and to be with you. And I pray
that you feel the same. I pray that you feel the same. You know, everything that we
experience in life has a context. What that means is that there's
a sense in which we experience it, there's a set or boundaries
or a specific experience in and of itself in which we experience
other experiences. Simply put, depending on where
we are and what we're doing and how we're thinking will help
us see things in a certain way. Our perception is heavily guarded
by context. So when you're out in public
and you are at a public park or somewhere and you hear the
word and your children are with you, you turn around, and it
may or may not be your children, but there's a context there because
my children are with me. When Robin and I went to Florida
in February by ourselves for the first time ever, the first
day I would hear, Daddy, I turn around, and by the end of that
day, I never heard the word again because the context was different.
I was not with them anymore. Same thing is true, these shirts
that I've now been able to fit in after, you know, so many years.
These shirts I've had for a long, long time since Jacob was a baby.
But when I took, when I'm wearing these clothes, people, oh, that's
a neat shirt. That's neat embroidery. That's pretty cool. When I took
it to the cleaners down here, a slew of them, they charged
me the blouse price. And you've got six blouses and
two men's shirts and a pair of slacks. No, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no. Why? Because of the pink tax, you know. The blouse is
like $10 to dry clean. The man's shirt is like four
cents. I mean, you know, nasty men's
clothes because ladies will pay it. It's just, that's the only
difference. It's not, there's a context.
It's hanging on the rack. You might say it's a blouse. If it's
on me, it's not, but it could be. Does it matter? Living an authentic life It's
something that I think is commanded of us by the scripture. We're
told to speak the truth in love. We're told to not deceive. We're told to bear one another's
burdens, to confess our sins to one another. Now think about
that for a moment. How are we to bear a burden that
we don't know about? What burden? Help me pick up this trailer.
Help me pick up this sofa. The burden of getting it moved,
which is coming up sometime soon for some of us, is of course
a burden, a need, but also the burden of hearing, of listening,
of caring, of being concerned, of providing for simple needs,
financial needs, food needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs,
and all of us cannot provide for all of those things. But
that's part of living an authentic life, is having some type of
relationship in a safe way, in a guarded way, that intimacy
can grow and be experienced in the context of security to be
ourselves. Last week, I talked a lot about
shame. and the week before, and how we live in a culture that
has just become shame-based. And I will tell you that this
is, you know, my experience. It's not the point of truth for
everyone, but for me, relatively speaking, the truth is that most
of the shame that I have experienced in my life has Not most, all
of the shame that I've experienced in my life has come from people
who say that they are recipients of mercy. And it comes in large scales. and long scales and great deep
ends on a spectrum. It comes from what are you doing
wearing that shirt to why are you growing a beard to don't
you know you shouldn't wear those types of shoes to why are you
have jeans on in the pulpit to why are you wearing a suit in
the pulpit to what are you doing having church service on Saturdays.
What kind of church meets at 2 p.m. Remember those days? We
did. What kind of church meets in
a house? What kind of church, you know, what kind of father
lets his child do? What kind of mother fixes this
type of food? Why is your hair up? Why is your
hair short? Why is your hair down? Why is your hair long?
Why is your makeup on? Why don't you have makeup on?
Why is there a hat on in church? Why is there a hat on inside?
Why didn't you open that door for that lady? I mean, these are just manners,
but they're shame-based. Someone, somewhere decided that
sometime in the history of our culture, these are the rules. Somewhere, sometime, somewhere
along the way in the Puritan-esque westward expansion, escape from
religious persecution, the Church of Jesus Christ in the West became
the persecutors. And we've done so, so subtly.
