Our Love: How God Works Through Us, Part 2

“Fix your eyes on Jesus.” In other words, pursue intimacy with Jesus as your number one priority. This is Jesus: The one that has My Word, the one who does My will, that’s family. The people who don’t, aren’t. He that keeps my commands is the one who loves me.” And then the promise is, “And I will love him or love her and then I will disclose Myself. We get it all too complicated. Just obey what God shows you for where you’re at right now, and He’ll show you what’s next.

But you can’t get direction and you can’t get to know Him if you don’t take Him up on the fact that He said the way He is going to create new life and sustain new life and transform us is taking the Spirit of God and the written Word and making it the living Word and putting it inside of you in a way in the context of relationships where, little by little, and it takes time. And it’s a process and He will make you, over time, more and more and more like Jesus.

And here’s the weird thing, the more you’re like Jesus, the more people like you, right? You’re a kind person, you’re a forgiving person, you’re an understanding person, you’re an others-centered person, you have more friends, you have more joy. The more you give your life away, actually, the more you get. But there’s – it’s really hard to do, isn’t it? I want my way. My flesh says, “If I had that or if I accomplished that or if, if, if…”

I’ve got news for you. I’ve been around awhile now. Everyone keeps reminding me the last week! Saint Francis was right. He said, “Lord, O Divine Master, grant that I might seek to console instead of to be consoled, that I might seek to love instead of be loved, that I might seek to give instead of receive. For in giving,” he says, “we receive, in pardoning we are pardoned, and in dying we are born again to eternal life.”

This paradigm is hard and upstream, but it’s the road to life. And then he says, “Rest in His direction.” He says, “Fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author,” it’s a picture of someone with a machete blazing through a forest. It’s – the word is pioneer. The one who blazes the trail, the trailblazer.

Remember what He said there? Just follow Me. Just do what I do. Respond to evil the way I responded to evil. Respond to people in the way I responded to people. Speak the way I speak, drive your car as though I’m inside of you. Do your job as though we’re showing up together and I’m inside of you. I want the world to see who I really am through you.

And so, He says, “I’m the author.” And then He’s also, the last, the completer or the finisher. He’s got your front and He’s got your back. He’ll provide for you and He’ll protect you. And that all He says is: Just stay on the path. He’s the author and perfecter of your faith. And then remember that the cross always precedes the crown.

Having an eternal perspective changes everything and it’s really hard to maintain, and that’s part of why God wants us in His Word.  “In Thy presence is fullness of joy. At Thy right hand are pleasures forever.” Jesus has created this world in such a way, as one of the great ancients said, “There is a vacuum in your heart and my heart that can never be filled apart from a relationship with Jesus.” And you can know Him and be saved and be a part of His family, but really be looking for purpose and meaning elsewhere and to other things.

And I will tell you, you will live one frustrated life. The most miserable people in the world are people that actually really know Jesus and God is pulling them this way and their own flesh and their own desires and trying to find fulfillment over here. And you have this lack of peace nearly all the time.

And you’re so afraid to go all in, so afraid to trust God. Yeah, He only made the universe, I mean, what could He do for you? He only knows the future backward and forward. He only uniquely made you in your mother’s womb with your personality and your background. I mean, I mean, what could He ever know that could be really good for you, right? I mean, you know better. Or the Internet knows better, I mean, Google it.

You see, when God says, “I want you to love Me with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength,” what He’s really saying is: I want you to be loyal to Me, above everything and everyone else. And His motivation is: Because I love you. We love because He first loved us, and not just, “I love you,” but: I have the best for you. Every command I have, or when it’s swimming upstream, or when it seems so hard or so challenging, that just happens to be the path, but that’s where there’s life.

Meet a good athlete, a good artist, a good musician. I mean, a really great one. They were practicing when no one else practiced, they were working out when no one else cared. You can have gift and you can have talent. The great, great people are people who pay a tremendous price and position themselves with delayed gratification to get something that most people aren’t willing to.

And that is what he is saying here. Fix your eyes on Jesus, refuse to give up, and remember that before - again, the athletic metaphor - you know, it was just a little wreath for them but a lot of prestige. Before you get that, there’s the cross, there’s sacrifice. And all I want to tell you is that’s normal. We have been so bombarded with this click, click, now, now, get, get, me, me that we think that if we don’t get satisfaction and happiness and meaning and everything, I mean, like that…life doesn’t work that way. And if you believe that, you’ll get disillusioned with God.

