Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] It has been a long time since I've been up here, so I am excited to be back.
[00:00:09] I took an extended vacation this year, and my beautiful Tay Rose got married to her hunky husband.
[00:00:19] She's now Mrs. Chaney, looking all cute in her married life. And I was just able to spend some time just being a mom and focusing on my family. And I really wanted to use this time away to just, like, seek God.
[00:00:36] I wanted to turn off, I wanted to refuel, and I wanted to just, like, hear a word from God. Because what I've learned in my life is I can withstand just about anything if I know what God wants me to do. Like, if I hear something, I'm good.
[00:00:56] So my goal was I'm gonna read, read, read.
[00:01:00] So I am doing. I'm studying to be ordained and become a pastor. And it's a very long, crazy process. And everyone's like, you're not ordained yet? It's like, no, it's long. It's hard. And you have to write a thesis for each book of the Bible. So that was also my goal when I was on the trip away, to just saturate in the Bible and start writing some theses to knock it out.
[00:01:24] And I find myself just, like, seeking God and being like, what do you want?
[00:01:33] How do you want me to lead this year? How do you want me to love this church this year? The end of August, the leaders of the church that are on staff here, we get together and we start to do big thinking and planning for next year.
[00:01:50] And so I was seeking God, like, what do you want for the church? You know, what do you want for these campuses? And I was just thinking, like, show me your will, Father. Show me your will. And I was getting a little discouraged because I was finding awesome things in the Bible, but I wasn't, like, getting my word. Anyone know what I'm saying? Like, you asked for that word. You asked for some insight. And so I would just go back day after day, and I would just read, and I would just seek God and seek and seek God. And it was interesting because, like, the themes of the Bible that I was reading was how much God desired his people to love him, how good and consistent and faithful he is all throughout Scripture. Even in the hardest stories, when you go and read in the Old Testament, God is incredibly faithful.
[00:02:45] And as I was reading and I was just seeing these people who were, you know, like, started so solid to love him, and then they would slide and they would just, like, end their life. Not strong. I found myself Saying like, father, help me be stronger than that.
[00:03:01] Help me. Help me to have a vision and a clarity that. That never wavers, that I love you above everything else.
[00:03:10] And what happened was I didn't get this direct word from God, but through scripture, God had already revealed what he ultimately wants for us.
[00:03:23] And in theology, there's this word, and it's called the revealed will of God.
[00:03:30] And the idea is that he's already told us the things that he desires for our life.
[00:03:37] But for most of us, when we think of, like, I want your will, we think of, like, I want an angel to come and talk to me. I may or may not have prayed that before.
[00:03:46] So weird, because I'd probably die if that actually happened.
[00:03:50] I, you know, I want God to, like, make it super clear. Like, I'll take a text message, a fancy dream. I'll take anything. Like, just give it to me clear, you know what I'm saying?
[00:04:02] And I'm like, seeking and I'm seeking. And sometimes it's like this game of, like, cosmic hide and go seek. I feel like where, like, I'm seeking God and we're playing hide and seek and I can't find him.
[00:04:17] But here's what I know about the game hide and seek. I have a granddaughter.
[00:04:21] It's her favorite game. This kid loves hide and seek. She will. I think we've got some pictures. She's got this.
[00:04:28] This strainer at my house. Every time she comes over, she goes to the cabinet, puts the strainer on her head, and hides from us. And she thinks she's so tricky, but she can kind of see. So she. It's. We have a lot of these pictures of her. And she'll hide behind the curtain, and it's sheer, so you can always see her. You know what I'm saying? And here's. Here's the deal. The delight is not in the hiding.
[00:04:54] The delight is in the being found and the will of God. It's not this cosmic game of hide and go seek where, you know, we want to know, who should we marry? What job should I take? Where should I go to school?
[00:05:11] How do I raise kids?
[00:05:14] We have these questions that we're looking for, and it's like, okay, the first name I see will be the woman I marry, and it's Rebecca. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, okay, I'm going to marry a Rebecca. Rebecca. Like, it's not this Magic 8 ball.
[00:05:30] It's not this hide and go seek with God.
[00:05:35] What happens is he's Revealed to us the things he wants us to know and the stuff we don't know, it's because we don't need to.
