Survey Says IV

All right, if you're just joining us, this is the fourth and final message in this series that we've entitled Survey Says. One of the things that I most enjoy doing when it comes to bringing a message is to know that I'm speaking to something you really care about. In other words, if it's a topic that you say, you know, I'm not sure I really care what they did with the heifers when they brought them in to slay them in Leviticus 23. You know, I understand that. But do you know that in this survey, this was the question that was answered, or asked rather, 60% of the time. This was the obstacle that was mentioned more than any other in terms of how do I go on in my my journey of faith. 60% of you said today's topic is a problem for me. So I know that more than the majority of you are gonna get something out of this if you tune in. Because it's where you live, and to be honest, it's also where I live in terms of struggling. So here it is. You really want to grow. You really want to change. You really want to become more godlike. You really want this faith to make sense. You really want to do what God wants you to do. You want to obey. You want to be available. You want to be all those things that we've talked about. You want to overcome sin like Pastor Doug talked about last week. You want to be engaging culture like Pastor Mike talked about a week before that. You want God, you want all that, but you know what he said? He said, I just can't seem to find the time to really go hard after God, and I feel conflicted. In other words, you want to change, but everything seems to be conspiring against you. Some of you have admitted you're disappointed. Some of you are very frustrated, and some said you're even embarrassed that something so important you can't seem to find the time to do. Friends, these emotions, disappointment, frustration, embarrassment, or shame, are common in almost everything we try to do and don't succeed in doing very well, and now this being sort of the end of the first month of the New Year, how many of us, don't put up your hand, we've already blown our New Year's resolutions. I mean, we're already down the tank, and you know, the issue is we're already feeling some guilt. We're already feeling some frustration. Our culture just throws things at us about things we ought to change about ourselves. What is the number one thing that people want to change about themselves? Pretty clear. What is it? Their weight. That's right. It has to do with diet. Diet this, diet that. I mean, there's so many billions of dollars spent on changing the shape of our bodies. I mean, when I started thinking about this, I could get in trouble in a hurry. I'm not gonna, well, I might anyhow, but it's so incredible to me how much of an obsession we have with how our bodies look. I was talking to a guy just the other day who said he lost 1,300 pounds over the last 20 years. We hear stories about, you know, just struggling with weight. Should I have my hair changed or altered or messed up or transplanted? What about my skin? What about my teeth? Are they wide enough? What about my energy level? What about my mood level? What about my sleep? What about my body becomes this sort of, and it's an interesting thing when you get right down to it, in our culture, our bodies become almost something we obsess over. It's in front of us all the time. What we put on our bodies, the clothes we wear, the shoes we wear, the accessories we wear, the glasses we wear. Lots of other things we want to change, but our bodies seem to be number one. Then there's things like, you know, parenting. Oh man, so many of you have expressed frustrations as parents. Some of you have asked for help, serious help, and there's things coming that you'll hear about later. We're trying to offer you help. Some of you have said, please lock anything sharp up in my house so that I can't do anything dangerous to myself, let alone anybody else. I mean, jokingly, but it's like, this is one of the most difficult areas. You want to change, but you can't. For others of you, especially single people, it's love and romance and the absence of it. And guess what's missing in most marriages? No, not good food. Love and romance. They say, anyhow. Another area that's very challenging, where we feel frustrated, is financially. If we could put up the stress meter right now, the number one stressor in our lives, financially, am I going to make it? Will the bills overwhelm me this month? It's the number one cause of arguments in marriage, according to everything I've ever read. I'm celebrating my one-year anniversary of being redeemed by Dr. Dave Ramsey. You all remember the story? My wife has been a devotee of Dr. Ramsey for quite a while. I surprised her one day by picking up the copy of his book released last year, How to Have a Complete Financial Makeover. I brought it home and read it in her presence. Marking it as I went, she was just blown away. She loved it. Three days later, I fell off the wagon. Even though I read the book cover to cover, and the book basically, Dr. Ramsey, and I think he does, Dave Ramsey, does a great job making a case for living by cash. I walked by a place, made a horrible mistake, and saw an espresso maker that I knew would change my life. I brought it home. I didn't have cash in my wallet to buy it at that time. I did have my credit card, one left. I used it. That decision landed me in marriage counseling for several months. Just kidding. It