Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey New Life Gillette Church, we are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting? Yes. Newlife gillette.com here is this week's teaching.
We're going to be in the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament. If you have a Bible with you, then open up there. Or if you got the Bible app on your phone, you can open it up. If you're looking at a paper Bible and you're like, I don't know where Habakkuk is, welcome to most people.
If you turn to the middle to Psalms and start flipping to the right, you'll get there. Or if you open to Matthew and start flipping to the left, you'll get there pretty quick.
We are starting a series today, like Grant mentioned earlier and and this series is entitled Called to Serve. If you've been at New Life for a while, you remember in the Becoming Book, or if you're currently reading the Becoming Book, that's a great step for you to take to take responsibility for your discipleship. But you probably remember that we believe that if I'm going to become who I'm created to be, that there are skills or habits or disciplines, we call them skills that I need to be learning to become who God's created me to be. Those skills are to connect, gather, give, serve and influence. So looking forward, we're going to be regularly throughout the year doing series, short series where we focus in on one of these skills that help us become who we were created to be. And the first one is the skill of serving. So Habakkuk chapter three is where we're going to be. And before we go on, I want to say good morning to everybody joining us on Church 307. We're glad you tuned in this morning. Wherever you're watching from our friends over at the prison and at the jail, we're glad you're here. We're going to read two verses. Habakkuk chapter three. Starting in verse one, a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet on Shigeanath. Your guess is as good as mine.
The Lord, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat them in our day, in our time. Make them known in wrath.
Remember mercy.
Let's pray.
Jesus, this is your word and you are worthy.
You are worthy of all of our praise.
So this morning, as we regularly ask, we ask that you would speak. It would be your words that we remember.
My opinions don't matter. So if there's any of my opinions that are in this sermon, let us notice those so we can let them go.
But if there's anything we talk about that's consistent with your character and faithful to your word, would you plant it deeply in our hearts, Jesus, that we would become like you? That's why we're here.
We love you.
Amen.
I have a question that I want to ask you. Right here at the beginning. Here it is.
What causes someone to change? What is it that actually causes a human being to change?
Maybe you've heard somebody say something along the lines of, I mean, people don't really change, but you've also seen people change, right? Maybe you've experienced change in yourself. As Christians, we believe in change as a church. We say that we are a church that invites people to come as they are and become who God's created them to be, really the mechanism that's change. So I think it's worth asking, what is the thing that actually causes change? But instead of you just thinking about it, I want us to actually talk about it. So what we're going to do, there's going to be a 92nd second timer on the screen and I'm going to ask you to turn around to the people that are near you and actually talk about, what do you think causes people to change? Some of you are introverts and you're like, I knew I shouldn't have come to church today.
Look, that's okay. If you don't want to do this, just stare straightforward. No one will judge you. Just ignore it. Right? This is an introvert friendly church. But if you are comfortable, I want to ask you to turn around to someone near you and talk about what actually causes someone to change. All right, on the count of three. One, two, three, go.
That's true, though.
We got about 10 seconds left, so wrap up your conversations.
All right, now here's the tough part. Is anybody brave enough to shout out one of the things that you talked about in your group? Anybody?
Technology.
Technology causes people to change. Yes. What else? I heard somebody over here.
Yes, yes. Actions and consequences. What's that?
Trauma. Yeah, that definitely causes people to change. Love. I heard somebody say love. Nice to have a positive one life, children. Yeah. Amen.
Absolutely. This, this is a question that I've become almost obsessed with over the last nine months or so, because I think it matters. This is who we are as a church. Like I said before, this is what we ask, what we ask God to do. And what we ask people to experience is change, transformation, the theological word of sanctification.
So I've researched it, I've read the scholarship, I've processed it with other pastors, talked with friends of mine and people I know who work in mental health and work in helping people change. And I've become convinced through this process that when we boil it down, when we get down to what is the root of change, that everything else we've said is going to have one of three things in common. There are three things that cause people to change. When you get down to the bottom of it, you want to know what those three are?
All right, sweet. Here's the first one.
A miracle.