We've done such a wonderful job of oppressing one another that
every one of us in this room, in the sound of my voice, every
one of us listening to this because they're away or isolated, every
believer and unbeliever lives in some way in a prison of shame. You cannot live an authentic
life in a shame-based society. Because shame breeds fear, and
fear, I don't have time for what I want
to say, but you're gonna hear it in the months to come. You're
gonna read it more than you'll hear it from my pen. But fear has been the tether
to life for me for 49 years. And the irony behind that is
I have preached for 25 years, what? Freedom, rest, joy, hope,
life, abundance, glory. I mean, these are words that
express something starkly different from the reality of the world
in which we are experiencing presently. I mean, you can't
even decide for yourself what's good for your own body without
the culture around you telling you that if you choose this,
you're wrong, bad, or wicked. Or if you do this, you're a sheep,
a coward, a sellout. Or if you do this, you're dumb,
ignorant, or stupid. You see where it goes? I mean,
as a man, Brothers, we grew up under this, didn't we? Our fathers
and great, and grandfathers and great grandfathers. Dummy, don't
put, don't put unleaded gas in your car. Remember those days? You even know what that is? You
know what leaded gas is? I mean, you know, now it's like
don't put that flex fuel in your car. Don't put high octane in
your car. Little bit of spit, little bit
of dirt, little bit of, And you're good to go. I mean, there's always
some weird example of someone telling us at some time in our
life what is stupid, wrong, or absurd. And we never think about
it again. We never consciously go, oh,
I'm gonna filter this, I'm gonna think about it again. But what
we do is we behave in a manner congruent with that belief. And as a people, as a spiritual
family, beloved, over the last 11 years, We're in year 12, aren't
we? No, yes, year 12. Gosh, that's a lifetime. We've come a long way, we've
erased and run and escaped many of these things, but when I look
at the Word of God, when the Spirit of God testifies to my
spirit about some of these bonding things, especially in the state
of despair that I have been in over the last two and a half,
three years. Let's just say four years. It's easy to see that, yeah,
we've moved. But if the line to freedom is
100 miles away, I'm trying to learn to listen well again. I
haven't been able to listen well in a long time because I talk
all the time in here. And now this is quiet. Now this is loud. But those of you who listen well,
you hear it. You hear what I'm saying even before I know what
I'm trying to say. You hear the process of shepherding
coming through. Shepherding is to take what is
true that all of us can glean and then apply it in such a way
that there's oversight and care and tenderness and direction,
not demanding, not commandments. Not shame and fear and guilt,
but no condemnation. If the God of glory is not condemning
us because of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, then
why is it that we feel sometimes so pressed to condemn others
in our own minds? And that's not the point of today.
Today is about living an authentic life. Today is the closing sermon
in the Psalm 40, which I'm cutting four weeks short. The closing sermon. Verse 17
of Psalm 40. I've emphasized it a dozen times
over in the last month or so. As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me. You, O Lord, are my help
and my deliverer. Do not delay, O my God. What does this show us? It shows us Christ, the Christ. That's not his name, that's who
he is, Jesus. According to the scriptures,
as David whined and complained and wrote all these Psalms to
sing and dance for and to worship with and to be authentic through,
I mean, think about it. How many of us would write an
essay on our adultery? How many of us would write an
essay on our murder? How many of us would write an expose about
ourselves and think that it would be profitable unto praise? I'm writing for the first time
in my life. And I'm learning that the stories
of my days are just the stepping stones to praise. They are not me. And they are not about me. Beloved,
understand that. Authenticity starts by knowing
who we are. Jesus Christ knew who he was. Psalm 40 verse 17 expresses what
Jesus expressed. expresses what Jesus lived, expresses
what Jesus prayed, expressed what Jesus taught. Jesus taught,
I am not here of my own accord. Jesus taught, I am yet but a
lowly servant. Jesus called himself the Son
of Man. Jesus answered every argument
with giving praise and glory to the one who sent him. He,
as God, was sent by God. What? It's not for us to parse
that into intelligence. It's for us to receive that through
the divine work of God and rest in it. And it's what we want. It's what
I want. It's what I want for you. And it's what I've been
trying to show all of us my entire adult life, that this is the
point of living. But yet it's so easy to stand
in a place of experiencing the freedom of the gospel or the
freedom of life and then to step right outside very subtly this
way and then find ourself in bondage just again. So then when
we're in bondage, our lives are no longer authentic. Now see, this type of talking
is, Lord help me, this type of talking is considered what most
people call, in a pejorative way, that means it's a word made
to malign and speak negatively, it's called liberalism. Because when we step off the
line of pragmatism, which is doing and being and following
the rules, we become liberal. Yes! Hallelujah! Praise God for
where there is liberalism, there is life. The word means freedom. Did you know that? Let's see the bondage we're in
and fear. We can't even use the word rightly because it violates
some of our political points of view. So we dismiss it. Praise God, someone calls me
liberal for preaching the gospel of grace. They're right. Because
it is a message of liberty. It is a message of life. And I don't care. about people's
opinions. I care about people's freedom
and joy and life. Then I care about their opinions.