was really a bad few days, though. Let me give you the one-year update. Remember, I told you when I told this story a year ago, I would save the cost of the espresso maker in one year in my Starbucks. Good news, I did it. Paid for, right? Hallelujah! I don't have to applaud, but it's like I told my wife. She said it's true. I mean, she keeps tabs. Bad news, Starbucks is closing 300 stores. And I feel responsible somehow. I've affected 7,000 jobs because I've not done my part. All right, well, I could go on, but let me just be serious with you a moment. I want to change like you do, particularly in the spiritual ways that we are wrestling with, and I'm trying hard, like many of you are, because I thought by this point in my life, I'd be more spiritual than I am now. I thought by now, I'd have people seeking me out for spiritual wisdom. I thought that by now, I would have a couple of books under my belt on how to be a spiritual giant of some kind. I thought by now that I'd have better answers for people who are suffering than I don't know why. I thought by now that my temperament would be more under control, and I wouldn't get as frustrated with out-of-control drivers and so on and so on and so on. Most of all, I guess, I really thought by now, I'd be more like Jesus. I really did. However you see him, but I see him in the pages of Scripture, being compassionate and loving and people wanting to be with him and powerful when he needed to be and quiet when he was supposed to be and all that. And you know what? I'm just not there yet. In fact, I feel somewhat like one of my cartoon characters. I go way back in this one. Some of you may not even recognize this one. Remember Popeye? I think we might even have an image of Popeye. Let's see if we can pick that one up. Popeye came out, and his famous words were, I am what I am. Put that down. That's the first blank on your outline. Okay, put it down. Because that's what the truth is. I am what I am, and that's all that I am. Popeye the Sailor Man. And that can be extraordinarily frustrating, can't it? And then I came across this verse, Exodus 3 14, where God counters back when Moses was at the bottom, and he wasn't seeing the kind of power through his life that he wanted to, and he didn't know how he could go back to the Israelites and say, hey, follow me, be your leader. How can I tell him who you are? Because I don't really know. And the Lord said to him, look on your outline, I am who I am. Those are the words not of Popeye, but of the Lord our God. And that's where we rest our confidence today on who God is. I am who I am. And so what we've determined to do, the pastoral team, what I've determined to do this year, and what I want to invite you to enter into with us, is this, is just to simplify things and make the target just a little simpler, a little more clear. Get away from some of the peripheral things that we sort of tend to bicker about, or get a little defensive about, or withdraw because we just don't understand them fully. We had a pastoral team meeting on January the 8th, it was one of the best meetings as pastors we've had in a long time. And we agreed to lay aside some of these differences, and we said we want to keep the main thing, the main thing, throughout 2009. And that's pretty simple. And that's just to exalt Jesus. The best verse I could come up with is this one. It's not on your outline, but just shot on the corner. It's in Philippians chapter 3. We're gonna pull that one up, and I think we're gonna put that on the screen for you. Here's what it reads. It says, brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but this one thing I do. Now read it with me. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Let's make it simple. Let's do one thing well. Let's leave, forget what's behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead. The goal, the prize, the Jesus is called as heavenward. That's what I'm setting myself to do. And so how do we do it? Well, on your outline, look at the verse on top here. There's actually two verses. If you can't read it, it's in small font. I'll give you that. We might be able to put on the screen for you. This is Paul writing in the book of Romans, and here's what he says. He says, therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. For this is your spiritual act of worship, and do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world. So first thing he says, don't fall into the world's traps, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The word transform is a word metamorphoso, which means what? To change. Be transformed. You hear metamorphosis. You hear the transliteration of it. