But that is only one step in the broader reconciliation process. 00:39:45.900 |
He starts there by peacemaking, but peacemaking is not the end. 00:39:55.900 |
Well, if you take a look a little bit later on there in chapter 5, 00:40:05.900 |
And in fact, he talks about the fact that in verse 23, 00:40:15.900 |
"If there you are presenting your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 00:40:22.900 |
leave your offering there before the altar, go and first not seek peace at this particular point." 00:40:29.900 |
Peacemaking is only one step in the process, but the ultimate goal here, 00:40:33.900 |
"But be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering." 00:40:42.900 |
This is why we prefer to call this conflict reconciliation, not conflict resolution. 00:40:52.900 |
Conflict reconciliation, because the goal here is to not come to an agreement 00:41:03.900 |
The goal here is to bring relationships together. 00:41:12.900 |
So when we're talking about this this whole weekend, we're looking at this as a broader process. 00:41:18.900 |
It's not going to be something that happens overnight. 00:41:21.900 |
It's not going to be something that happens quickly, but it's a broader process. 00:41:27.900 |
Now, in order to help us to understand this, and especially in relationship to what's going on in the heart, 00:41:34.900 |
and by the way, real change, when there has been a disagreement between you and another brother or sister in Christ, 00:41:54.900 |
The heart's got to change before there is any step towards genuine reconciliation. 00:42:02.900 |
Now, help us get started, and to fuel our thinking in this, let's go to James 4. 00:42:08.900 |
We already mentioned this, but he asks the question, James asks in verse 1, 00:42:17.900 |
"What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?" 00:42:22.900 |
What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? 00:42:25.900 |
If you listen to most Christians today, you'll probably hear something like, 00:42:30.900 |
"Well, you know, I'm a sanguine, and I'm married to a caloric, and that's the reason why. 00:42:36.900 |
I'm married to somebody that has an adversarial personality. 00:42:40.900 |
That's the reason why we have the problems that we have. 00:42:43.900 |
Well, men are from Mars, and women are from--oh, you know that, don't you? 00:42:49.900 |
Men are from Mars, and women are from--that's the reason why there's so much conflict in this world today. 00:42:54.900 |
No, that's not the reason that there is conflict in the world. 00:42:57.900 |
There is no such thing in the Bible as adversarial personalities. 00:43:06.900 |
And in fact, that whole personality theory stuff that's a part of contemporary psychology today 00:43:19.900 |
Hippocratic Oath, medical doctors take the Hippocratic Oath. 00:43:22.900 |
Hippocrates believed that your personality was a result of one of four bodily humors, 00:43:29.900 |
that if you had an overabundance of one of four bodily humors, 00:43:32.900 |
then all of a sudden that was the personality that you possessed throughout your life. 00:43:40.900 |
If you had an overabundance of blood, then you had one personality. 00:43:43.900 |
If you had an overabundance of phlegm, that was another personality. 00:43:47.900 |
If you had an overabundance of yellow bile, it was another personality. 00:43:51.900 |
If you had an overabundance of black bile, that was another personality. 00:43:55.900 |
And the Latinized terms for them--of course, blood was sanguine, phlegm was phlegmatic, 00:44:02.900 |
yellow bile is caloric, black bile is melancholia. 00:44:08.900 |
And Hippocrates says, "I can prove this to you. 00:44:10.900 |
Take somebody who is outgoing, energetic, life of the party, drain his blood." 00:44:30.900 |
Let's say if you have a person that's moody, sad, kind of irritable most of the time, 00:44:40.900 |
too much black bile, so he would give people really strong herbal laxatives. 00:44:51.900 |
After you've been sitting on the john for several days, everything looks up. 00:45:06.900 |
Now, we would never say that today, but it's amazing how many psychological tests are based upon that today. 00:45:14.900 |
The Taylor-Johnson temperament analysis test, the Minnesota moldophasic personality inventories, 00:45:20.900 |
all those tests are based upon that same kind of a theory that we have fixed personalities. 00:45:27.900 |
Nowhere in Scripture does that ever say, "If that's the key to our well-being, 00:45:31.900 |
then God has left out a significant part of our well-being in Scripture." 00:45:36.900 |
If that's the key to our well-being, it's not because, well, the Bible has a word for that, baloney. 00:45:52.900 |
In fact, if you take a look at what the Bible really says about personality, 00:46:01.900 |
I'm not the same personality that I was when I graduated from high school, 00:46:06.900 |
and I tell my students, "You ought to be happy about that." 00:46:15.900 |
This is what is referred to in Scripture as progressive sanctification. 00:46:49.900 |