I'm concerned with them, but I'm not concerned with their
pejorative hate. You see the difference? See,
we can't even be honest about specific and very myopic things. We can't even as people say,
oh, I hate this about something. Oh, you can't hate. Of course
you can. We're not black and white. Not everything is just so easy
to figure out. And if we say we don't hate anything,
then we're not living authentically. We're lying, we're lying, and
we're lying to ourselves, and then we know ourselves, and then
we lie to ourselves, and then the lies become the truth, but
then the subconscious goes, but this is not a truth about me.
And then the next thing we know is that we're self-fulfilling
all the prophecies that everyone said about us to begin with.
Jesus is the one who is poor and needy, yet He is the God
of glory. Jesus is the one whom the Father
took note of and lent down. Why? Because we are the poor
and needy. So He took on flesh, according
to the scripture, to be like us in every way except sinless,
blameless, perfect. And as God the Son cried to God
the Father, you are my help, you are my deliverer, oh my God
do not delay, so we also cry in the same way by the Spirit. You are my God, oh do not delay,
you are my deliverer. The one who was delivered is
our deliverance. And if you want a depth of that,
last week's sermon sort of put the icing on the cake of the
previous teachings. Authenticity. If we're not living authentically,
if we're not being ourselves openly. Now, let's do a caveat here.
There's wisdom in being quiet about some things. There's prudence
in not being brutally honest. And that's not what I'm talking
about. For some reason, that's sort of where a lot of people
go, I'm just keeping it real. Keeping it real is being a rear
end. Speaking the truth in love is
not being a rear end. Because they're speaking the
truth because our love for someone else is more important than et
cetera. And so, yes, there is a sense
in which we are to say there's wisdom in not being so open. But the problem comes is when
we're actually creating. a posturing of who we are and
what we stand for and where we are in life and what we're hoping
for that is not even who we are and then we don't even know who
we are. So we're doing something that the world would say qualifies
us to go to Hollywood. What's it called? Acting. What's the Greek transliteration
for the word acting? Hypocrisy. That's the literal
translation. An actor was a hypocrite. A hypocrite
was an actor. That's what it means, but yet
we have taken hypocrite and thought, hmm, we know that's bad. It's
acting. So when we're acting in any sense, we're hypocrite. Authenticity. Who are you really? And most of us would say, I don't
know. And you'd be honest. Remember the woman of Sychar
when Jesus and John 4, you know, one of my favorite evangelistic
pushes when I'm sharing the gospel is John 4. And this woman has come to this
place and she's talking to Jesus. Jesus is talking to her. She's
amazed about the entire intercourse. And wow, she comes to start to confess
some things to Jesus that he already knew, and he says to
her, you tell the truth when you say. Do you know what she thought? She probably thought at that
moment that she was about to be condemned. Because the man you now, matter
of fact, you've had many husbands and the man that you are now
with is not yours. Let's just call it for what it
is. You've had many men that were yours and now the man that
you're with now is not yours. And she was thinking, I'm condemned.
But instead of condemning her, he gives her life. He gives her
living water by the spirit. He breathes into her breath that
she's never inhaled before. And confronted then in the divine
work of regeneration, which is the granting of a disposition
to rest in the person of Jesus Christ with whatever knowledge
the Spirit gives you. There's not a list of precepts
that are necessary for regeneration. That's God's business. She swells
into her lungs spiritually the fullness of living, the fullness
of authenticity. And as her mind begins to wonder
about all the things that she has acted out for her entire
life to try to posture to be something that she wasn't, even
worshiping at the temple in Sychar as part of her facade, she breathes
out into the air of her enemies, oh goodness, I have met a man
that has told me everything that I've ever done and been. Now
you put that in there. Could this be the one anointed,
sent by God? That's what it means to be the
Christ, you know. Yes! And this is the day after the
very law keepers, the very scripture holders, the very oracle guarders
have pushed Jesus out of the temple. and denied His authority
to answer, to answer the prophecy to have
zeal for His Father's house. And they're dumbfounded. They're
not breathing. They're not living. They're not
spiritual. They're dumbfounded over there in Jerusalem when
this man, Jesus of Nazareth, whose Father we know and we know
when He was born, they were not together. Ooh, shame, shame. See, the world's way of worshipping
is shame driven and fear based. The Lord's way of worshipping,
oh hey, it's in John 4, isn't it? In spirit and in truth. It's living. It's living. It's not laying under the rubble
of depravity. Peeking with a straw to find
a way to get a little bit of oxygen to make it through the
next day. No, we stand on top of the trash.