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good and pleasing and perfect will. And by the way, one of the questions on the survey that you all ask is, how do I know the will of God? Well, the answer is right there. Learn to be transformed. Let me talk about this for just a few moments with you. Ready? Got your pen or pencil out? A little self-test time. Here we go. One thing that I've noticed that you need to be aware of, because it's a trap. Number one, beware of pseudo transformation. Beware of pseudo. That's not like suit, but pseudo. It's like false transformation. Pseudo transformation is when our inner heart is not faithfully represented by our outer actions. In other words, we give the appearance of changing, but we're not really changing. There's a little bit in each of us, really, that will settle for mediocrity when things get tough. Even though we've all been given radical hearts. Loved ones, look at the person next to you. The person next to you has a radical heart if they know Jesus. How do I know that? Because Jesus Himself prayed. Look at this scripture again, not on your outline, but just jot it down. This is in John 17. This is Jesus speaking to His disciples. Here's His prayer. How do I know this is true? Because here's what He prayed in John 17. See, the prayer of Jesus is that the world would know we belong to Him, and we'd be one, united with the glory of God in our hearts. That person next to you has a radical heart, but sometimes they settle for the mediocre way out. Good churches are full of nice people who aren't making any difference at all in our world, and pseudo transformation is a trap that's choking evangelical Christianity all around the world. Sadly, for way too many people, the church has become a compartment knowing Jesus is a lifestyle. How many of you watched Annie or listened to Annie of the induction of the NFL Hall of Fame proceedings today? I don't know. If you're not a big football fan, that might have passed you by. Interesting, listening all week to the to the lead-up to the Super Bowl. Today was the day they selected six people. One of them happened to be a man by the name of Rod Woodson who played here at Pittsburgh for a number of years. I happened to be in a small group with Rod Woodson years ago when he came the North way. And I watched Rod over the years soften his heart, and it was so cool today to watch him as he he stood up and received this incredible honor. One of 253 men to have ever played the game or be part of it to be inducted the Hall of Fame. And he gave glory to Jesus Christ. And when they had a camera crew in his home, they they gave glory to God together. Because for him being a Christian isn't going to church. It's a lifestyle. And it's true of others, by the way, who are going to be playing that Super Bowl tomorrow. Kurt Warner is a very devoted follower of Christ. It's going to be really hard and conflicted when it comes time to pray. But nonetheless, they're devoted Christians. By the way, here's one, here's a great question to ask Pastor Doug after the service or Pastor Mike if you're over in Oakland, you know. Who can I pray for one team or another to win? And who will God hear? Well, to me it has to do with the amount of intercession. Amen? Crank it up. Okay. See, when it comes to living in this world, now here's your little test. And I just, you can be transformed. You can be conformed that it's become like the world. Or you can just be informed. And sadly, I pray, I yearn that you're not just allow yourself to come here and hear sermons or go to Sunday school classes or go to small groups and be informed. Because information doesn't change a thing. Transformation changes everything. Listen, the world is just, it's rebuffed. It just, it's repelled, maybe is a better word, by Christians who pretend to be and smug self-righteousness, going to walk along and judge and, you know, point fingers and all that. This doesn't work. It doesn't change anything. Winston Churchill had a political opponent who was a smug, self-righteous Christian man. And his name was Mr. Cripps. And one of the things he had, he had one habit that wasn't a very godly habit, and that is that he smoked cigars. And it said, Mr. Cripps, that he finally was convicted that that was wrong, and he stopped smoking cigars. And Winston Churchill's quote, he said, Too bad. Those cigars were his last contact with humanity. Later, Churchill was quoted as saying, this is a great line, you can use this, he said, There but for... and when he watched Cripps walking by, he said, There but for the grace of God goes God. Pretty brutal, huh? See, the world doesn't want us to be pointing out everything that's wrong with him. This whole issue of getting ourselves in a place where we can hear God and act responsibly and be transformed and changed. No one said it better than Dallas Willard in his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines. If you're taking notes, that's a book worth finding. Go on Amazon.com and, you know, you can find a used copy for a few bucks probably. It's a great book. But here's a quote from Dallas Willard, and I know I'm giving you a lot of information, but this one is really popular because this is so true. Let's read it. It's going to be up here on the screen. This really pierced my heart. How many people are radically and permanently repelled from the way by Christians who are unfeeling, stiff, unapproachable, boring, lifeless, obsessive, and dissatisfied? It goes on, Yet such Christians are everywhere, and what they are missing is the wholesome liveliness springing from a balanced vitality with the freedom of God's loving rule in their hearts. Spirituality wrongly understood or pursued is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God. That's so true. Leave that up for just a second. See, that spirituality wrongly understood or pursued causes other people to stumble. That's why it's important that we get a true handle on this. All right, you ready for the quiz? Here we go. Take out your outline. Here's how you do it on the pseudo-transformation part. Here's the self-test. Number one, how are you in terms of authenticity? Rate yourself one to ten. I'm not going to ask you to pass these in or share them with anybody. So be honest. If you don't write it