Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Good morning, church. How are you?
I am so glad to be here. I know you were expecting the cool, wise cowboy with the raspy voice, but one thing I love about this church is that we are a multi generational church. One thing that I am so thankful to God is I look around, it's young and old.
As I'm standing up here, I'm seeing Cheerios on this carpet from my granddaughter this morning, and I love it. Like, I genuinely love it. Thanks, babe. And I think, with your permission, that God really wants to speak something to your hearts today.
I think, with your permission, if you could just have an open heart to hear that there's something for every generation in this talk, I'm gonna pray.
Dear heavenly Father, you are a mighty God and I want nothing but you.
I pray for every soul listening here in this room or somewhere online. Father, I pray that they will hear your voice calling to them today.
I pray that those who need hope can find it in this place. And I pray that your name will be glorified in your awesome son's name. We pray. Amen. I. I am in this transitional season of my life. Jacob and I were very young parents, and this week we are celebrating my baby's 19th birthday.
Yeah, he's a stud muffin, and I love him. And as I'm thinking through this transitional phase, like, I have no more kids in high school, Lex is married, and I've got a grandbaby.
Taylor is in her junior year, and Christian's in his freshman year of college. And I have loved being their mom.
Now, I'm not going to be the woman that, like, pops their picture up on the screen or anything.
Yes, I am. I'm going to be that woman.
You're like, we know you. You're going to show. But these are my beautiful kids. Oh, it's a very small picture. We probably could have done better than that, huh? I could not find one picture with all of them in Ithoodae. So Lex, Tay, and Chrishie are mine, and then Jer is my son in law, mar is Chrishie's girlfriend, and Anthony is Taylor's boyfriend. We had to photoshop him. He's in the all white, if you can't tell. We had to photoshop him in this photo because I don't have one photo with all of my kids in it. Can you believe it? So being their mom has been, honestly, one of the absolute greatest gifts of my life. I've been thinking back because we are in this new season where, honestly, in the next couple years, probably, everyone's going to be married and out of the house. And I've just been looking back, and I often say, like, if I did nothing else right in this world, being their mom is enough.
And I have been looking back and thinking about, like, the first time I got to hold them, the first time I got to kiss their little face.
I've been thinking about, like, christmases and how special we wanted to make them and their little crazy fuzzy heads in the morning when they got out of bed. And I've just been looking back, and I just, like, I love being their mom. I was made for it.
And a couple years ago, Jake's like, babe, we got to start thinking about when the kids aren't in the house anymore. We got to start planning now and loving each other better so that when they are in the house, we're still good. Any of you have gone through this, you know the feeling.
And so my husband is. He is an awesome man of God, and he is initiator in our house. And he, I think, was doing something more for me that day.
Because the truth is, if I'm not careful, my kids can become my full identity.
Any parents know that feeling, the thought of them not all being in the house with me. Like, yesterday, everyone was there, and we were up in the morning, and there was music playing, and we're dancing with Selah, and it was just like this deep sense of joy. And if I'm not careful, they can become my full identity. And then what happens when they move out? Right? Then what happens when they have their own families and holidays look different? There's going to be a. A major missing piece of how I have formed my identity.
I love this church, and I seek God for you with all of my heart. I love this staff. Can we give a round of applause for this staff, guys, I don't know if you know how lucky you are. We have the greatest staff here. They love you. They long to be closer to God. But if I'm not careful, my whole identity can become the church. And you're like, well, that's good, but it's not. Because one day, I'm going to be older, and I'm going to have to pass this to the next generation. And if I'm not careful, then I am lost in that transition.
We are humans, so we make mistakes.
And if I'm not careful, I can make my mistakes or my shame become my entire identity.
But I believe God wants something deeper for us. I believe that, yes, a mom is definitely a part of my identity that I am internally grateful for, and it's the greatest gift. Yes, I believe being a leader in this church is part of my identity, and I am incredibly grateful. But at the core of each of us, we need a core identity.