God causes people to change. And that probably shouldn't surprise you since you're here in church. We actually believe that God causes people to change. We believe in miracles. We believe God is active in the world and he transforms hearts. In fact, let me go so far as to say, if somebody tries to tell you God doesn't do miracles anymore, ignore them. God absolutely does miracles. He is active in the world. He didn't leave the world alone and refuse to act in his spirit. And after Pentecost, that didn't happen. God is active in the world. And I bet if we went through the church today, if we interviewed people around the church, we would find a bunch of stories where you or someone you know had a miracle happen in your life, and it directly changed things. I bet we would find that somebody had physical healing. God healed your body, and it changed the trajectory of your life. God provided for you financially, and it changed the way you view money, and now it's changed the way you interact. God took the addiction away in a moment. He doesn't do that for everybody, but he does it for some people. Maybe in a time of worship, maybe in a time of prayer, maybe in church or in a life group. You encountered the presence of God and he took away the bitterness and it healed your marriage in a moment. Your marriage hasn't been the same since that happened. We believe God does miracles, and miracles change people. That's what Habakkuk is talking about in this book. That's really a poem where Habakkuk is speaking to God and to the people on behalf of one another. He's prophesying and he says, lord, I've heard of your fame.
I stand in awe of your deeds. God, you did a miracle. You did a miracle. You did something and it changed things. Do it again.
Habakkuk is believing that God can miraculously Intervene, and it can change things. And that's why he's asking God to change things.
So a miracle is the first thing that causes change. Here's the second thing.
Crisis.
Crisis causes people to change.
When you hit rock bottom, there's only one option left.
Once again, I bet if we went through, all of us today, that we would all have stories where we faced a crisis and it changed something.
And some of us would have stories where a crisis saved our life, where maybe even almost our life ending changed the trajectory of our lives. Crisis changes things. It could be going to the doctor and the doctor telling you if you don't change the way you eat and you exercise, you, Your life is not going to go well. It's not going to last much longer. And that's a crisis. And it changed the way that you view the world. Now you run marathons. It could be DFS knocking on the door. It could be the addiction costing you another job. It could be bankruptcy. It could be coming home and finding her clothes gone and she moved out. A crisis caused change.
Actually, as parents, if you're a parent, we. We don't think of it this way, but as parents, we actually cause crisis to motivate change. Did you know that as parents, we use this tool in the form of punishment or consequences?
Those are both crisis. They're separate things. And while we're talking about it, it's worth identifying the difference between punishment and a crisis or a punishment and consequences. A punishment. The best way to think about a punishment is a punishment is going to jail for drugs.
Consequences are overdosing on drugs.
Punishment is designed to prevent consequences.
You punish to teach someone to change so that they avoid the consequences of that action. But as a parent, there are times where we use both to motivate change. You might have a child that has a hard time telling the truth. I'm sure that's not familiar to any of you.
And you might say, because you know what the future consequences, you know how bad it could be for someone if they don't learn the value of honesty in their life. So you take away a cell phone, you ground them, you inflict some sort of punishment on your child to motivate change. There's an action that needs to be changed, right? So you punish, you create a crisis to motivate change. Or maybe you have a child that isn't responding to punishment. You've tried and they're not interested in change.
So maybe you as a parent choose to let them experience consequences.
You choose to let them lose a Friend, because they're dishonest, you choose to let them experience what it's like to have everyone watching you all the time at school because no one trusts that you're telling the truth and they live in the consequences of those actions. You allowed or created a crisis in order to motivate change. God does this as well. We see in the book of Habakkuk, if we back up two chapters to Habakkuk, chapter one, verse 12, here's what we find. Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my holy one, you will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment. My rock. You have ordained them to punish.
God uses crisis. Now, this is really important. God doesn't punish for the sake of punishment. He's not sadistic. He doesn't take joy in punishment, but he will use crisis for a better outcome.
If nothing else will get through to us, he will allow rock bottom to get through to us. Praise the Lord that we actually don't have to wait until rock bottom.
It's up to us as to whether we wait until the crisis comes or decide to change before.
But some of us are pretty stubborn and we wait until rock bottom.
There's a third thing that creates change.
Inspiration.
Inspiration.
Are any of you willing to admit that you're kind of an impulse buyer? Anybody?
Yeah, a few of us. I'm not much of an impulse buyer. Unless there are Mike and Ikes really close to the cash register, then it's really hard for me to say no. A couple years ago, I was on social media, you know, just scrolling, and I saw one of those ads for one of those health drinks that's got like a whole forest and a whole garden of microgreens and a bunch of mushrooms and replaces meals. You know what I'm talking about? I saw one of those, and normally I don't buy that kind of stuff, but I saw it, and the picture they were using to sell it was this older guy, covered in tattoos, washboard abs, leaning up against the surfboard. And I was like, that's what I want to be when I grow up. And I bought it and it didn't work.