down, I'm going to give you a number. Do I hide who I really am, or do the people closest to me really know the true condition of my heart? One to ten. One, they don't know me at all. I'm a sham. I'm getting away with it. Ten, I am transparent to the core. Okay? Number two, judgmentalism. Do you rate people based on certain spiritual cues? How they talk? What they quote? How they dress? What they look like? Do you make and think more about how others are doing things than you look at yourself and concern yourself with your own behaviors, your rights, your needs, and so? How about this under judgmentalism? If everyone gave, served, prayed, or cared as much as you did, would the church be better off or worse off? One to ten. How about approachability? This is one that a lot of people never even think of. In true spirituality, truly spiritual people are very approachable. How do I know that? Well, no one was more spiritual than Jesus. The Bible says kids, little ones, loved to be with Him. People would run ahead of Jesus. In fact, when they saw Him going across the Sea of Galilee, they'd run around. And I've been to this. It's a huge, big lake. They'd see His boat going across, and they'd run around the body of water in order to get there to meet Him on the other side. That's how approachable Jesus was. Are you approachable? Do people talk to you openly about things that really matter and are important? Or is it superficial? One to ten. And finally, do you believe, honestly, you've increased in your love for God in the last two years? Not two months, but two years. Yes or no? One to ten. Five being, well, just a little bit. Nine being, man, I'm growing like crazy. Now, take that little test and mull over it. Maybe you have some other categories. When I did that, I can't tell you that, you know, I didn't hit all the numbers I wanted to. But that gave me something that's key. As we kind of come in for a landing here, and this is it. If I could bring this down to one simple idea, here's what it is. Transformation is not about trying to be more like Jesus. It's about training yourself to let God change you. You might want to write that down. Be devoted to training and not to trying. This is the single most important principle of this whole thing. You know, it's interesting that we're on Super Bowl weekend. Why? Because Paul the Apostle was a fan of using metaphors and analogies about athletics. We're going to turn to 1 Corinthians 9. And why don't you read this on the screens with me as well. This is very interesting because Paul understood that people cared about competing. Here's what it says, 1 Corinthians 9. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games, look at this, goes into what? Not strict trying. If I asked you to try to run a marathon, how many of you would go about half a mile? Maybe. If I said, hey, you've got to run a marathon in a year. Time to start training. Maybe you could do it. See, loved ones, the problem is many of us are trying to be like Jesus wants us to be and it is not going to work. Let me just give you a few illustrations. When's the last time you tried to be patient when your 3 and 5-year-old were bickering and you blew up at them? When's the last time you tried to approach your co-worker and ask him not to keep cursing using the name of Jesus and they blew up at you and that got into a really bad scene? When's the last time you tried to show love to your spouse and you weren't able to because you just are so upset with something that was said or done and you just can't get over it? When's the last time you tried to give sacrificially but you just couldn't find any way to do it because you spent everything you had on just making ends meet? See, loved ones, we've got to back up and train ourselves. And so the place we start is admitting that we need the training, that we're not in shape to do it. And once we make that admission, and it takes some serious confessing, some serious moments of admitting, well, I'm not there, it's just not where I am. Once you do that, then you can get on. And here's, just again, and this is where I suggest that you go. Four ways that you can, and this is not about time. Time just gets, you take time off the tables, not an issue. Here they are. Four essentials to the spiritual disciplines. Number one, discover when and where you connect most easily with God. I hope you're catching this because, you see, one of the problems that people have when it comes to the disciplines and being trained up is they say, well, I've got to get up an hour early in the morning to be alone with God, and that just works for like two days, and then they're just, they crash. And I want to suggest to you that all of us have different rhythms in our life. Find the rhythm that fits your life the best and get into it. When and where do you best connect with God? For some of you, it's, how many of you are morning people? Let me see your hand. That's when you, okay. Then you should make time in the morning. How many of you, you know, it gets to be 10, 11 o'clock, you're really so pretty bright and you absorb well. How many, how many of you who just put your hand up are married to someone who's a morning person? That makes for a really rocky marriage, doesn't it? Yeah, well, honey, no. Here's the good news. Use that time to be with God, and that'll cause both of you to grow more in love with each other as you love Him. Find the time that you're just most naturally open to God, and then find