[00:05:47] And so what I want to do is I want to do a series on how do you discover the will of God for your life?
[00:05:55] How do you really move forward? How do you really understand, okay, in here, what is it? What does he want us to do?
[00:06:02] Especially when there's so much anxiety, especially when there is so much hate.
[00:06:10] I'm a little scarred from last week. Anybody?
[00:06:13] It's like a residual effect of like trying to regain my well being.
[00:06:21] I saw Charlie Kirk actually physically get shot on the phone.
[00:06:27] And I had not intended to.
[00:06:30] And you see such a horrific thing. And I heard someone say that by the time you're age 18, you see over 200,000 violent acts. If it's TV or video games and you start to become accustomed to it, you start to lack empathy.
[00:06:52] And we are not hardwired this way.
[00:06:56] And I saw this footage and I was just sick to my stomach. I didn't really know him. Like, I've seen some clips here and there.
[00:07:05] I didn't. It wasn't about anything. It was about a human being's life being taken on such a public display.
[00:07:14] And then you see, you scroll and you see that beautiful young girl being stabbed. And this is just common scroll. This is just what's happening. And I'm so unnerved and I'm so unsettled. And I'm thinking to myself, God, why?
[00:07:31] Like, what are you supposed to do with all this?
[00:07:36] How do I change my thought life? And if you didn't get a chance to hear Doc's sermon from Sunday, I highly recommend you go back.
[00:07:44] So incredibly good.
[00:07:48] And I've sat in this evilness, man, just the way people are talking to each other, like it's so messed up.
[00:08:02] And there's people in my family who are struggling and you don't even know how to debate healthy because everything's so personal and charged.
[00:08:14] And so it's like, God, how do we show up in a climate like this?
[00:08:18] How do we show up when the anxiety is just like. And that's just what's on the news, let alone the things that we're dealing with in our everyday life. Can I get an amen?
[00:08:29] You know what I'm saying? Like, we've got bills to pay, Jacob and I.
[00:08:35] We've got kids to feed and weddings to plan and college and the pressure, the pressure, the pressure. And there's such a level of.
[00:08:48] God, what is Your will for the Christian life in such ugliness.
[00:08:56] And there's this incredible sermon in the Book of Matthew and it's famous and it's called the Sermon on the Mount.
[00:09:04] And in it, Jesus talks so clearly about what he really wants for our life.
[00:09:11] It's not hidden.
[00:09:14] When I'm seeking God and saying, what do you want? And then I open it up and I see things like Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, you are the light of the world.
[00:09:27] Let me say it again, Church. You are the light of the world.
[00:09:34] And then he says, so this is what you need to do. You need to shine your light before men so that they can see the goodness of what God is to you, the goodness of who he is. And you need to reflect and then listen. People see that goodness.
[00:09:52] They don't see. Oh, they killed it on that debate and said the right stuff.
[00:09:56] They don't see. Oh, they made me feel real small in this way.
[00:10:01] No, they see the love of Jesus Christ shining through you, and they wanna know what's different.
[00:10:10] You hear me? They see the light of Jesus Christ working inside of you. And when there's chaos and there's unease, there's peace.
[00:10:20] And they want to know, how do I get that?
[00:10:23] Where do I get that peace? Do you know how many new Christians have said that they would say, I sit and I watch and I see these followers of Jesus Christ and I see sometimes how they're treated, and then I see what they reflect and I want it.
[00:10:40] Jesus gets super detailed when it comes to anxiety.
[00:10:45] And this is where we're going to pick up today.
[00:10:48] We're going to pick up in Matthew 6, starting at verse 25, it says this.
[00:10:56] Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.
[00:11:01] Easier said than done.
[00:11:05] You know what I'm saying? Have you ever heard anyone say, just like, relax, relax, calm down, you know, I'm like, you better, you know?
[00:11:17] But here's the gift.
[00:11:19] Who's saying it?
[00:11:21] This is the words of Jesus Christ. He knows all things.
[00:11:27] He knows what my life holds, but he also knows who holds my life.
[00:11:34] You. You hear me? He knows the beginning from the end, and he knows all of it. He can see all of it. And now it's his voice saying, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.