It turns out microgreens and mushrooms don't give you abs. You have to do more than that. But it tastes good, so we still use it. But that is inspiration. It's silly, but it's inspiration. That's what inspiration is. What happens when you see something that motivates you to do something? It's the simplest way to describe inspiration. You see something and it Motivates change. It creates a desire and builds a motivation for things to be different. You see something, or maybe you experience something, and it changes your actions. It makes you do something. So maybe you had the friend that went to the doctor and the doctor said you got to change your eating habits, you got to change the way you exercise, and now that friend runs marathons, and you're inspired.
You see the change in their life and you think, well, if that can happen to them, then I want that too. And it motivates change. Maybe you spend time around a healthy marriage. You didn't grow up around healthy marriages, but you finally see one. You see a couple that laughs together and talks through things and genuinely enjoys one another's company. And there's not that tension that exists in all of their conversations that you can feel, feel. And you think, if that's possible, I want that.
It inspires you. It motivates change. Maybe you saw somebody else get clean and you thought, if they can get clean, then I can get clean.
It motivates change. There are three things that cause a person to change. You can go back to the slide real quick.
Miracle, crisis, and inspiration.
When we get to the base of all change that a human being goes through, it's one of three miracle, crisis, or inspiration.
Now we're going to take a left turn in this sermon real quick. We're going to start talking about something totally different for a little bit, and hopefully it's going to make sense later.
I don't think it's going to surprise you when I tell you this.
Christians are called to serve.
That's probably not going to surprise you. We believe that Christians are called to serve. This is part of what we're called to do as followers of Jesus. And it's important that we define what serving means. When we say serve, here's what we mean. Serving is using your skills and resources for God and for others, taking the things that you're good at and the things that you have and putting them to use for something beyond yourself, specifically God and others. That's what serving is. We believe that Christians are called to do this. In fact, when we say that Christians are called to do it, what we really mean is that humans are called to do it. Because as Christians, we believe all humans were created for relationship with God that we experience through Jesus. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, reconciles us to God and empowers us to become who we were created to be. So we believe all humans were actually created to serve. Now, I need to take a Sidebar here, because some of us are. When you hear created to serve, what you're imagining is, like, British royalty with a monocle and a house full of butlers and maids, right?
That's not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about someone waiting on God hand and foot, okay? God didn't create house servants. There's not really anything we can do to make God's life better besides love Him. I don't know if you've noticed that or not. We can't clean his house or, like, pick up his dog's poop or anything like that.
He's pretty content on his own.
But there's something about being a human.
There's something in us that finds fulfillment when we serve. We were made in Genesis, chapter one. It's called dominion. Humans were given dominion. We have the ability to influence the world. That's another way of saying we're called to serve. We're created to serve. We are created and most satisfied when we are living for something beyond ourselves. We. Because the thing is, we are small.
My goals in life are fairly small. If I got everything I wanted in life, it would make very little difference in the world around me.
But when I live for something beyond myself, I live into a purpose for which I was created. When I serve using what I have for God and for others, what I'm called to do expands. And we get this really from the image that we are made in. Scripture tells us we're made in God's image. And Jesus said in Mark, chapter 10, verse 45, he said that for even the Son of Man, he's talking about himself when he says son of man. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So we can just say with a lot of confidence that if Jesus, who lived the perfect human life, that none of us could live if he needed to serve, if that was his intent on Earth, than ours is too. Christians are called to serve.
Here's something else that's not going to surprise you.
We're bad at it, right? You don't. You don't have to be alive very long on Earth to know that serving is not exactly what humans do. Very well. Any of you parents, then you know, right? You're raising a little human. You can see that play out.
I don't need research really to confirm this point. I don't need to read scholars to know that left to my own devices, I'm not going to choose Others or God first.
I see it in my own life every day. If I can just be vulnerable for a second.
One of the temptations I struggle with regularly that God's been revealing to me lately more than he has before, is that I have this tendency because I work in a church to convince myself that, well, for my job, you know, I'm helping people, I'm serving others. That's my job. So then when I come home and I should be serving my wife, serving my son, what I tell myself is, I've been serving people all day. Somebody needs to serve me now, right? Yeah, that's as bad as it sounds. Let's just call it what it is.