And what you’ll find, if you look in the mirror, is that who you really worship, regardless of what you say about Jesus or sing some songs, who you end up really worshipping is you. Me, my needs, my agenda, my fulfillment, Jesus help me. When Jesus doesn’t work out the way I want it to work out in my job, if it doesn’t work out the time that I want it to work out, if we can’t do this, if I don’t get this, if people don’t say this about me, well, Jesus…

I’ve got news for you. You’re not the center of the universe and neither am I. He is and He made it. And what He has invited us to do is follow Him, not make Him some guru or genie to make our lives work out the way that we think they ought to work out, because the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t work that way and if we would ever get what we really want, you’d be so surprised how negative that would be.

Run the race with endurance, get rid of, declutter anything, anyone that is holding you back or weighing you down, and run your race with endurance, fixing your eyes on the person of Jesus, and not on problems or people or circumstance.

And then notice, I love this last part: Adjust your expectations. “Consider Him who endured such hostility of sinners against Himself.” If it was hard and difficult and painful and dangerous for Jesus, do you think it’s going to be easier for you? Jesus said to His disciples, “If they hated Me, they are going to hate you. If they persecuted Me, they are going to persecute you.”

And then He did this big deal that we – I don’t hear a lot of people wanting this – “Blessed are you,” blessed, happy, rewarded, God’s favor on you, “when you’re persecuted for My sake,” when you stand up for Me, when you are loving and kind and give good for evil, when you’re willing to say, “No, no, no. Excuse me. I know this isn’t politically correct in this meeting. That’s wrong. Okay? We don’t kill little babies and we don’t kill young kids and we don’t kill old people. That’s wrong.”

And then you get canceled and then they don’t invite you to stuff. Blessed are you. God must work deeply in us before He will work significantly through us. The second, let God work powerfully through you.

My favorite Old Testament character is a businessman. It’s about 445 B.C. He is the cupbearer to the king, his name is Nehemiah, and the whole nation of Israel, which is such a picture for us, decided, “We will do life our way.” So, God says, you know, okay. Do your thing, knock yourself out. For seventy years, God promised judgment.

And so, they end up in Babylon, they end up worshipping idols, they get to the point where a lot of their kids can’t even speak Hebrew anymore. And so, different people take a stab at trying to pull things back together. And Nehemiah finds himself in the Silicon Valley of his world, a place of great power, a place of great wealth. He wasn’t a prophet, he wasn’t a king, he wasn’t a religious guy, he wasn’t a scribe. He was, by all practical measures, in our words, he’s a strategic businessman.

Yes, the cupbearer would taste the wine and eat the food before he gave it to the king so he wouldn’t be assassinated. But it meant he was next to the king, it meant he lived a life of luxury, it meant he was a one-percenter or a half-of-one, of the one percent, a lot like many, many of us. And God strategically placed him next to the most powerful person in the world, like some of you are placed strategically in the most powerful companies in the world, which are far more powerful than most countries in the world. And you guys are creating amazing, amazing, amazing things. And for whatever reason, you’re sitting hearing God’s Word right now.

And so, the process, if you read the first six chapters of Nehemiah is first and foremost, he had a dislocated heart. He’s living in the lap of luxury. His life works. He’s not a refugee. He’s wealthy, he lives in a palace, has great food. And when he hears that the walls are broken down, temple worship hasn’t been restored, the gates are burned, there’s not even worship of Yahweh the one and only God. When he hears it, he stops, he weeps, he fasts, and he prays. He has a dislocated heart. His heart is for God’s agenda, God’s purposes around the world, where is yours?

Second thing is instead of using all of his natural talents and saying, “Great! I’m smart. I’ve got money, I’ve got connections, I’m going to make this happen.” That’s not what he does. He prays one of the most amazing prayers: “Oh God, the all-powerful, the all-knowing, the mighty God, the loving God, the covenant-keeping God, we, me and my fathers, have sinned greatly against You.”