He says, he answers his own question here in verse 1, 00:46:51.900 |
"What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? 00:46:54.900 |
It is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members." 00:47:00.900 |
Now, by making that statement, he's basically saying, 00:47:03.900 |
"What is the source of quarrels and conflicts? 00:47:05.900 |
It has to do with what you think is going to bring you happiness. 00:47:14.900 |
It's what you think is going to bring you happiness." 00:47:36.900 |
Now, I don't think the Christians were going around 00:47:38.900 |
murdering each other here in the Jerusalem church. 00:47:44.900 |
He's using murder in the same sense that Jesus, his half-brother, 00:47:53.900 |
Well, if you hate in your heart, you're as good as a murderer, right? 00:48:00.900 |
If you hate in your heart, you're as good as a murderer. 00:48:05.900 |
The heart of a murderer and the heart of a hater is the same heart. 00:48:12.900 |
It's just one has acted it out and the other one hasn't. 00:48:18.900 |
Just like the heart of an adulterer and the heart of a luster is the same heart, 00:48:24.900 |
it's just one has acted it out and the other one hasn't. 00:48:46.900 |
What was supposed to be a three-hour trip turned into six hours 00:48:53.900 |
We're just crawling down the freeway bumper to bumper. 00:48:57.900 |
You go to some auto parts store here in the area, 00:49:00.900 |
and you'll find you can buy these little things you can mount on the dashboard of your car, 00:49:04.900 |
in order to help you in really heavy traffic. 00:49:21.900 |
and you can blow up the cars in front of you figuratively. 00:49:40.900 |
The heart of a hater and the heart of a murderer is the same heart. 00:49:51.900 |
Just the same heart at God's level, from God's perspective. 00:50:01.900 |
"and you cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel. 00:50:11.900 |
"You ask and you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, 00:50:18.900 |
on what you believe is going to bring you happiness." 00:50:26.900 |
Now, in order to understand this, we've got to understand the human heart. 00:50:38.900 |
is when we come to the word "heart," we commit a semantic anachronism. 00:50:44.900 |
That is, we import into the word "heart" a contemporary idea 00:50:54.900 |
rather than allowing the Bible to define what the heart is. 00:51:05.900 |
It's very easy to do, to take a late idea of a word 00:51:10.900 |
and pour it into an ancient word, an old word. 00:51:17.900 |
Old Testament term "lave," New Testament term, Greek term "cardia." 00:51:24.900 |
And by the way, it's used uniformly from the Old Testament into the New Testament. 00:51:28.900 |
The same concept in terms of the heart is there. 00:51:32.900 |
It's just that we look at the heart differently. 00:51:43.900 |
So we want to take a look at the problem of sin 00:51:45.900 |
as it affects the worship of the heart, especially in conflict. 00:51:49.900 |
And Scripture says the source of this comes from those pleasures 00:52:04.900 |
Well, there's so many passages that we could take a look at here, 00:52:08.900 |
but let's just take a look at a couple of them. 00:52:20.900 |
Here we're interested in what the Lord says about man before he sends the flood. 00:52:28.900 |
And he says in verse 5, "The Lord saw," and by the way, in the Hebrew language, 00:52:37.900 |
"The Lord continually saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth." 00:52:48.900 |
"And every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." 00:52:54.900 |
Now notice the way the heart is described there. 00:53:13.900 |
Kind of the American, European view of the heart is to pour romance into it, right? 00:53:20.900 |
When we talk about the heart, that's what we read into what the Bible says. 00:53:24.900 |
We read "romance," we read "intense feelings," we read "intense emotions" 00:53:33.900 |
and yet that's not the biblical view of the heart at all. 00:53:39.900 |
The heart has very little to do with our feelings. 00:53:42.900 |
It does affect our feelings, but the heart has very little to do with our feelings. 00:53:49.900 |
It has everything to do with what we intend and what we think. 00:54:08.900 |
I know it's not on your list there, but let's go over to Proverbs 20. 00:54:13.900 |
Proverbs 20, and we're interested in verse 5. 00:54:17.900 |
Think of this carefully, Proverbs 20, verse 5, where it says, "A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water, 00:54:29.900 |
So now, here, Solomon is saying that the heart plans, or we could translate this, 00:54:37.900 |
"The purposes of a man's heart is like deep water." 00:54:42.900 |
And, in fact, back in chapter 19, verse 21, it says, "Many plans are in a man's heart." 00:54:54.900 |
Lots of planning, lots of purposing, lots of intending, lots of thinking. 00:55:02.900 |
That's not a romantic view of the heart, not an emotional view of the heart at all. 00:55:10.900 |