I try to find a way to justify good actions so that I don't have to do more good actions, to use right actions, to not have to do any more right actions, to try to find a way to make my helping other people get me something. Which means it's not really for others, right? It's not really for God if there's an outcome for me. Right?
It's in me. It's in us. This is why as a culture, we invented retirement. Retirement is not sinful. But as humans, we decided that the goal of work is to not work anymore. That the goal of me helping other people right now is someday other people will just help me and I won't have to. If you're retired, praise the Lord, but serve in your retirement. Don't think that it's now justification to not do work anymore because God created us to serve. We're not very good at this. It's called selfishness or sinfulness. When sin broke the world, instead of finding fulfillment in something bigger than ourselves, we now try to find fulfillment in ourselves and in getting what we want.
We're not good at serving, but if we're called to serve, and that's true, and if we're bad at it, and that's definitely true, then something needs to change.
Something has to change in our hearts and in our actions. If it's true that we're created for something and we're not good at that thing, then the only logical answer is that something needs to change.
And what we saw is that there are three ways that people actually change. Now, here's the thing about a miracle. I can't control a miracle. I don't have any leverage over God to demand a miracle from him. Now I can ask God for a miracle. That's what Habakkuk is doing. He's asking God for a miracle. God, do it again. In fact, scripture instructs us to ask for miracles. We are told to annoy God with our prayers. God doesn't really get annoyed, but it's described that way, that we should keep praying and keep praying and asking for a miracle and begging for a miracle, but we can't control a miracle. God does miracles when it is consistent with his will to do a miracle. And we ask for it and we expect it and we pray for it. That's why as a Christian, if I get sick, I go to the doctor and I pray. If I'm broke, I work and save and I pray. If I have problems in my marriage, I work on it and. And I pray. If I'm addicted, I go to rehab or AA and I pray because I believe that God can do a miracle. And I should be asking God for a miracle, but I can't control it. I can't create a miracle.
And I'm certainly not going to go around creating crisis as a church. That's not a great way to motivate change, is to create crisis in people's lives. I hope we can agree on that.
We're pretty good at creating crisis on our own, aren't we?
We don't need a lot of help with that.
We tend to make decisions that create crisis over and over again in our lives. And the really hard thing about it is that while a lot of times the crisis is my decision, there are also a lot of times the crisis is somebody else's decision and I didn't do it. But it's still a crisis.
So what do we do? As a church, we expect crisis.
We prepare for crisis. We. We love one another in crisis, we pray for one another in crisis, we provide for one another. In crisis, we help one another.
But we're not going to depend on that.
Out of these three things, the only thing we can control we have any influence over is inspiration.
Because if inspiration is when I see something or experience something and it causes action, it causes change, I can control what I'm looking at.
I can control where my mind is.
I can control whether my mind is on Christ or not. I can control whether I prioritize gathering with my community.
I can control whether I spend time in the Word of God daily to fill my mind with Jesus. I can control whether I come to worship when we sing and just kind of ignore it because I don't really like doing it and it feels weird, or I choose to ask God to meet me in worship and open up my heart to him to encounter His Truth. I can choose those things because inspiration causes change. When I see Jesus for who he really is, it causes change. That's what Habakkuk is doing. Do you want to know what Habakkuk 3, verse 1 and 2 is about? Habakkuk saw God. I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds. And it motivated him to do something. God, do it again. In our day, Habakkuk is motivated for change. Why? Because he actually knows who God is and what God is capable of. He sees the love. He sees the power. He sees the mercy. He sees all the way in the Old Testament. What John saw in chapter one, the in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God, and he was with God in the beginning. And that the light, the Word of God was the light and the life of men, and that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. He could see it. He could see that God spoke the world into existence, that it was a thought and a word that created existence. And that Word issued from the mind of God and created everything that we know. And he was captivated by that. He saw the God that forgave Israel again and again and again. And he stood shaking at the anger of God. But he responded with passion to the love of God because he knew that God's wrath always comes from his love. Because he only gets mad when the thing he love gets hurt.
He saw it and it motivated change.
When we see Jesus, it motivates change.
It means there's this. There's this temptation that when we find ourselves as Christians wanting to be consumers.
It's a word we use in church a lot.