the place. Maybe there's nowhere in your house. Maybe you have to go someplace at work and just... Some people, I literally know some people who make time for God in their car because they can be alone there, and that's just it. Second, and this is going to sound awfully basic, but listen, do not underestimate the importance of rest. One of the things that concerns me right now is this. Because of the pressure of the financial things, many people are working multiple jobs. I have found that when I consistently get five or six hours sleep, I am probably one-third as sensitive to the Holy Spirit as I am when I get six or seven hours of sleep over more than a few days. I can do anything for a couple days like you can. But if you're cutting the corners and you're just, you know, struggling to stay awake, some of you are struggling to stay awake tonight, let me just tell you. I'm confessing here. My temper is short. My capacity to hear from God is really cut off. We need to rest our bodies. And if that's a struggle, have some of the elders pray with you after the service to wherever you are, any of the venues, because that's something God wants. The Bible says that God provides His loved ones rest. Find time to sleep. How many of you find when you start, if you haven't, does this happen to any of you? You start to pray, Lord, I'm just going to pray through this list, and halfway through that list, you're, yeah, that's a sign that you're not getting enough sleep. How many say, I'm going to read my Bible before I go to sleep? Huge. Number three under this, when it comes to the spiritual disciplines, the basics are the best. You don't have to get into fancy, sort of complicated things. Here are the six basic things. I'll just put them up real quickly. Worship, reading Scripture, prayer, giving, serving, and having consistent fellowship. I'll just leave those up if you're jotting notes down. Those are the basics. If you do those, maybe not every day in that order or anything like that, but just consistently, you are going to grow. Those are called the disciplines of engagement. There are three disciplines of abstinence, things you might want to retreat from. Here they are. Solitude is one. The second one is silence. The way they have it is silence is first. That's when you make time to be quiet. I've never had a day when you unplugged everything and went away and were totally quiet. You ought to try that sometime. It absolutely rocks your world. You realize, I am on complete information overload. Solitude, getting away. I used to, on every Thursday, go up to a little cabin outside of Mars on a farm where a gentleman let me in. It had no electricity. And I would go up to that cabin and spend all of a Thursday in silence and solitude. And I did that for about five years. It was the best day of my week. But I'm too important now. I don't have time for that. Fasting, we don't have time to go into it. Just withdrawing from food. Not necessarily everything, but something that says, God, I'd rather not have this nourishment and focus on you. And God says, boy, power happens in that thing. And finally, and this is the last thing. This is the one, if you will, the master key of all the spiritual disciplines. Get into the incredible flow of the Holy Spirit. All of this is really tough if you're making it happen, if you're training and just training. But friends, if you get into a place where the Spirit of God is moving, it's like, wow, this is amazing. This enables me to do stuff I could never do on my own. I so yearn that we understand the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives, especially when it comes to these spiritual disciplines. A number of years ago, Tom Hanks did a movie where he was flying for FedEx and his plane went down. What was that movie called? Cast Away. And to me, one of the most powerful parts of the movie was after three and a half years of being isolated on an island. No way. He had tried to put together a little bit of a raft and row his way out because he knew he was going to die there. And he'd get out to a certain place and the waves would just sweep him back on. And that's what's happened to a lot of us. We've rowed and rowed and rowed, and we hit the waves and we go back. And we are about to give up. And then one day, the tide brought in this sort of crazy leftover piece of, I think it was a, yeah, a port-a-potty. It wasn't real pretty. But he was able to bend it around and make a sail out of it. And so then he constructed this raft and, you know, they sort of fast-forward the whole thing. And he piles up the raft with all of his gear and whatever he could, food and water, and heads out. And when he got to that point where he kept hitting the wall, hitting the wall, hitting the wall, it's right there. He pulls the piece of cord that's holding the thing, and the port-a-potty sail flips up, and if you saw the movie, and just gets him over that wave into the open sea. And who knows whatever, how many days or weeks later he's found by a ship and his whole life changes. Here's what I want to say to you. That sail represents the Holy Spirit in your life. And if you've been bounced back by the waves of discouragement and the ways of trying to please God, say, Lord, help me to raise this sail to catch the wind of your Spirit. Let me do it. Let me do it today. Let me do it in this moment, because I want to live for you. I want to be transformed, and I need you to do it. Would you stand with me to pray?