We know that because around Valentine's Day, what do you see? 00:55:18.900 |
You know, ladies, if your husband says, "I love you with all my heart," you ought to slap him really good. 00:55:34.900 |
Because all he's saying to you is, "I have lots of good intentions for you." 00:55:41.900 |
If he really wants to be romantic and he's going to be biblical, 00:55:45.900 |
then he's going to use a different organ of the body, not the heart. 00:55:55.900 |
Ephesians 4:32 talks about being tender-bowled, that deals with emotions. 00:55:59.900 |
So he should be saying to you, "I love you with all my bowels." 00:56:16.900 |
I told her I want to create a Christian greeting card company with bowels on the front 00:56:24.900 |
She doesn't think it will go anywhere, but at least it will be biblical. 00:56:31.900 |
But now you're talking about anybody that's had constipation know how emotional that is. 00:56:46.900 |
But when we're talking about the heart, we're talking about planning, 00:56:55.900 |
"I plan, I purpose, I intend, I think with my heart." 00:57:11.900 |
Even in the New Testament, this is the way that Jesus uses the heart. 00:57:21.900 |
Notice how what Jesus says, he says in verse 15, 00:57:26.900 |
"There's nothing outside of a man which can defile him if it goes into him, 00:57:31.900 |
but the things which proceed out of man are what defile a man. 00:57:39.900 |
And then in verse 18 he says, and he said to them, 00:57:45.900 |
Do you not understand that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him 00:57:51.900 |
because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach and then is eliminated? 00:57:59.900 |
Thus he declared all foods clean," it says there. 00:58:03.900 |
And he was saying, "That which proceeds out of the man, that's what defiles the man, 00:58:08.900 |
for from within, out of the heart of man, proceed," notice this, 00:58:22.900 |
Fornications, thefts, murders, adultery, deeds of covening, wickedness, 00:58:28.900 |
as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. 00:58:33.900 |
Now, the first six are all plural because they have to do with actions. 00:58:38.900 |
The second six of these that are listed here are singular because they have to do with attitudes. 00:58:45.900 |
First part has to do with actions, second part has to do with attitudes, 00:58:52.900 |
What a man thinks, what he purposes, what he intends. 00:59:01.900 |
In verse 23, it says, "All these evil things proceed from within, and they defile the man." 00:59:16.900 |
It's what proceeds out of the heart, what proceeds from within that causes these quarrels, 00:59:25.900 |
these difficulties, these conflicts, the difficulties and hardships that come in interpersonal relationships. 00:59:36.900 |
In order to kind of picture this, the Bible then would view the heart as essentially the control center of life. 00:59:52.900 |
And from this, it is your thoughts, it infects your will, your conscience, your motives, your desires, 01:00:07.900 |
That's very difficult to see this, but there's a dotted line just below that word "behavior." 01:00:21.900 |
And when your heart is focused upon self and what self wants in terms of what you believe is going to bring you happiness, 01:00:34.900 |
what you believe is going to bring you joy, then it's always and universally going to produce bad fruit. 01:00:45.900 |
It's going to produce bad fruit in terms of attitudes and behaviors and words. 01:00:56.900 |
They're going to cause all kinds of conflicts, all kinds of heartaches. 01:01:04.900 |
However, when your heart is really focused on Christ, then it's going to produce good fruit. 01:01:12.900 |
It's going to produce good fruit, things that actually are beneficial to others. 01:01:21.900 |
So, the location of real conflict starts inside, not out here. 01:01:38.900 |
I don't care how disagreeable that other person is. 01:01:42.900 |
I don't care how angry that other person is, how hateful they are towards you, that other person is. 01:01:55.900 |
Because it's how you interpret that situation, how you interpret that particular person, 01:02:02.900 |
how you view them as being an obstacle to what you believe is going to bring you happiness. 01:02:13.900 |
Now, Scripture makes it very clear that the occupation of the heart is to worship. 01:02:23.900 |
Every person on the planet has a worshiping heart. 01:02:29.900 |
The most avowed atheist has a worshiping heart. 01:02:35.900 |
That's the way that God created his or her heart. 01:02:58.900 |
I'll give you an illustration of that in a moment. 01:03:01.900 |
And the Bible talks about this in numerous places. 01:03:04.900 |
We could literally spend the rest of our time just taking a look at all these different places. 01:03:10.900 |
So the heart can worship peace and possessions and popularity and prestige and play and power and pleasure and people and protection and physical health. 01:03:20.900 |
All right, I'm really a preacher trapped in a counselor's body, but everything has to be alliterated if you're a preacher. 01:03:32.900 |