[00:11:56] Is life not more than food and the body more than clothes?
[00:12:01] Look at the birds of the air.
[00:12:03] They neither sow nor weep nor gather into barns. And yet Your heavenly Father feeds them who does it.
[00:12:14] Your Heavenly Father.
[00:12:17] Are you not more of value than they?
[00:12:20] And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?
[00:12:27] It's like we all know it's not working. You know what I'm saying?
[00:12:30] Like, every single one of us knows this is not working.
[00:12:35] This is not adding anything to my life. In fact, you know what's happening. It's actually taking from my life the moments that I want to be present, the moments that I want to be. So with it and so good. Anxiety robs happened. We were on vacation.
[00:12:54] Give you a little insight. This sermon is so. For me, you have no idea. I think the worry is like, I'm a psycho.
[00:13:02] I've. Like, I've walked through my kids funerals in my head. I mean, I am a psycho.
[00:13:08] Nobody else has, just me. Okay, psycho.
[00:13:13] Glad I can preach to you tonight.
[00:13:17] We need Jesus, you know what I'm saying?
[00:13:19] Okay. I was on vacation, relaxing. We got a house. We had stayed in the house before. It had everything we need. All the kids were gonna come, but before all the kids could come, it was just Jake and I, Lex and Jer, and my granddaughter Selah. And the boat. The house came with a boat. Like, not a speedboat. I'm talking like a pontoon. Okay? I don't know how fast you could go, but, like 20.
[00:13:43] And we put a floatie on sea, and it's our first night there.
[00:13:47] Jake's like, let's go out on the boat. It's like, yeah, that sounds so good. So we got like a speaker, we played music, and we pull out. And my daughter, my granddaughter, is an equal psycho, okay?
[00:14:00] But with her body, the girl will not sit down. She climbs everything.
[00:14:06] Nothing is off limits for her because she wants to explore the world. And she has zero boundaries because she's just so little.
[00:14:14] And we were on the boat ride and there was no joy.
[00:14:17] There was no peace for me. Why? Because I worried about Selah falling off and getting caught in the motor. Like, that is what went through my mind. I told you, I'm a total psycho.
[00:14:29] Forgive me.
[00:14:30] And so the whole time she's just having fun and mom and dad are there. I don't even have to do anything.
[00:14:37] Mom and dad have got her.
[00:14:39] And the whole time I freaked out. And I literally said, I can't go on the boat anymore until some other people get here. I can't do it because I'm gonna rob everyone of the moment. And I was like, passive aggressive. You know what? I'm saying, I wasn't like, she's gonna fall off the boat. I was like, maybe we could have her sit down.
[00:14:57] Maybe she doesn't have to lean against that.
[00:15:00] Now's a good time to really be strict with her so that when she grows up, it's a little easier.
[00:15:08] I wish I was joking. I was a total nut. I was a total nut. Yeah, I was a total nut. But here's what I know. I robbed the evening, okay?
[00:15:18] I robbed it because I was borrowing worry. I was borrowing trouble, and I was anxious.
[00:15:28] What does it add to your life?
[00:15:33] And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.
[00:15:41] Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
[00:15:46] But if God so clothes, who clothes?
[00:15:51] God.
[00:15:52] The grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?
[00:16:01] Oh, you of little faith.
[00:16:06] I heard a pastor once say, your biggest worry and anxiety exposes to you where you trust God least.
[00:16:14] And I hated that.
[00:16:16] I was literally like, we're not listening to him again. You know what I mean?
[00:16:19] Calling me out like that.
[00:16:22] And I literally hated it. I literally was like, he just doesn't get it. You know what I'm saying? Like, I trust Jesus, but we worry, okay? And then I got to this verse, and I was like, jesus is now calling us out.
[00:16:38] Oh, you of little faith.
[00:16:42] The anxiety that can bubble up, it should be a signal to us.
[00:16:50] Should be a signal to us that something is off and something needs attention.
[00:16:59] And I think so often, like, this is how I try to gut it up, and I try to go harder and harder and faster, and I try to ignore it, and I try to just. I'm gonna work out more. I'm gonna, you know, drink good water today and not eat McDonald's.