We need something that helps us be the same person everywhere we go. We need something with an eternal, lasting power that if something transitions in our life, we still have the core, and nobody and nothing can take it away from us. And no loss or painful experience can keep us down.
I want to share the story with you today from the book of Mark, and it's an odd story, so I just want to start with that. We're going to read this, and you'll be like, oh, glad I came to church today day.
But I don't want to get stuck in the content or the extreme nature of this verse. I want to get lost in the big picture idea together. And so we're going to read it, and you're going to be like, ooh.
But I want you to try to find yourself in this. And that's going to be my goal today, is that we find ourselves in all of this.
And so our verse is coming from. I'm still grounding Cheerios on the floor. Our verse is going to come from mark nine, starting at verse 14.
And it says this. When they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.
And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him.
And he asked them, what are you arguing about with them?
And someone from the crowd answered him, teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.
It throws him down. It seizes him.
So I asked your disciples to cast it out. And they were not able.
And Jesus answered them, o faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.
And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately, it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground, and he rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening to him?
And he said to him, from childhood.
And it has often cast him into fire and into water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
And Jesus said, if you can, all things are possible for the one who believes immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, help my unbelief.
And when jesus saw the crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, you, mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.
And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse. So that most of them said, he is dead, but Jesus.
But jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
And when he entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out?
And he said to them, this kind can only be driven out by anything but prayer.
I was listening to a sermon as I was preparing for this. I wish I could, like, list all the resources of. To give people credit for who helped me shape this sermon with their great thoughts and ideas, but it would be too long.
But I was listening to a sermon by Stephen Furtick. He's a pastor in elevation. And he drew out this idea that I want to share with you because it so clearly illustrates what I want to talk to you about today.
So it's a weird story. Yes, weird story.
A lot of us are not going to personally deal with demon possession, although some of you are looking at the relationships in your life and, like, it's starting to make sense, sister.
But here's what I love about this passage. I love the heart of this father.
He came and drew his son to Jesus, but he clearly. Now, I'm a terrible drawer.
Drawer.
But I want to do my best here because I want you to see. So let's just pretend this is the boy, okay?
This is the boy. And what I love about this scripture is it separates the boy from it.
It separates the boy from what has been throwing him around.
It separates the boy and the heart of this father. I mean, you can clearly see it. He calls his son his son his boy. And then he calls the spirit it.
And it would be so easy for this father to bring his son to Jesus and be like, my son is a disaster.
My son is throwing himself into the fire. My son is throwing himself into the water. My son is seizing, and he's a mess. And I need help.
But the beauty of this is, the father saw the boy clearly.
He saw the boy as the son that he loved.
He saw the boy as defenseless and in needing help and needing rescue.
And then he saw it as the true enemy.
He saw it.
Not just the boy, but it was the boy. And it and church. If we can be extremely honest, every single one of us has an it.
Every single one of us has something that has been throwing us around in life, something that it would be easy to define our life by.
Every single one of us has something at some point in our life that we have looked through, and it has become our identity when we aren't careful, it is so easy to think in ways, like, if I could just achieve this, and my identity becomes the success and my identity becomes what I'm striving for, it could be so easy to say if I just would have done this different, and then our identity becomes our failure or what we didn't accomplish.
It would be so easy for some of us to say if they would have just.
Or if they wouldn't have.
And our identity becomes the pain and hurt that people have put on us.
I believe God wants to separate you from this. I believe with all my heart that God wants to show you something so much deeper here. And in the beginning of this passage, it's this odd moment where Jesus and his disciples, it says, and when they came to start it off, right before this, there's this incredibly beautiful moment in the Bible that Jesus is.
He took three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, his favorites, and he took them up and he took them up this high mountain. And dad just taught the staff this beautiful lesson about the glory of Christ, the glory of God. And I'm going to ask him if he can teach you because it was so powerful, and I just am not him, so I can't do it justice.