Now, that's not an exhaustive list, but the heart can worship those things. 01:03:38.900 |
These are things that we see in this world that we think are going to bring us happiness, 01:03:47.900 |
and we believe that that's going to make our life complete. 01:04:03.900 |
This speaks of what that person most highly values and what they really esteem and appreciate in their heart. 01:04:34.900 |
The Bible also tells us that one of the big issues is that the heart lusts. 01:04:51.900 |
This is where we elevate things to God-like level in our hearts. 01:04:58.900 |
And we begin to look at those things as the most important things. 01:05:03.900 |
And I get up in the morning because I'm trying to serve whatever I consider to be important 01:05:09.200 |
And I think about it and work on it all day long. 01:05:11.500 |
And before I go to bed at night, that's the last thing I think about. 01:05:14.540 |
Before I go to bed, how can I service that value, that esteemed, dominant value in my 01:05:33.300 |
Let me illustrate this for you just for a moment. 01:05:36.620 |
Let's go back to the Ezekiel passage just by way of example. 01:05:41.420 |
Ezekiel chapter 14, you can see this in Ezekiel 14 where God speaks to the people of Israel 01:06:04.120 |
And in verse 1 it says, "Then some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat down before 01:06:09.840 |
me and the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Son of man, these men have set up idols in 01:06:15.760 |
their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. 01:06:24.200 |
Therefore speak to them and tell them, 'Thus saith the Lord God, any man of the house of 01:06:28.120 |
Israel who sets up idols in his hearts puts right before his face the stumbling block 01:06:33.720 |
of his iniquity and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will be brought to give him an 01:06:39.960 |
answer in the manner of in view of the multitude of his idol in order to lay a hold of the 01:06:51.440 |
hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from me through all their idols. 01:06:56.920 |
Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'Thus saith the Lord God, repent and turn away from 01:07:01.400 |
your idols and turn your faces away from all of your abominations. 01:07:07.000 |
For anyone of the house of Israel or of the immigrants who stay in Israel who separates 01:07:11.600 |
himself from me and sets up idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block 01:07:17.480 |
of his iniquity and then comes to the prophet to inquire of me for himself, I the Lord will 01:07:28.040 |
I will set my face against that man and I will make him a sign and a proverb and I will 01:07:34.720 |
cut him off from among the people so that you will know that I am the Lord.'" 01:07:40.240 |
Now let me share with you the fact that Jesus, well in this case the Lord, the pre-incarnate 01:07:49.720 |
Lord in this particular case is talking to Ezekiel and basically telling the leadership 01:07:55.880 |
and the elders of Israel of how angered he is over the fact that they have set up idols 01:08:05.840 |
And he says, "When they come to inquire of me, I myself," the Lord says, "will speak 01:08:13.320 |
Now in the Old Testament that was a fearful thing because there was always an intermediary 01:08:24.360 |
When the saint wanted to go to God, they went through the priest. 01:08:28.720 |
When the saint wanted to hear from God, it was always through the prophet. 01:08:32.200 |
There was always an intermediary between them and someone else. 01:08:35.480 |
But God keeps saying here, "These people who have set up idols in their heart, I'm going 01:08:46.960 |
And then he says in verse 8, when he says, "I will set up my face against that man and 01:08:51.200 |
make him a sign and a proverb and I will cut him off from among my people so that you will 01:08:56.920 |
There's only one other time that God says that in the entire Old Testament, and that's 01:09:01.800 |
back in the book of Leviticus where God is dealing with the people of Israel who are 01:09:08.960 |
offering their children as human sacrifices to the false Canaanite gods of Baal and Ashtoreth. 01:09:20.720 |
In other words, having an idol in your heart is on the same level as sacrificing children. 01:09:32.280 |
To show you exactly how serious God takes the issues of having idols in the heart, something 01:09:40.440 |
that you want so badly that you're willing to sin in order to get it. 01:09:48.580 |
Something you want so badly that you're willing to say hateful, mean things to people who 01:10:17.160 |
Paul addresses the Christians at Corinth, and he talks about Old Testament Israels wandering 01:10:30.560 |
And he says in verse 6, 1 Corinthians 10.6, now look at this, zero in on this. 01:10:37.240 |
He says, "Now these things happened as examples for us so that we would not crave evil things 01:10:47.920 |
You ought to underline those words "crave," that we not crave the evil things that they 01:10:55.480 |