[00:17:17] I ate McDonald's today. So, in fact, right before I started preaching. So, no, but I owe you of little faith. And here's the thing. It's not saying we don't have faith.
[00:17:34] It's just saying, oh, you of little.
[00:17:38] There's this story in the Bible where a dad goes to seek Jesus for his son.
[00:17:48] And there's this moment where Jesus kind of says, you know, where's your faith?
[00:17:58] And the man says, I have faith, but help me.
[00:18:02] Help me believe.
[00:18:06] And as I've sifted through this week and I've sifted through what the will of God is for our life, I truly and always wholeheartedly believe with all my soul.
[00:18:19] It is the will of God for us to believe.
[00:18:23] And sometimes we take that first step and we get baptized and we start coming to church.
[00:18:33] But sometimes the excitement of faith can wear.
[00:18:39] And what I don't want for this church is for us to be excited and then have shallow roots where the sun comes and things heat up and life gets hard and we burn out.
[00:18:52] I want us to have deep roots in Jesus Christ.
[00:18:57] I want us to have deep roots of faith.
[00:19:01] Because the world so desperately needs men and women who follow Jesus heart and soul.
[00:19:09] The church so desperately needs men and women to lead. And in these moments to say, this is bad. But listen, we don't walk by sight, we walk by faith. And there is a king who is on the throne, and his name is Jesus Christ.
[00:19:26] And when we get a little bit farther, this is. This is where all of it comes to a culmination in verse 30, 32 and 33.
[00:19:37] For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
[00:19:43] But you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added to you.
[00:19:52] You seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
[00:19:59] We seek. We seek peace.
[00:20:02] We seek love.
[00:20:05] We seek health.
[00:20:07] We seek.
[00:20:09] But where is your source when you truly want to feel love?
[00:20:17] Do you seek first his kingdom?
[00:20:22] My younger years, man, I wanted to feel love. And I didn't seek it through God.
[00:20:28] I sought it in other places.
[00:20:33] Where do you seek when you seek comfort?
[00:20:41] I love a good hug from my husband.
[00:20:45] Hallelujah for Jacob Burger.
[00:20:49] I love it.
[00:20:52] But do I seek first the kingdom?
[00:20:58] Do I seek first the king?
[00:21:00] Is my inclination.
[00:21:03] Him first?
[00:21:05] Is my inclination to get on the Internet? Is my inclination to call a friend and complain? Is my inclination to keep talking about all the stuff that's not working? Or is my inclination to seek him and his righteousness?
[00:21:26] The will of God? In first Thessalonians, it says, to be the will of God is for us to be holy.
[00:21:37] And holy has some definitions wrapped around it, but two stick out to me.
[00:21:47] One is that, like, you're morally blameless, you're pure.
[00:21:54] That feels impossible. Can I get an amen?
[00:21:57] I am unable to be holy, but I don't think that the will of God is for me to do it on my own.
[00:22:11] I think the will of God is for me to know who has the power, who it is that sits on the throne, who has the supreme authority, the goodness, the guidance, the trustworthiness. Who is it that My life I am living for and I'm surrendering and I'm giving control over you See, when I seek first the kingdom, I am not blameless, but I am connected to the one who is.
[00:22:40] When I think about the second definition of holy, there's an idea of being set apart.
[00:22:48] And let me tell you, we are supposed to be set apart.
[00:22:52] We are not supposed to blend in with this world. We are not supposed to let the culture lead and guide. We are supposed to let the Lord God in heaven work in us, shine through us. And then our praise is supposed to go back up to him.
[00:23:07] There's this Incredible quote from N.T. wright.
[00:23:11] Humans were made to reflect God into this world and then the praises of his creation back to God.
[00:23:21] We are meant to reflect to this world and then we are meant to give back the praise of creation to Jesus.
[00:23:33] It's like a two step process that feels like I can swallow that I meant to reflect something of the goodness of God.
[00:23:42] And here's the truth. When anxiety is overwhelming and listen, how many of us are lovers of Jesus and we trust in him and he is our vine and we're the branch and we're trying our hardest, but anxiety is still winning. Can I get an amen?
[00:23:58] Okay, what then?
[00:24:01] What then?
[00:24:03] I'm gonna seek him, but I'm gonna seek him in a new way.