But in this moment, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on this high mountainous, some of you know it as the transfiguration, or your bible will title it the transfiguration. But the idea is that Jesus took his disciples, these three disciples, he went up there, and jesus was fully man and fully God.
And so in his human body, he had to contain the glory that was within.
And on the transfiguration, what happened is he loosed his grip and he released his glory.
And it was this moment where it shone so bright. It said that all Jesus clothes looked brighter and whiter than any bleach on earth could ever make it happen.
And you hear the voice of God say, this is my son whom I love. Listen to him.
And the disciples are there, and they don't even know what to do with all of this. They're terrified and they're in awe. And it's just this huge moment happening. And then they come down from this holy, holy, holy moment into our story, into this reality.
That there's a huge crowd. The other nine disciples are there and they are representing Christ.
And there's an argument between the other disciples and like, the religious leaders at the time.
And what was happening was Jesus comes down with his other disciples, he sees this argument happening, and he says, why are you arguing? What's going on?
And it's the father of this boy who answers him.
It's funny to me because the disciples are getting very exposed here. They failed miserably. And now their leader, their teacher, Christ, is showing up, and the father's like, I brought my son to you because he has this spirit that's tossing him around. It's throwing him to the ground. It's creating great chaos.
But they couldn't do it. They couldn't get it out.
And then when you go to the very end of this passage, I want to go backwards, if that's okay with you. In private, the disciples asked Jesus, why couldn't we drive it out?
Because Jesus had given them the gift.
Jesus had empowered them with strength.
And for several years, they had been going and healing and helping people. And so they asked Jesus, why could we not drive it out? And at the very end of the story, we see jesus say, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
But then when you read it, you go back to how Jesus removed the spirit and he didn't pray.
So I was like, well, what do you mean here? You know?
But here's what I think. I think it's not that our prayers have to be the perfect words, that our prayers have to be just right for God to hear and answer them. I had friends who had struggled with many miscarriages and they wanted to have a baby so bad. And they called me one day and they said, can you meet with me? And they said, can you teach us how to pray? Because I just feel like we're not saying the right words.
And I was like, guys, it doesn't work like that. That is not how God works. He knows our heart. He is a good and mighty God.
And you just keep being connected to him. You keep seeking him. It's not about your words. It's about your connection to him and trusting in him, having faith that one day, somehow, some way, he will show up. And now they have twins. So God has been working really great in their life. But I think what Jesus is trying to say is it's not the right words.
But we all, when we are connected to Christ, should have an attitude of prayer when we are living life. I think what happens is we can get so dependent on our strengths, so dependent on the gifts that God's given us. Some of you have been doing this a long time. Some of you know how to live in your strength. You go to your career and you're a leader and you're killing it, or you're at home and you know the strengths that God has empowered you with. But I think what Jesus is doing here is he's challenging the disciples.
I think what he's saying is, you, faithless generation, do you feel the frustration in that? Like, how long am I going to have to be with you? How long am I going to have to bear this? I think what he's trying to say is, it is not the perfect words, but it is an attitude of staying connected to God.
It's not depending and relying on your own strengths. And I think that's what the disciples were doing. They were relying on the gifts that God had given them without staying connected to the one who gave them. Does this make sense? And so what happens is even our strengths, even the gifts that God has given us, become our it.
And so now we are defining ourselves by the strengths, by the identity of I'm empowered by God, but I stop seeking him in it all. I want my personal, private life with Jesus Christ to be so real and so rich that when you look at me, you can't help but to see something good of him.
I want my private life with God to be so continuous, not just once a week, not just Sunday or Wednesday or whatever it is, but I want it to be rich and I want to stay connected to the source, because that is where my life comes from. That is where my identity, the core identity of who I am, is always and forever going to be connected to Jesus Christ.
And so he's calling and challenging not just the disciples, he's challenging all of us. This morning, has your it, your identity, become your gifts and your strengths that God has given you?