We stand on top of the peak. We are so high above the world
that we cannot see the garbage below us in the context of our
spiritual life. Because Christ was raised up
and he rose up and he ascended up far above all things. You ever been on an airplane?
You can't see the ground. when you're above the clouds.
But that's where we are, that's authenticity. You are there in
Christ. So this nonsense of woe is me,
oh, beat myself and starve myself and throw myself on a fire and
tear my clothes and put ashes and sackcloth, nonsense. I preach liberally, the liberalism
of liberty. And that is truth. That is truth. See, and I know, it's like, I
know what anxiety feels like now. I know what the physiological
aspects of anxiety does. And I know that when I say stuff
like that, some of you are like, yeah, there's a little knot in your stomach. Swallow
it. Take a deep breath. And let God
be true. And every man a liar. Especially
me. There's two parts of being authentic
in life. There's many parts, but there's
two pillars that I'm going to emphasize this morning. This
is not exhaustive. This is my journey in Psalm 40.
Show and tell time. Right? That's what preaching
is. Show and tell time, lesson time, application time, and then
we watch and live together. The pillar of dependence, well, the platform of dependence
with two pillars, codependence and interdependence. Now, for
those of you who understand much about relationship, anthropology,
psychology, all the other ology, biology, biologies, and isms.
You know what those two things are. Interdependence is that
we need each other and we work together. If you're a biologist,
it's a symbiosis or things of that nature. We depend upon each
other mutually. Codependence is parasitic. If I'm codependent upon you,
then I suck all that I need out of you at the cost of you, you
know, like pregnancy. All right, in life, I'm gonna
go ahead and give you the punchline, in the church, in marriage, in
relationships, there is no healthy codependence. It is always unhealthy
until you get into philosophy and thinking outside the lines
of the primer, and then we're just talking nonsense anyway.
And I'm saying that loosely, I'm just, I'm being fun. A little
humor, a little playfulness. You know me. And you know I think about thinking
too much to think. But interdependence, that's where
it is. Yet there is, for the believer,
a necessary codependence, a complete dependence upon another. And
that is what verse 17 shows. Jesus, the Son, on this earth,
was codependent upon the Father. I don't want to get into our
theological hammers and anvils and start beating this out. I'm
happy to in a hobbyistic, loving way. I'm not going to debate
this in the context of my eternal salvation. I am never going to
do that again with anyone. But what I will say is that Jesus Christ was completely
dependent upon the Father's will. He says it. Therefore, completely
dependent upon the Father's promises. Therefore, completely dependent
upon the Father's power. He was codependent. And we are codependent upon Him
for everything. But we are interdependent otherwise. How are we dependent upon God?
Well, let me just give you a few verses. Matthew 4. And my God,
verse 19, Paul says to the church of Philippi, my God will supply
every need of yours according to the riches and glory in Christ
Jesus. So we're dependent upon God for
what? Everything, His provision, His help. Matthew 6, what does
Jesus say? Seek first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness. And what's the latter part of
that text? And all these things will be added unto you. Therefore,
because of this, do not be anxious about tomorrow. For tomorrow
will be anxious enough for itself, sufficient for the day as its
own trouble. My wife has been one of the biggest cheerleaders
in my life in this principle alone. by a mere statement of
saying, often, quit borrowing trouble. Stop. I shouldn't give her permission
to do this, but, you know, a couple of slaps every now and then might even
be better. You're borrowing trouble, dummy, boom. You know, when someone's
drowning, they're freaking out, you slap them and then you pull
them out. I've been drowning so long, so many times, so many
seasons of my life, And more recently, I've experienced the
positive side of drowning. What is it? Freedom. Baptism into Christ is death. We do it underwater for a reason.
We don't have gills. Rewriting the narrative. and
the spiritual elements of baptism, aren't we? And the picture in
which it is so superficial. Thousands of years, hundreds
of years. So superficial. We also are dependent upon God's
care. Peter tells us to cast all of
our anxieties on him because he cares for you. Jesus even
talks about two sparrows that are sold for a penny. hairs on
our heads. You ever clean the drains out
in your bathroom? Where'd all that hair come from?
You! And yet the scripture gives us,
God the Son gives us that explanation that God the Father knows the
number. I mean, we don't even know how
much salt we've got in the cabinet. Do I have salt? Do I need salt paper? I don't need salt paper. I know
how much salt paper I have. Salt, we ran out of salt a couple
of weeks ago. We're like banging the bottom
of the thing trying to get it out. How do you run out of salt? Because you're not counting it.