And as soon as he says that, then he says in verse 7, "Do not be idolaters as some of 01:11:04.120 |
As it is written, 'The people sat down to eat and to drink and stood up to play, nor 01:11:15.340 |
And 23,000 fell in one day, nor let us try the Lord as some of them did and were destroyed 01:11:20.960 |
by the serpents, nor grumble as some of them did, and they were destroyed by the destroyer.' 01:11:29.680 |
Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction 01:11:40.400 |
He's not talking about just merely the idols of stone and wood and the idol of the golden 01:11:49.440 |
He's not just talking about, he's talking about the fact that they craved eating, drinking, 01:12:08.720 |
It sounds like that's describing the 21st century contemporary American today, doesn't 01:12:25.000 |
Those are the things that they were craving in their heart. 01:12:29.080 |
These were the idols that they were setting up in their heart. 01:12:33.000 |
Verse 14 says, 'Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. 01:12:42.840 |
This is really key because if this is the issue, if this is the problem, then what is 01:12:52.720 |
it that's going on in my heart that's causing so many interpersonal clashes and difficulties? 01:13:03.360 |
Why is it that I have a hard time getting along with other people? 01:13:09.400 |
I don't want you to think about the person sitting next to you. 01:13:14.880 |
Why do I have a hard time getting along with people? 01:13:30.080 |
It has to do with what you crave more than anything else. 01:13:35.880 |
And whatever that is, that craving has reached a level that it is an idolatrous craving. 01:13:56.720 |
The worst heart to exegete is your own heart. 01:14:01.200 |
That's the worst because one of the most disturbing things about the human heart is that it is 01:14:10.580 |
That's one of the most disturbing things about the human heart. 01:14:20.920 |
Even Plato used to say, "The greatest deception is self-deception." 01:14:27.600 |
Well, the human heart is easily self-deceived. 01:14:34.640 |
It easily thinks that it's better off than what it really is. 01:14:39.080 |
So I'm not talking about you looking at the people around you. 01:14:49.860 |
How do I understand what's going on in the human heart? 01:15:05.680 |
He takes you through loss and trials, and then all of a sudden you find out what's going 01:15:16.120 |
I'm more than willing to look at my heart, but I don't want to have to go through loss 01:15:22.400 |
Well, that's nice that you say that, but if you're truly going to be sanctified, then 01:15:33.720 |
Go back to Deuteronomy chapter 8 just for a moment. 01:15:40.920 |
This is just before the people of Israel enter into the Promised Land. 01:15:44.320 |
This is the second giving of the law, and during this particular time, God reminds them 01:15:48.800 |
why He took them through 40 years of wilderness experience. 01:15:53.220 |
Why did He take them through 40 years of wilderness experience? 01:16:01.760 |
"You shall remember all the way which your Lord your God has led you in the wilderness 01:16:05.080 |
these 40 years, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, 01:16:12.480 |
whether you would keep His commandments or not." 01:16:14.560 |
Now listen, God says, "One of the main reasons I took you through this entire wilderness 01:16:20.760 |
experience for 40 years was to test you, to know what was in your heart." 01:16:27.080 |
Now listen, God was not, follow me here, God was not testing them so that He could know 01:16:38.920 |
He was not testing them so that He could know what was in their hearts. 01:16:43.600 |
He was testing them so that they would know what was in their hearts. 01:16:55.640 |
And you think your medical doctor takes a long time. 01:17:00.160 |
This is a 40 year exam so that they could know what was in their hearts. 01:17:07.720 |
Sometimes I say to counselees when I'm working with them, "Listen, this is what God does. 01:17:11.600 |
He takes us through trials and difficulties to reveal certain things about our heart. 01:17:18.600 |
I hope it doesn't take 40 years for God to reveal to you what's in your heart. 01:17:35.000 |
Well, one of the things is you have to be, listen to this, brutally honest with yourself. 01:17:45.920 |
You have to be brutally honest with yourself. 01:17:51.480 |
And you're going to have to ask yourself several questions. 01:18:03.440 |
Let me give you six questions to ask yourself. 01:18:10.480 |
Well, they're not so much questions as evaluative statements. 01:18:18.560 |
The question is, what idols are existing in my heart? 01:18:26.660 |
What idols are causing me to act the way that I do? 01:18:30.480 |
What idols are determining my attitude and responses to people? 01:18:38.520 |
Well, one thing, pretty obvious, it's wanting something that God does not want or desire. 01:18:48.520 |
Wanting something that God does not want or desire. 01:18:53.840 |
If there's something that you want that God doesn't want or desire, you want a woman who's 01:19:04.160 |