What it means is when we find ourselves wanting to be blessed without blessing others, when we find ourselves wanting to be served without serving, when we find ourselves wanting to be fed but not give, wanting to consume rather than serve, the question we have to ask is, have I actually seen Jesus lately?
Have I seen him for who he is?
Because when I see that God, who Philippians chapter two says being in very nature, God did not consider being God something to be used for Himself, but lowered himself. When I see that, it causes me to see all of the goals for myself and all of my selfishness as silly. And it motivates change. Because I see the. The value of the servant, the suffering servant, as Scripture calls him. Have I seen Jesus? When I go home at night and I feel like I've done enough today, I don't really need to pay Attention to my son. I've done enough today. I don't really need to be attentive to my wife. I've been paying attention to other people. When that happens, the question is not I should just buckle down and try harder. The question is, have I seen Jesus?
Have I seen the way Jesus served me today?
Because if I saw the way Jesus served me, then I would have no problem serving others. If I saw what Jesus gave to me, I wouldn't be holding back. When I give to others, I would see that I'm made for something greater, that my skills and resources are to be used for God and for others.
There's a rule that proves, just proves this in church.
If you go all over, ask really anybody in the world about church and how church works, they'll tell you this. It's called the 8020 rule, and it says that 20% of the people do 80% of the giving. 20% of the people do 80 percent of the serving. It's a rule of human nature. It's not meant to be like bring guilt or anything like that. It's a rule of churches wherever there are churches. Because as humans, we're not good at serving.
And the answer isn't guilt.
The answer is to see Jesus for who he really is. Because that creates change.
So here's how we're going to respond in a moment. We are going to worship.
Scripture says that God inhabits the praise of his people, that when we worship, we encounter God and can be, if we want it, inspired by his presence.
The scripture also describes a sacrifice of praise, or in other words, when we worship, we are serving God because we're giving our glory and our love and our praise to him instead of ourselves.
So we're going to respond in worship. Before we do that, I want us to watch a video. It's a little bit of a long video, but I believe this video shows us clearly the God that we worship.
So my intent is that we see this video and are inspired again by the beauty of who God is and that it creates in us a response of worship. Let's watch this video.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: I am the might before the sword the tremors in the spear shaft I craft my ways from blazes of firestorms Absorb the failings of dead and ends to render the flaws I dance upon I am the spaces between applause the roars of hearts running through heaven's halls I breathe the forms of light and silence Stall the course of cosmic riots I am the glory of the giants Manaslu, Sagomatha Watchmen of the Asian plains they yield my name made famous through the cries of albatross flocks inflamed in Pacific fires. I am dressed in the spray of Nevada dunes, clothed in the shadows of Sahara caves I am the light of lunar flames fleshing the rains of Amazonia I paint the trains of Antarctic quests, release dominion to desert panthera I authorize the remains of Aztec tech and Inca that bloom through the visions of mountain tribes. I ride the skylines, breathe the signs, ignite the paths of astronomy's eyes. I am the unheard heard in the storms that burn on my words I am the yearn for I am the word I emerge deciduous from the wetlands of your cries rise through the moment you wake I bring the dawns that shake the fevers from your remembrance. I am here, I am imminent I am he who crosses the plains through which you strayed, Discover the parts extinction seared I dust away the dried remains of tears, drain the lakes of your regrets I wet the worlds till the soil, forsake the toil, quell the rages, sow the broken pages with my belief in you I bring the you you have never quite met. I am the desire that keeps your pillow wet I am the heartbeat you seek when you chase after dreams in the reachings and sighs you are looking for me in the body touching body it is me you seek in the groans and the longings it is me you seek in the yearning dream in the need to be seen, seen in the Love me, love me it is me you seek in the breath drop wonders, gasping hunger in the touch of a stranger that makes you feel younger in the books and the fables in the this is me Labels in the Is this me? Is this me in the Hear me, hear me say my name in the Touch me, find me, need me, find me in the ache, aching pain in the love, the music, the beats, the taste and the heat and the need and the need for embrace in the color, the gaze, the meaning, the desire in the flame of the voice and the spirit of the fire when you cry for more my name you weep I am he who waits for you to reach I reach for you and wait when you lie half broken and awake I am the watchman of your sleep I wait and wait till the shakings cease.
I am the truth they call release when the darkness flares and starts to speak I sculpt the shades of daybreak it is me you seek.