And he has a broken spirit. And the Scripture says that a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, You will never despise. When God can find a regular man, a regular woman, or a student who looks at the situation in your school, or at your company, or in families, or in our world and instead of blaming or complaining, when it breaks your heart and you cry out and ask Him to do something great, to cause there to be a breakthrough, to bring about change. Ask yourself, what makes you so mad you want to punch a wall? And what makes you so sad that you want to cry? And your passions and your vision from God will probably be very close to one of those.

Mine is when I see Christians not living like Christians and churches being places of hypocrisy, it makes me so mad I get livid. And when I see Christians in the beauty of Christ and loving people and helping the poor and caring for one another and doing authentic community and giving their resources and their money and dreaming dreams and skills to, I mean, transform the world – I just go off in levels that you can’t even imagine of joy.

So, that’s what God called me to do. I have people ask me, like, “When are you going to retire?” Like, from what? From doing what I love? From doing what God made me to do.
I may get slower, I may get where, like, you know, the guy doesn’t have it anymore. Could we just, you know, get somebody else? Okay. But there’s an eternity and I’ve got this little thing called time. And whatever I do or you do in this little thing called time, I’ve got news for you people, the implications are forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

If you want to think about real reward and real impact, you start laying aside every encumbrance and the sin that so easily distracts you and you get on board with: I want to do what this Jesus is doing because He is going to reign and He is going to reward. And there is a real heaven and a new earth and a perfect world. Any my salvation is based totally on the gift of His work on the cross and resurrection. I have received that, but my long-term eternity, qualitatively, gets really impacted. You ever think about that? It gets really impacted by what you do now.

And not only that, but is there anything more joyful or more amazing than getting to be a part of watching someone’s life change? Or watching people that don’t have fresh water have water and live? Have people with no food who get cared for? People that don’t know Jesus then find Him. Is there anything more wonderful than being a part of something that transforms cultures and communities and churches and nations? I mean, that’s part of why you love to work. From the very beginning we were to co-labor and co-create with God. And so, he has this broken spirit.

And then he takes a radical step of faith. He steps out and says, “Hey, king, can I leave and go help?” You’re going to leave your good job? You’re going to leave your money? You’re going to leave your role? Yeah, I’ll be back in twelve years or so. And he leaves and he rolls up his sleeves.

And he develops a strategic plan, because he’s got those kind of gifts. And he organizes people that, for seventy years, can’t get anything going and he organizes them and he casts a vision and he uses administrative skills and he’s a great leader. And, bam! Fifty-two days later, a wall is built and then worship starts. And then this is what leaders do, they blaze a trail and then pretty soon people go, “Hey, I think this could work.” You think this could work? I think it could work. Well, let’s do it. Okay. We didn’t believe it would happen before.

We could never see this happen at our company or in our neighborhood. Really? You start it. You start it. Some of you are the greatest leaders people have ever, ever met. And, by the way, don’t think great charismatic personality. Leaders are people of influence, leaders are people who do things and say things and literally blaze a trail that other people go, “Hey, would you like to help?” And neighborhoods change.

What is on your heart? What step could you take? And then he makes a personal commitment. And he realizes that, you know, the world is big, this is what I’m going to do with my life. And then it usually gets much harder before it gets easier. And he has a courageous soul. He refuses to give up.

And I know what I have shared may inspire some or scare others, but here’s what I will tell you with absolute certainty, now that I’m older. I’m not old. Old is when you start looking in the rearview mirror and talking about stories of what you used to do. Old is when you talk about what you can’t do. Old is about a mindset. Older is when your body doesn’t work quite so well and your mind may not be quite as sharp. But you haven’t lost the fire in your belly.

The summary is this - we are the Nehemiah’s of our day, and our sacrifices and our tribulations to pierce the darkness will seem very, very small when we look back from eternity.

None of you will be with Jesus and look in the rearview mirror about your time on earth and go, “Oh, I wish I wouldn’t have sacrificed so much.” It’ll be like, “Oh… ” You’ll have a Schindler’s List moment. And if you know the story, he bought Jews out of the Holocaust so they won’t be killed. And at the end of the movie that tells his story, he has a gold pocket watch that was precious. And he looked at it and he thought to himself: How many more people could I have saved if I would have sold this watch? You’ll never have regrets of being a radical, committed follower of loving people and loving God.