not your wife, you want a man who's not your husband, you want children that are obedient. 01:19:30.160 |
By the way, God has never made a mistake in all of eternity, and you are not His first 01:19:44.680 |
Wanting something or desiring something that God does not want or desire for you. 01:20:00.760 |
Anytime we desire something that God doesn't want, and it's clear in His Word, that's an 01:20:07.920 |
I'm craving that, and I think that that is going to bring me happiness. 01:20:22.000 |
Now it's going to be a little bit more complicated. 01:20:26.240 |
It's wanting something that God wants or desires, but wanting it so bad that one becomes ungodly 01:20:46.080 |
If I had a nickel for every time I had a woman say to me in counseling, "All I want is for 01:20:51.240 |
my husband to love me," I'd make Bill Gates look like a poor man. 01:20:56.680 |
I mean, sincerely, she'll say to me, "All I want is for my husband to love me." 01:21:09.120 |
Can it become a sinful, idolatrous desire in her heart? 01:21:19.200 |
Because it's the first thing she thinks about when she gets up in the morning. 01:21:22.120 |
It's the last thing she thinks about before she goes to bed. 01:21:27.920 |
She craves it more than she craves being God's kind of wife, God's kind of woman. 01:21:40.040 |
And when she doesn't receive the love that she believes that she deserves, then she becomes 01:21:45.760 |
angry, hateful, mean, vindictive, verbal, or maybe she swings the other direction and 01:21:53.360 |
becomes depressed, withdrawn, moody, non-communative, both sinful reactions because she's not receiving 01:22:05.040 |
the love that she believes that she deserves, and it consumes her heart. 01:22:12.600 |
I'm not going to let the men off the hook, ladies. 01:22:16.200 |
How many times have I had a man say to me, "All I want is for my wife to respect me." 01:22:32.280 |
Phobos, your husbands, respect your husbands, reverence your husbands. 01:22:41.680 |
When he doesn't receive the respect that he believes he deserves, then he becomes angry, 01:22:49.360 |
He gets verbal and maybe even physical with her, or maybe he goes the other direction, 01:22:56.080 |
withdraws, becomes moody, doesn't communicate anymore because he's not receiving the respect 01:23:08.080 |
Wanting something that God wants, but wanting it so bad that it consumes your heart. 01:23:16.680 |
What about the Christian parent who says this, "All I want is for my kids to love Jesus." 01:23:27.480 |
Can it become an idolatrous, consuming desire in that person's life? 01:23:35.120 |
That kid starts to grow up, becomes a teenager. 01:23:37.680 |
After you raise them, invested so much time and money and emotions and love in their direction, 01:23:45.440 |
and they announce that they're walking away from the faith, you are crushed. 01:23:57.440 |
This is my daughter, and they're walking away from the faith after I've invested so much 01:24:04.960 |
I brought them up under the teaching of the Word of God. 01:24:12.280 |
When you all of a sudden see that happening in the life of your child, then when you see 01:24:18.400 |
them walking away from the Lord, then you become angry and hateful and mean and vindictive 01:24:24.600 |
and caustic with your child, or you swing the other direction and become moody. 01:24:32.900 |
You don't see them following Jesus the way you and your spouse follow Jesus. 01:24:40.240 |
Wanting something that God wants, but wanting it so much that it controls my life. 01:24:51.480 |
It dominates my heart, my purposes, my plans, my intentions. 01:25:02.400 |
I crave that more than I craved being God's kind of man or God's kind of woman or God's 01:25:08.440 |
kind of husband or God's kind of wife or God's kind of father or God's kind of mother. 01:25:17.760 |
That's wanting something that God wants, but wanting it so much, so badly that you become 01:25:40.060 |
That desire to have a spouse who loves you or a spouse who respects you or a child that 01:25:47.760 |
loves Christ, now that becomes more important than being a godly man or woman. 01:25:54.600 |
So now that becomes the idol, that Christ now is second to that idol, as if my whole 01:26:02.440 |
life, my whole pleasure and everything is wrapped up in my kid following Jesus when 01:26:12.280 |
It's not wrapped up in my kid following Jesus. 01:26:18.560 |
It's not wrapped up in my wife showing me respect. 01:26:23.840 |
It's not wrapped up in my husband showing me love. 01:26:27.340 |
It's wrapped up in who Christ is and who I am in Christ. 01:26:40.980 |
Being controlled by expectations and becoming ungodly and thought, word, or deed when that 01:26:58.300 |
What we expect in life becomes now a demanding necessity. 01:27:10.820 |
Sometimes when I'm teaching seminary classes, I'll say to some of our students, I'll say, 01:27:15.980 |
"Listen, I know what some of you guys are thinking. 01:27:21.220 |
I'm not Jesus, but I know what's going on in your head." 01:27:33.660 |