[00:24:06] We had an incredible staff planning day and my dad gives some of his best lessons in the world. When it's like just the 20 of us and I'm always like, can we record it? Could you preach that? Could you share that? It's so good.
[00:24:19] And he was talking about the passage where it says, I am the vine, you are the branch.
[00:24:26] And I asked him the question of like, okay, what if you do feel like you are seeking God? You're abiding in him, you're trusting in him and you're doing your very best to cling at him, but life still feels man, or this is going good, but man, this sucks.
[00:24:42] What do you do when you are a Christian but you're struggling?
[00:24:49] And he said the verse answers it.
[00:24:52] Because what we do is we pray and we ask God.
[00:24:59] Okay, let's just say God, my anxiety is honestly, it's fear.
[00:25:05] I fear.
[00:25:08] I have fear because my biggest fears don't seem like they're made up. They seem like I can see them happen right in front of my eyes.
[00:25:19] So I feel anxiety because I'm afraid.
[00:25:24] And then we say, so Father, I ask to draw from your courage and I pray that I will not do this alone, but through you. And I will draw from you and your courage, and you will help me live more boldly for you.
[00:25:45] We ask specifically and we draw from the source.
[00:25:51] I heard another idea that I want to share because I just think it's so helpful.
[00:25:56] Everyone knows the half glass empty, half glass full.
[00:26:00] So the idea is half glass empty is loss and half glass full is gain. It's a thought process.
[00:26:09] And so they did an experiment where they took a group of people and they did the loss, and then they took a group of people and did the gain. So they shared the exact same statistic, but one was through the loss and one was through the game. So it sounded like this.
[00:26:29] It was to see if you would go to a doctor and have surgery, and the one that was lost. They said, this doctor does not perform well 30% of the time.
[00:26:44] And then they went over to this group and they said, this doctor produces great results 70% of the time.
[00:26:53] So guess what? They favored the doctor.
[00:26:57] They didn't like it at all.
[00:26:59] Did I say that right? Sometimes I listened back to my sermons and I was like, girl, you said that so wrong. And then you just kept preaching and no one even knows what you're talking about.
[00:27:09] Psycho. Okay?
[00:27:12] And what they learned was that when you are living in the gain, you have healthier visions, healthier expectations. When you're living in the loss, it's almost impossible to get to the gain.
[00:27:29] So if they reversed it and they took that same crew and they said, no, but you gotta hear, you gotta understand, the doctor does good. 70% of the time, they still were not able to change.
[00:27:40] Okay?
[00:27:41] So when you are coming from the loss, when you're coming from the negative, when you're coming from the anxiety, here's what I want you to try. I want you to try something different.
[00:27:51] I want you to try this idea of seek first the kingdom and instead of all the negative. Because, listen, sometimes we think we need to vent. And venting is good, and it is helpful.
[00:28:02] We just don't have to vent with every single person we come across. And the more we live in the story, the more hits we take of those feelings.
[00:28:11] And so what we think is, I'm going to vent this out and I'm actually going to get healthier. But the more I'm talking about it now I've created a loss mentality and now you're stuck deeper.
[00:28:27] Okay, so here is the practice. You are gonna say, okay, I am not in a stuck mentality. I seek first the kingdom.
[00:28:35] I'm drawing from the vine. I'm drawing strength or courage or peace or a healthier mindset from the vine.
[00:28:45] And now I am gonna focus on what is good.
[00:28:49] Now, instead of coming home and being like, I can't stand this person. Person at work, they did it again and again. And. And it's the same loop that you say instead. I'm going to say, I couldn't believe this great thing I saw at work today.
[00:29:04] And you change the focus of what you talk about. My daughter Taylor came in today and she's been in school, and it's all been all these new things. And she said, I had the best day yet. I said, what'd you do different? She said, I woke up and I told myself, I'm going to have a good day and I'm going to focus on it. I'm going to have a good day and I'm going to focus on it. And she had to win.
[00:29:25] Sometimes we have to step out of the negative loop that we have created for ourselves. And when you are a person like me, with deep worry and deep anxiety, then you have to focus even harder.
[00:29:40] And this seeking of God, listen to me, it's about a relationship church.