But yet God counts the sparrows. God counts the hairs that fall
from our head in his attentiveness. He's not up there busy doing
this. It's just to tell us the story of His attentiveness. How
much more important are you, beloved, than sparrows and loose
hair? We trust in God's care for us.
We are dependent upon God for hope and salvation. I'm going
to close the sermon out with this, but we're going to go to
interdependence in a moment. Romans 8. Not only the creation,
verse 23, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the
Spirit, we groan inwardly. This is patiently waiting for
the Lord. Remember a couple of weeks ago? Maybe the first sermon
in Psalm 40? We groan inwardly as we eagerly
wait for adoption as children. The redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not
hope. For who hopes for what he doesn't see? I mean, who hopes
for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do
not see, we wait with patience. We are dependent completely upon
the Lord's hope of salvation. I love the first, well, not the
first two verses, but three, four, and five of 1 Peter 1.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according
to his great mercy. He has caused us to be born again,
brought to life, regenerated to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Unto an inheritance
that is these, listen to these words. Listen to these adjectives,
an inheritance that is Imperishable, undefiled, unfading. Where is this thing? Kept in
heaven for you, who you, who by God's power are being guarded,
strongly secured, sealed, held through faith for salvation,
ready to be seen and revealed in the last day. and the sentiment, the mentality,
the attitude, the approach, the psychology, the emotion of living
an authentic life, being dependent upon the Lord. It brings about
the fruit of this, which is thankfulness. I want you to hear me, church.
It's not piety, it's not putting to death some stuff so that we
can look the part for those people who care too much. It's not for
us to go to bed and go, you know what? Them whole grain noodles
I cooked today, man, God is so happy. Eat whole grain, eat half grain,
eat third grain, I don't care what you eat, eat double grain.
God is not interested. Because we're not eating Ezekiel
bread and we're not eating Joseph's food. If you want to, it is your
choice, but it is not pleasing or displeasing. Do you see what
I'm saying? I'm picking on that because that's our story. In
our 20s, we're like, Jesus diet. I mean, we want to be healthy. Great. But don't tether it to
our hope. Don't listen to the, you know,
the godly people about finances. Don't you ever go in debt. You
better pay cash for your house. I appreciate that. Mister, I
made $400 million in the stock market when I was 20 and daddy
gave me a billion to go. Self-made man, my rear end. You know, it's
easy for somebody who has it all to tell us what we ought
to do with what we don't have. And then say, and the Lord saith,
the Lord ain't saith nothing. Just understand what indebtedness
does. Understand that every contract we make has a call-in date. Thankfulness. Rejoice. Always. Always. Let's just stop for a
minute and meditate on that. Just breathe in, always. Breathe
out, always. Think about always. Always. Always. You know, in good, nonviolent
communication, we learn to not ever say always and never. You
remember that? You always. You never clean up
your messes. You always talk back. That's
not true. When I'm asleep, you're lying.
I'm not doing those things. But you're dreaming about it.
I mean, you know, whatever. You're always dreaming or thinking
or wanting to do these bad things. No, I'm not. So we don't think,
but when it comes to our dependence upon the Lord for our thankfulness,
it is not in us. Some of us have the disposition
to be very thankful, to be very positive, to be very openly expressive
of the things that are good in our life, but there's some of
us who on the other side of that coin are just the bah humbugs
of the world. And I used to be the attitudes
everything, awesome, everything's great, woohoo! And then, you
know, I turned 30. Depending on how my coffee tastes
that day was depending on my attitude. Or who was around. I saw a meme yesterday, this
woman with this look on her face. It's sort of like the software
update that pops up. When you come around, I feel
the same way. Oh no, not now. You know? You
ever been in the middle of something and pop up, hey, would you like
to update now? No, it's two o'clock in the afternoon and I'm working.
I'm in the middle of a GPS in downtown Los Angeles. No, don't
update my phone. You know, that kind of stuff.
Yeah, it's our attitudes, but God provides through his work
and through authenticity, and through the authenticity of His
expression of Himself authentically, that's revelation, that's glory,
seeing the death of Jesus Christ and the life of Jesus Christ
on our account, we have the privilege divinely working in us to depend
upon God to make us thankful. It is Him working in us. Pray
without ceasing. Always rejoice, always pray. Come on, how are we doing? Until
we get these two down to an absolute perfect discipline, I don't think
we should be doing anything else. But the sad thing about somebody
like me saying that to some people from this position is that now
some of you will be guilt ridden into thinking I need to rejoice
and pray. I'm just so thankful I'm having to pray all day, God.