Or could you be rooted, grounded in the core identity that comes from Jesus Christ?
This father comes to him, and we're going to see it in verse 1718 and 19.
Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it sees at him, it throws him down and he foams and he grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.
So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.
Jesus answers them a little frustrated, o faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me and they brought the boy to him, and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed, and the boy, he fell on the ground and rolled about.
Jesus looked at the father, and he said, how long has he been like this?
How long has this been happening to him?
And the father said, from childhood.
It's often thrown him to fires and in the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us, please help us.
This is a harder part of the sermon for me because I think there is a deep reality.
I think this father's. If you can do anything, to some, it might sound like doubt.
And this is the.
When we sit in scripture, and we don't just read past it, but we sit in it and we let it start to shape us. We start to ask ourselves stuff.
So I was sitting in this scripture, and I thought to myself, what must this father's life have felt like?
How weary must he have been that from the time this young man was a little boy, he has struggled with this?
I thought about his sleepless nights, because who knows when he would seize? Who knows when he would want to be thrown into the fire, the water, whatever might be happening. How exhausting that must feel.
I thought about the mom. She's not in it, but it's my nature. So I thought about her, like, how she probably was a major player in the game, but now he's too big, and she can't physically handle it. And how exhausted and weary and tired her soul must have been.
I was reading in this book, it's called hope in the darkness, and it's by Craig Rochelle.
And in it, he talks about this woman.
It was a little girl that grew up in their church. And he said she was always the first to come and the last to leave. She loved being a part of church. Life was good. She loved Jesus.
Soon she met a boy, and her and the boy loved God. They served together. They got married, and they thought life could not get any better than this until it did.
Shortly after they got married, they had a little girl, and the husband got a great job as a salesman, and he made more money than most people.
And he. He was gone a lot.
And one day he came home and he told her, I'm leaving you.
And to really just make it a lot harder. I'm leaving you for your best friend.
And her heart was crushed.
But to make life almost unbearable, the little girl got sick.
And quickly. They had to figure out how to not work on her treatment plan, but how to make her as comfortable as possible in her last days.
And Craig Groeschel says he went to that hospital and he sat in that room with that mom, and he looked at her distraught and pain ridden face.
He said, there's just no words.
And she looked at him and she said, I want to believe, but it has just been too hard.
I want to believe, but the pain has simply been too much.
And church, I know some of you know a pain that I can't even imagine.
I know some of you have lost people way too soon.
And I know that there is a reality that when we have deep rejection or deep pain, that it does shape us.
So I do not want to take that away from anybody.
But here is what I'm saying to you today. Christ does not want your full identity to be lost in your pain.
That he has a life for you, that he has a hope for you, that while it hurts, while you will never be right this side of earth, he has a plan and a future for you.
That your pain does not have to define you. But the core identity is that Jesus Christ is with us. He never leaves us. He never abandons us.
And in the beauty of his nature, it is not. It's not the boy. And it. It is. He sees you.
And oftentimes we think in our life that it's. It's me and my it versus God.
But there is a reality that Christ teaches us.
It is you and God verse. It.
It is you and God verse. Whatever is shaping you, it is you and God versus the pain, because he sees you and he knows everything about you.
It is you and God because he is fighting for you. Like this father fought for his son. Christ fights for us.
I was on my way home from the hospital a couple years ago, and I can't even really remember what I was doing, what visit it was. But I heard this song come on the radio, and it was like the voice of God speaking straight to my heart.
And in it, it was talking about rescue.
It was talking about how he.
He knows us. He hears our cry.
And it was as if the voice of God was speaking to my broken soul.
And I just. I want to play it for a minute so that you can just spend a minute with God.
If you are in need of a great rescue, I want you to know that there is only one place that we are made complete. It is only in one name that we are healed.
It is only in one strength and power that we can find the strength to take another step, to keep going and finding another way. And the scripture is the greatest rescue story you will ever read.