You're doing your Greek and Hebrew exegesis and you're sweating blood all over the place 01:27:38.900 |
and you're thinking to yourself, 'Man, I am working so hard. 01:27:45.300 |
In fact, she's at home probably right now fixing a large dinner for me. 01:27:50.860 |
And when I get home, I can't wait to have a big roast beef dinner with piles of mashed 01:28:13.260 |
So he comes busting through the door at the end of the day. 01:28:22.740 |
And all of a sudden he starts to think, "What has she been doing all day? 01:28:37.440 |
I mean, I have been slaving myself to the bone. 01:28:41.540 |
In seminary, I have been writing all these papers and I've been doing all this work and 01:28:46.500 |
My eyes are about ready to fall out of my head. 01:28:49.460 |
I've been reading and reading book after book after book. 01:28:55.740 |
And so you yell upstairs, "Sweetheart, where's dinner?" 01:29:03.060 |
She says, "There's some lunch meat in the refrigerator. 01:29:22.660 |
If she appreciated me, this wouldn't be happening. 01:29:30.500 |
Whatever you're expecting in life, those are the seed beds that set you up for a fall. 01:29:41.660 |
What do you expect in your relationship with that other person? 01:29:47.180 |
Listen, if I understand the Bible correctly, I hope I do here, but if I understand the 01:29:51.860 |
Bible correctly, we must radically lower our expectations about other people and life itself 01:30:02.540 |
and raise our expectations about what we should be like in terms of godliness. 01:30:14.820 |
Fourth, perceiving a deserved right and following through with ungodly thoughts, words, and 01:30:19.460 |
actions to try to get it when that right is denied. 01:30:38.740 |
Well, I have a right to fill in the blank, whatever it is. 01:30:49.460 |
What do you think your heart says I have a right to? 01:30:58.380 |
If you really understand the way Scripture pictures you and I, we have one right, and 01:31:23.220 |
Back a few years ago, I was up doing a lecture with a bunch of Berkeley students. 01:31:30.660 |
Some of them were not believers, so we had a Q&A afterwards, and one of them raised their 01:31:39.220 |
How can you believe that there's a God there that's good when there are terrible disasters 01:31:46.460 |
that occur, tsunamis, thousands of people die, earthquakes, fires, floods? 01:31:59.220 |
My natural response automatic is, "Wow, that makes me believe it even more in Him." 01:32:11.380 |
Simply from the standpoint that your question assumes that all of us deserve to live. 01:32:20.760 |
God could take away all life on this planet and not for a nanosecond cease to be righteous. 01:32:30.100 |
The very fact that He preserves any of us shows us His mercy. 01:32:38.460 |
So your question is predicated on a false assumption. 01:32:58.580 |
If you understand God as being absolutely holy, absolutely just, and also absolutely 01:33:07.220 |
loving, that's the only thing that makes sense. 01:33:18.540 |
Or look at this, believing in something, a standard or rule that is not of God that leads 01:33:24.500 |
You know we can elevate a standard or a rule to non-compromisable biblical level and think 01:33:29.420 |
that it's equal to the Bible and then all of a sudden that becomes an idol in our life. 01:33:35.860 |
You go into a lot of youth groups today, you want to start a war in a youth group, just 01:33:49.940 |
Well there's no dating in the Bible, there's no courting in the Bible, there is betrothal 01:33:54.060 |
in the Bible, but if you're going to practice betrothal, you have to be consistent with 01:33:58.860 |
If you think that's normative for all believers of all time, if that's what you think, then 01:34:05.060 |
remember when David was betrothed, or Michael was betrothed to David, then Saul gave him 01:34:15.180 |
this impossible standard, "Give me the four skins of a hundred Philistines and you can 01:34:19.620 |
have my daughter," which was an almost impossible task. 01:34:32.060 |
I could have said to my future son-in-laws, "Listen, give me the four skins of a hundred 01:34:48.860 |
And that would put a pretty good dent in the United States in Christian psychology. 01:34:55.980 |
Now I didn't do that, but if I was practicing betrothal, I'd have to carry it through here. 01:35:03.580 |
But we raise those standards, we raise those particular standards to an uncompromisable 01:35:09.500 |
And that particular time, when we do those kind of things, then those things become our 01:35:14.740 |
We expect everybody else to obey them too, because that's something that I've come to 01:35:20.540 |
If you come to a conclusion on that, that's wonderful. 01:35:24.860 |
But just don't universalize it to everybody else. 01:35:32.380 |
Or thinking or having a mindset that is against the truth of God's Word that leads to ungodliness 01:35:40.540 |
and thoughts and words and actions, any kind of a mindset whatsoever that is in your mind, 01:35:47.540 |
because of time I've got to run on this one, but listen, "I must have or not have," whatever 01:35:54.780 |