[00:29:47] It is about seeking a personal relationship with an incredible God.
[00:29:55] Some of us might have differing views on God, but here's what I want you to know.
[00:30:02] The more you know the heart of God, the more you love him, the more you truly understand the life of Jesus Christ, the more you see the goodness of God.
[00:30:19] And here's. I want to say one thing, and then I'm going to do something weird because I want it. But tomorrow is never promised.
[00:30:30] Jake and I used to get in these fights and we were in our worst ways. And I used to be, like, consumed with the thought.
[00:30:36] Of course I was, what if this is the last time I see him?
[00:30:42] And so that thought would push me into honestly, healthier fighting. Because I thought, if this is the last time I see him, if these are my last words, I want to be proud of who I am.
[00:30:58] Should probably think about that a little more often now. But I was really good at it back then, but I used to think it was morbid.
[00:31:10] But I think when we consider the will of God, we often think about these big decisions in our life, and it's less about the present.
[00:31:22] In fact, this whole verse ends by saying, don't be anxious about tomorrow.
[00:31:31] We don't know what tomorrow will bring.
[00:31:35] The only thing we truly know in the will of God is right now.
[00:31:40] It's the present.
[00:31:42] And in the present how do I do the everyday thing that God calls me to do?
[00:31:51] It's not a secret.
[00:31:54] We know that God wants us to love.
[00:31:58] So I want to stop asking for the angel Gabriel to show up. Do you know what I'm saying?
[00:32:03] And I want to start doing the things that I already know.
[00:32:08] I want to stop asking about like I remember, like, is Jacob the one I should marry? And I wish I would have prayed more.
[00:32:17] How do I become the woman for whoever my husband is?
[00:32:24] I don't want to be like God help me have great children.
[00:32:28] I want to pray and say, God help me be the mom that guides them to you in ways that they can hear it.
[00:32:36] You hear. There's a shift in my thinking of I want to take the present and I want to follow God heart and soul and I don't want anxiety to consume me. I want to draw from the source. I want to get unstuck, stuck. And I want to focus on the things that are of the kingdom and what happens is the saying of N.T. wright, now we are going to reflect something of the goodness of God.
[00:33:02] Now we're going to reflect something and then listen to me. The number one way I beat anxiety and worry is through praise and worship.
[00:33:12] I heard it said it's a wrecking ball to your anxiety but it's not like worship on in the background.
[00:33:20] It's like what I was saying right before service. It's like all encompassing worship where I'm believing the words, where I'm praising God.
[00:33:37] We're out of time and I have to choose.
[00:33:43] I want you to do the song. Would you mind Coming up.
[00:33:47] We were in our staff meeting and sometimes there's worship songs that say a lot about how you feel and I think those are fine.
[00:33:59] But sometimes there's worship songs that express the beauty of God.
[00:34:11] Sometimes there are worship songs that stop focusing on us and pour into him.
[00:34:23] And Lex did this old hymn.
[00:34:26] Can you come back next Cece midweek and sing the song you were supposed to? Would you mind?
[00:34:32] How old are you?
[00:34:34] She's 14. The singer who was up here.
[00:34:45] The goodness of God all over your life, baby.
[00:34:49] Thank you for sharing your gift. It's incredible. You give me goosebumps every time you draw us into the presence of and this is an old hymn and the words connect with my soul.
[00:35:11] The words make me want to sing it out for the honor and the glory of Jesus.
[00:35:18] When I praise, I can't worry.
[00:35:23] You're still physically unable when you, when you praise and you give God and your soul is connecting to Him. You feel the presence in the kind of way that you just feel moved.
[00:35:37] And I so badly want it for us. Church. I want us to know him.
[00:35:41] I want us to know and be in relationship with him where that's what we long for. So when I say seek first, you're already saying, sarah, I get to my bones, to my soul, I get it because I know the love.
[00:35:55] And once you know it, there's no going back.
[00:35:59] Once you feel it and experience it and understand it, it is like, this is what life is meant for. It is meant for praise to a king.
[00:36:09] It is meant for my. For my. Everything for Him. Everything is for Him.
[00:36:18] And you experience life different because of it.
[00:36:21] So let's worship.