It is a God who time and time again said, you are my people.
Connect with me. I am yours. Seek me. Seek me. Find me. I am here. Trust in me.
And if you are in need, just take a minute and listen to this.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: You are not hidden.
There's never been a moment you were forgotten. You are not hopeless.
You have been broken, your innocence stolen.
I hear you whisper underneath your breath I hear your so's, your s. O. S.
I will send out an army, find you in the middle of the darkest night it's true, I will rescue you.
There is no distance, cannot be covered over and over you're not defensive.
I'll be your shelter.
I'll be your armor I hear you whisper underneath your breath I hear your resource, your resurrection I will send out an army to find you. In the middle of the darkest night is true I will rescue you I will never stop marching to reach you in the middle of the hardest fight it true. I will rescue you.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: And Jesus says, bring the boy to me.
He never calls the boy it.
Bring the boy to me.
I think sometimes we keep bringing our it to God over and over and over again. But he is longing for you.
He is longing for relationship with you. Bring the boy to me.
And then he rebukes it.
He doesn't rebuke the boy.
He rebukes it.
And then it has this final fight, and it throws him around one really good time.
And everyone thinks the boy is dead.
Everyone looking on is horrified.
But Jesus bends down, he takes the young boy by his hand, and he pulls him up.
Church, would you hear me today? If you are lost in an identity that is not in Jesus Christ, can you feel him separating it today?
Can you feel him reaching out his hand to you and saying, connect with me. Follow me.
I will give you a life that is better than this.
In our weakness, it's easy to see this. But there is a verse, because I think it's not just our pain or our strengths. I think sin has been throwing us around.
I think we've been jerked around by it long enough. And I think that there is depression, and I think there's anxiety, and there are things that have become our identity and our way of thinking. But you are not it.
You are not it.
And in those moments, if you would allow, I want you to understand that there is a verse that says, the one who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God at the core of who we are. Our identity is found in Jesus Christ because he took what was ugly and wrong and broken and hurting about us. And he took it upon himself.
And in return we get the righteousness of God.
We have to stop fighting the wrong fights. You hear me? You are the righteousness of God.
You are an image bearer of Jesus Christ. If you have given your life to him, he is within you. The Holy Spirit is working for you and for your good. So stop fighting God and start partnering with him. Start living in the way that he has created you to live.
If your strengths and your gifts have become you're it.
Can you live in a manner worthy of your call?
Can you let Christ pull your you up?
You are not it.
You are an image bearer of God almighty.
So let him work in you so that you can shine his beauty to those around you.
If the pain of life has left you with only an if you can help, will you look to goddess who knows you, a God who knows rejection, a God who knows loss, a God who knows pain. Because he is not just a doctor with the prescription. He is a doctor who has had the same illness and knows exactly how it feels. Christ knew pain. He knew it. He knew rejection. He knew loss. So it is not you and your pain against Christ. It is him saying, I know your pain.
Let me walk with you.
Let me love you.
Let me show you life and life abundantly.
If your sin has been tossing you around, you are not it.
You are an image bearer of the Lord God Almighty.
So start reaching out and grabbing the hand in the lifeline that he is giving you and fight for what is right, fight for what is good. And slowly and surely you will start to become more and more like him.
Let's pray you who knew no sin, you became sin so that we might have the righteousness of God.
What a love story, father, thank you. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you that you do not define us by our it. But you see us as your child, that you see us and you have called us father.
So I pray that those who need hope and separated from their it, will you give them a clarity that they have never in their life felt before.
I pray that those that are so pained in the loss of life and the things that have been taken, father, I pray that they will trust you in a way they have never trusted you before.
And I pray for every single one of us. We will grab you by the hand and let us lift you to become all that you've created us to be. That we will grab you by the hand and we will let you work in us and through us father, so that your name will be glorified in this place and on this earth. And I ask all of this because you are good. You are faithful. In your mighty son's name I pray. Amen.