I mean, you know, that's no, it's genuine gratitude. It's
genuine thankfulness. It's genuine joy. Give thanks
in all circumstances, for this is the will of God and Christ
Jesus for you. Now, we should teach a sermon on that. We should
teach some series on that. Philippians 4, 6 and 7. Do not be anxious about anything.
Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
to God. And then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. You see how illogical what I'm
saying is? It surpasses all, that's just
not gonna work. You know, you're right. You just
keep on doing what you're doing. Hey, James, I just need to change
some things in my life. Okay, just do this. Nah, it just
ain't gonna work. Just keep doing what you're doing.
Months later, things have not changed. Well, just keep doing
what you're doing. Or do this. Nah, I'm not gonna do that. It's
just not gonna work. You see, a piece of God which surpasses
all understanding will guard your hearts, guard our affections,
guard our emotions, guard our ups and downs. We're gonna have
them. and guard our minds in Jesus
Christ. And that's a complete codependence
upon the Lord for all those things, and many, many more, but these
are ones that are just so important for us right now. I think these
are the baby steps of this understanding. But the scripture also emphasizes
an interdependence in others, in life. And this is often where
we end up failing is because we're so disciplined to be dependent
upon the Lord by ourselves in our homes. We're so programmed
to be so independent of others that we become codependent without
even knowing it. We become codependent on our
independence. We become codependent on our
own strength. We become codependent upon our own identity. Who am
I? What have I accomplished? And then in doing so, the subtlety,
and I want to remind myself of what I'm about to say, the subtlety
of being completely inward thinking, selfish, and self-absorbed. deceives us and then we're right
back to acting and we don't even know it. Paul writes the church of Corinth,
you know, the best church in Asia Minor. For as the body,
chapter 12, verse 12, 1 Corinthians, for as the body is one and has
many members, so are the members, all the members are of the body.
though many are one body. So it is with Jesus. But God,
who has so composed the body, giving great honor to the part
that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but
that the members may have the same care for one another. If
one member suffers, all suffer. If one is honored, all rejoice.
Now you, beloved, are the body of Christ and individually members
of it. We're interdependent. And when one of us is not functioning
in thankful rejoicing, the rest of us suffer. And that, according
to the scripture, is part of God's absolute purpose and plan
for us. Hebrews 10, you hear this a lot
of times in dogmatic ways, without care, and it becomes a rule and
a law to live by with the fear of condemnation and shame. And
that is Hebrews 10, 24 and 25. You know it, for those of you
who are familiar with that text. And do not, no, it doesn't start
there. It says, let us, right? And let
us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. But what's that next parenthetical?
Not neglecting to meet together. See, you thought that that's
what the verse said. Do not neglect to meet together. That's not
what it says. It tells us what we ought to
be doing. And then if we ought to be doing this, then neglecting
to be together excludes that function. There's a reason so many people
are so, have such dissonance in the context of intimacy, in
their lives, especially as Christians, because until we have the ability
and the strength to be authentic without shame and fear with each
other, We're never going to be authentic in our homes, in our
marriages, with our children, and in the world around us. Think
about that. Some are in the habit of neglecting
to be together. But don't do that. Think about how we can
stir each other up to love and good works. It doesn't tell us
to be nosy and busybodies and stick our nose in everybody's
business and try to formulate who we think everybody ought
to be. We ought to be different. Everybody's different. Everybody
has different liberties. Everybody has different levels
of what their conscience can handle. And we're sensitive to
those with a weaker conscience. Usually those people with a weaker
conscience are the ones who think everybody ought to be toeing
a certain line, a little bit stricter. Those are the weaker people. Because it takes a lot of confidence
in the grace of God to get to the point where Paul has to say,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, the grace of God's not a license
to go crazy. Simmer down a little bit. See, that's what Paul says,
isn't it? Because the gospel is that pure regarding freedom. There's nothing you can do, no
sin you can commit. No activity, no frustration,
no anxiety, no fear, no attitude, nothing you can do to separate
you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus your Lord.
That's it. And that unsettles some of us.
Antinomian, antinomian. Okay, whatever. If you think
grace is antinomianism, then tattoo it to my forehead. I'll
wear it proudly. liberalism, antinomianism, stupidism. I don't care. What I do care
about is freedom. What I do care about is joy.