that is in that question mark area is your idol. 01:35:59.620 |
What is your heart saying, "I must have or not have," now becomes your ruling desire, 01:36:05.740 |
your functional God, your controlling inner cravings that are my idolatrous cravings. 01:36:25.560 |
No wonder James says, "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? 01:36:33.140 |
Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members." 01:36:38.880 |
It's what you want more than anything else that is not of Christ. 01:36:46.320 |
When Christ is not worshipped in your heart, you're set up for conflict. 01:36:57.040 |
Well, we have much more to say about this, but the clock is my enemy. 01:37:05.240 |
So we've got to stop there and let's bow for prayer. 01:37:09.240 |
Gracious Father, we thank you so much for your goodness, for helping us see our own 01:37:18.000 |
It's as if the Scripture is the functional magnetic resonance imaging program of the 01:37:23.320 |
metaphorical heart, because now we're able to see what's really going on, what's ruling 01:37:29.920 |
and controlling me, those desires that I think are going to bring me pleasure, those must-haves 01:37:36.640 |
or must-not-haves that tend to rule me more than Christ. 01:37:43.280 |
These are the very things that set the stage for conflict. 01:37:48.800 |
Help us to be godly in response to exegete our heart and learn the importance of repentance. 01:38:10.120 |
I was a boy who was lost at the bar Running away when I hit your car 01:38:30.760 |
Father, you were a joke I had no righteousness of my own 01:38:39.720 |
I had no right to draw near your throne Father, you lost me still 01:38:46.720 |
And in love before you laid the world's foundation 01:38:55.720 |
You predestined to adopt me as your own You have raised me up so high above my station 01:39:08.720 |
I'm a child of God by grace, grace alone I hope to seek out the lost 01:39:19.720 |
You knew the great and terrible cost That Jesus, your face, was set 01:39:29.720 |
I worked my fingers down to the bone Nothing I did could ever atone 01:39:36.720 |
Jesus, you paid my debt By your blood I have redemption and salvation 01:39:48.720 |
Old you died that I might reap what you have sown 01:40:07.720 |
I was a dark, I was a dark soul of my life I never knew the day from the night 01:40:17.720 |
Spirit, you made me see I swore I knew the way on my own 01:40:27.720 |
A head full of rocks, a heart made of stone Spirit, you moved in 01:40:34.720 |
Natural touch, natural touch The sleeping spirit was awakened 01:40:43.720 |
On my darkened heart the light of Christ was shown 01:40:50.720 |
Called into a kingdom that cannot be shaken Heaven's citizen by grace, grace alone 01:41:03.720 |
So I'll stand to faith by grace, grace alone I will run for raise by grace, grace alone 01:41:17.720 |
I will slay my sin by grace, grace alone I will reach the end by grace, grace alone 01:41:33.720 |
Amen. Let's close this session by praying together. 01:41:41.720 |
All right, God, we thank you for the call that you give to us, God, to be like you, Lord, to emulate your character. 01:41:52.720 |
We recognize, Lord, there is much, much work to be done in purifying our hearts, 01:41:58.720 |
allowing your careful eyes to examine us, the thoughts and intentions, but importantly, God, the many things we desire. 01:42:06.720 |
Father God, we collectively repent of the fact that in many seasons we just instinctually do and say whatever it is we want. 01:42:15.720 |
But I pray, Father God, that those desires would thoroughly be washed by your word and spirit to make sure that it is of you, 01:42:23.720 |
God, that is for your purposes and that ultimately, Lord, is something pleasing in your sight. 01:42:28.720 |
I pray, Father God, because our hearts often are locked up and accustomed to our own way, 01:42:34.720 |
that you would help us through this process of examination and, God, that you would continue to lead us. 01:42:40.720 |
So we thank you so much, Lord, for this time. It's in Christ and we pray. Amen. 01:42:44.720 |
You may all take a seat and then I'm going to invite Jason to give us some more announcements for what's up ahead. 01:42:59.720 |
All right, before we dismiss you guys for your small groups, just a couple announcements. 01:43:03.720 |
When you guys meet for your small group time, you can meet out in the foyer area, you can meet in here, 01:43:08.720 |
and you can also meet in the dining halls, but just make sure you put the chairs back to how originally it was when you guys shifted around. 01:43:14.720 |
For Spock Young's small group, Susan Fong-Gray will now be leading your small group, so look for her. 01:43:20.720 |
And also, another reminder to make sure you guys time it accordingly so you guys can pick up the kids from the nursery at 1140, 1150. 01:43:33.720 |
And we understand it's a short time for the small group time, so maybe you guys can extend the time into the lunch time at 12 o'clock, okay?