What I do care about is you and I living together in a way that
we can be honest without fear that somebody's going to reject
us or hate us or talk trash about us or gossip. It's gonna happen
in the world, but it'll not be happening with us. It doesn't
have to, and I don't think it does. It has, but it doesn't. We are codependent in that context,
not codependent, we are interdependent, but not codependent. We're not
completely dependent upon each other for anything. We are interdependent
with each other. We are to be working together
to help. There are things that I can do in my strengths, and
there are things that I can't do in my weaknesses that I have
been trying to do with strengths. Those things are learning. I'm
not putting them up for later, like all the leftover screws
from the IKEA furniture that I've had for 30 years, you know?
Bag of bolts is now a five-gallon bucket that's now a tub. No,
no, no, no, no. Just throw them away. I'm getting
rid of things that I can't do, that I don't do well and that
I don't have the gifts in. Quit trying to beat everything. I
know what I can do, so I'm gonna do those well. And you have things
that you can do well. There are ways that you can help
each other that you can do well. You can't answer everything.
And you know what the best thing to do when we have these things come
up in our lives, in our homes, with our children, and our jobs,
and our marriages, and our friendships. When somebody has a need and
we can't answer it, we need to say, you know, I hear it. I see
that that's what you need. I can't answer that for you right
now. Try this. Call this person. Let me find
somebody else to help you. That's the best thing to do.
Carrying each other's burden is not to pretend like we've
got to fix it when we can't fix it. That's silly. Then we enable
codependency. So interdependency, loving and
serving others. In Mark's gospel, chapter 12,
verse 28, and one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing
with one another and seeing that he answered them well, the scribe
asked him, this is Jesus being asked of Jesus, which commandment
is the most important of all? And Jesus answered. Listen to what he says. The most
important is, oh, listen, Israel. He starts to quote it, right?
Hear, oh, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you
shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And Jesus
said these things, and those who were trying to catch him
took a big proverbial breath and went, Yet they didn't really want to
know what Jesus thought, because they really didn't want him to
be right. He was right. And they're like, yes, got it.
And then before he could take another breath, before they could
take another breath to enjoy the essence of that glory, he
goes, and the second one of equal importance. I said, the greatest. And Jesus is like, yeah, here
it is. You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. There is no greater commandment
than these. For the first time in the human
mind, 2,000 plus years ago, these people heard the record needle
scratch. They didn't even know what it
was. What was that sound on my mind? What was that sound? They heard it. DJ AD, you know. or CE, depends on where you are
in your academics. It's like hunting them right
out of the park. Love your neighbor as yourself.
You mean the Samaritans? No, you mean my other fellow
actors. In our actors' guild, we call
worship service. In our actors' union, we call
the world Hobby Lobby. our headquarters, you know, Chick-fil-A,
our cafeteria, and the list goes on. And I'm making fun jabs at
cultural things. We're to love and serve each
other. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility
count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of
you look not only to his own interests, we do look after our
own interests, but also to the interests of others. That's an
interdependency. And we do need to take time,
beloved, to take care of ourselves and take care of our own interests
and to have things that are outside of others. We do need time to
be alone and to build and develop our thoughts and our minds and
our bodies. We do need time to find things that we enjoy doing
that don't require another soul in life. But that's not an existence
that will last, just like an existence that's completely dependent
upon others will not last. We give and we take equally as
fits the occasion so that, why? We may build one another up.
And I even read this, I think, last week. He gave the apostles,
the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers to
equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building
up of the body until we all attain the unity of the faith and to
the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ. so that we may no
longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves, carried
around by every wind of teaching, by human cunningness, by craftiness
and deceitfulness. Rather, speaking the truth in
love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head,
into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together
by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is
working properly." And here's the key. What does it mean to
grow up? What does it mean to be mature? Here it is, makes
the body grow so that it builds itself up in love and love is
not conditioned. Therefore, Paul would tell the
Thessalonians, encourage one another and build each other
up just as you were also doing, do it more. So that is our call to interdependence. We are codependent upon the Lord.
We are interdependent upon each other and every relationship
is interdependent. And once a child reaches a certain
age, which I would say probably four or five, they are no longer
co-dependent upon a parent, maybe even younger. And I see videos
all the time and records of people who are three and four composing
symphonies. And if they could reach the peanut butter and jelly,
they could eat. I mean, it's not like they have to have us. But the New Testament speaks
about our complete dependence upon Christ and His grace. forgiveness,
His righteousness, redemption, salvation, and other things.
Listen to some of these verses. The forgiveness and redemption
through Christ alone. We are codependent upon Him in Ephesians 1, 7. In
Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. Colossians
1, 13 and 14, he has delivered us from the domain, I've already
talked about this today, from the domain of darkness and transferred
us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins. Titus 2, 14, he who gave himself
for us to redeem us from the lawlessness and to purify for
himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for
good works. We are codependent upon Christ for righteousness
and faith. The righteousness of God, Romans 3.22, through
faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. 2 Corinthians 5.21,
for our sake He, God the Father, made Him to be sin who knew no
sin so that in Him, Jesus Christ the Son, we might become the
righteousness of God. Philippians 3. Paul says, and
to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that
comes from law keeping or doing or good works, but that righteousness
which comes through faith in Jesus Christ, trusting in the
righteousness of Christ, the righteousness from God that depends
on faith. Faith is a gift of God in that
same context. We are so codependent, as we've
already said, about salvation. But who? Through Jesus Christ
alone. God is the God of salvation. He's not offering salvation.
He's secured salvation. He's finished salvation. He's
applied salvation. Jesus says, I am the way and
the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except
through me. In Acts chapter 4 verse 12, and there is salvation found
in no one else, no other name under heaven, given among men
by which we must be saved except the name of Jesus. Ephesians
2, 8 and 9, you know this, for by grace you have been saved
through faith, and faith is not of your own doing, it is the
gift of God. It is not a result of works, so that no one may
brag about what they've done. Boast. We are completely codependent
upon God's, on God's grace for wisdom and for guidance as we
traverse this life. 2 Corinthians 12, 9 and 10, but
he said to me, this is Paul, remember he prays for God to
erase and remove this pain in his life, whatever it might be.
It doesn't matter, and the reason he doesn't tell us is because
we don't want to be so myopic in its application. It's like
the pit. My grace is sufficient for you.
My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I, Paul says, will
boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power
of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then,
I am content with weaknesses. I am content with insults. I'm
content with hardships. I'm content with persecutions
and calamities. For when I am weak, Christ is
strong. Paul writes to the Hebrews, chapter
4, verse 16, let us then with confidence draw near to the throne
of grace that we may receive mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. The fifth chapter of 1 Peter,
verse 10, and after you have suffered a little while, the
God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ
will himself... will himself, listen to this,
restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. That is an
authentic life. Eternally. That is an identity
that no one can seize or challenge. And that's who we are. Before we close, I want to revisit
again, Hosea 11, 4. Where the Lord writes these words,
I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I
became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I
bent down to them and I fed them. But this is what it's all about. It's about a loving God, not
looking to whip us into shape so that we might be worthy. It's
about a loving God who sees us as we are, with no way of hiding
anything from Him, and He loves us in spite of us, and He shows
us that He loves us by putting Christ in our place. And when we eat at the Lord's
table, we're reminded of the taste and the textures of these
things, and we're reminded of the fact that God has fed us
life through the death of Christ. And in doing so, we rejoice. and we fight, we labor. Life
is hard and we're always seeking other ways to fill little cracks
and voids, other ways to posture ourselves in a way that we have
an identity that others might go, yes, I see this. But the
scripture says that Christ, though he was the God of glory, subjected
himself not to that. As the King James says, thought
it not robbery to lower himself. As normal English speakers would
say, he did not take equality with God, something to be made
much of, but he lowered himself to become nothing, obedient to
death, even as a criminal on the cross. Therefore, God has
highly exalted him. Beloved, we will share in the
glory of Christ physically. Because we share in the death
of Christ spiritually. That's what this table reminds
us of. Let us prepare our hearts for that today. Let's pray. God, there is no shame. There
is no guilt. There is no death for us. And while we do feel
and hear and contemplate these things, we thank you that Christ
is sufficient. Help us to rest in a codependency
upon you and your love and mercy and kindness and power and truth.
And Lord, teach us and develop in us an interdependency for
each other that oftentimes will be imbalanced, but that's okay
because the balance will turn in times of despair, in times
of need we can receive. and in times of need, we can
give. Help us to be humble with great
empathy, living in absolute patience, kindness, and quietness, so that
we may be seen not as ourselves in great confidence, but that
we may be seen as yours in great confidence. We thank you for this truth and
for this power in Christ's name. Amen.