SEP 2 2018 | Stuff Jesus Said S1E5 | Do What I Do. Say What I Say.

Sea Change Church · Stuff Jesus Said · "Do What I Do. Say What I Say." Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · September 2, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

I'd like to ask you to listen up because we're bringing the word of the Lord this morning. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where we are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.

Jesus answered, don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

Or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing. And they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask for it. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. This is the word of the Lord.

You didn't roll the mustache up today. I'm actually, I've been practicing it. This doesn't look as good on me as it on you. You have like a man mustache. That's like a firefighter. Why do firefighters always have thicker mustaches? Like, is it part of the DNA? Is it God's calling on their life? I barely, oh, it doesn't matter. You don't need to know about my beard care. This thing's going soon, trust me. Summer's not the time to grow a beard.

It's my first one I've learned. So I'm learning as we go. If you're brand new, you get this every week. And you might not come back. But you are welcome here in our family. It's great to have you. And we are in a episodic series. Jim, that's right. Jim's over there doing this with his beard. You're Santa for all I know. The Pastor Jim. We are in the words of Jesus. The words in red. The ones that Jesus specifically spoke.

And to make it a little more accessible, I changed the title from something high church to a little more low church. And we call this series Stuff Jesus Said. And Jesus said some very audacious, inspiring, radical, crucial things. And this particular passage in John chapter 14 hits a whole bunch of those. Matter of fact, the entire eight weeks that I'm doing could have been on John 14 and this particular passage. And so we did the first part of it last week.

And today we're moving into the way Jesus basically executed his life. How did he actually live his life? And he makes some statements where you're kind of like, well, he didn't really mean that, right? I mean, there's a propensity to look at some of the things Jesus said and think, come on, you didn't really mean that, right? So when he says, like, pray for whatever you want in my name or whatever you're willing is the word in my name, it'll happen.

Or you're going to do greater things than I did. I mean, come on. How many of us really take that verse seriously? It's like, I don't really know what that means. And we kind of just leave it out. But Jesus is talking about a way of living in the second portion of this passage where he's saying, if you do what I do, and we'll break it down in a moment, but basically, if you look like I look, and if you speak like I speak, and if you do what I do, you will exponentially do greater things than I.

Now, maybe Jesus is speaking about the entire grouping of us. And you look at one of our friends, Jeff here, who's a doctor who goes down and helps people that have cataracts and does eye surgery. He is possibly, at this point in his life, has given more people sight than Jesus did. Possibly, if you were to add up, years and years. And granted, it was through a surgical procedure, but nonetheless, in the name of Jesus, he is going down, and we've seen some of these videos here before, where it is possible that he is actually, through surgical procedures and through the grace of Christ, given more sight than perhaps Jesus did in the lining up of people who were blind.

And perhaps that's what Jesus means. But in the stuff Jesus says, Jesus here is laying out a way to actually live that we can oftentimes miss if we set aside these as just big statements that Jesus says, there is that man speaking in about doing things that I cannot actually do. And so Jesus is speaking about how to live a vibrant life. One of the things that I've really been hitting on and one of the themes of my life has to do with what is the motivation for how we live and why we live.

And I do believe that in the last hundred years, there has been an incredible focus on a personal purpose. That you were uniquely created to do this one thing. And if you can find what that one thing is, that shiny thing, and you can accomplish it and do everything that is your heart's desire, then you will have a contentment. The payoff will be peace. The payoff will be a self-satisfaction. The payoff will be that you feel that you have worth.

You set a goal or you have a desire or you have a dance you want to dance, a story you want to tell, a business you want to begin. And once you accomplish that thing, you can rest, go home at night, sit there, smile and say, yes, I am either in the center of God's will or I am being everything that God has created me to be. And I do believe that God has created you for an assignment. But what I roil against and what I feel the scripture adamantly over and over again is a theme from the beginning, from Genesis all the way to Revelation says, is that it is never about your purpose.

This is, you know, and when people had a person come to me this week and he says, I don't know why you were so disparaging about purpose and goals. And he said, you know, I think that some people need those things to get out of bed in the morning. And I said, yes, that's what I'm talking about. And we went back and forth and back and forth. And basically in the end, I said, just show me one scripture where it says you have a personal purpose.

And then you have, obviously, Jeremiah 29, 11, which is our favorite scripture. I know the plans that I have for you. Unfortunately, he's not speaking to individuals. He's speaking to the, the prophet is speaking to the entire nation of Israel. And he knows the plans that I have for you. Once again, speaking about God's plans. What I would say is, while it feels good to feel that we are living in the essence of who we are created to be, that rather than having a purpose, I believe that God has a purpose and you have an assignment within that purpose.

And our job is to live within God's purpose. And our joy should be from accomplishing God's purpose and doing the assignment that he has created for us. Now, as we talk through this, and I would love, if anybody can find me scriptures that says it's all about God. He's so happy to create a personal purpose that he just blesses and it's about you. Please find that. But as I look at the scripture over and over again, and I have scriptures here, I am finding that I am a servant.

And a servant doesn't really have a purpose. The scripture talks about being a servant. The purpose of the servant is to do what? The will of the master. And what I have found personally is that when I can change the fuel of my life from trying to chase that elusive personal purpose, and I can get an alignment where all my satisfaction comes from getting to be a player in God's extreme radical purpose of his own, that I find a peace and a contentment that I no longer have to figure it all out, but just be the person that God called me to be within his purpose.

This is scriptural. And if it sounds antithetical to what you have believed for years, it's because I believe that we have made a wrong turn in Western Christianity in regard to what the scripture is actually about. And so what I would say is it's not about your purpose. It is about the purpose behind, if you want to believe in purpose, it's about the purpose behind the purpose. And your purpose, our purpose, is to glorify our Father and to do the will of the Father.

Now as we look in the scripture, back to the scripture, Jesus' entire life was lived this way. When Jesus talks about his mission, when he talks about what he was called to do, when he talks about, I like to use the word assignment, when you say on mission, and that's a big term these days, his mission was all about looking to the Father, figuring out what the Father is saying, figuring out what the Father is doing, figuring out what the Father is willing and hoping, and then stepping into that and doing the assignment that he has given.

It is all about glorifying the Father. And there is scripture after scripture that says, seek ye first, what? The kingdom of God. And then all these other things will be added on to you. And what I would say is that if you can get alignment with turning off the desire that we seek to find self-worth in our own personal purpose, and you can actually start infusing into you the pleasure that God gives, the peace that God gives, the contentment that God gives, when we are satisfied just being a servant, working out his purpose, it is far greater than anything you will ever experience, experience, even if you reach all the shiny things that you want to do on your own.

Now let me tell you, one book that has affected my thinking on this, and probably if there's five books in the Bible, Ecclesiastes is one Bible, one book in the Bible that has changed my thinking on this more than any other book in the Bible in regard to personal purpose, although I believe the rest of the Bible backs it up. In the book of Ecclesiastes, before we get to John 14 here, you have a man, Solomon, who basically gets to the point in his life, he's royalty, it says that everything that was in his heart, everything that he wanted to do, every purpose, every desire, everything, he had an unlimited checkbook.

He was, according, if you were to do the comparison, the richest person to ever exist on earth. It says there was nothing in his heart that he did not do. Everything. And so if you want to talk that it's all about purpose and finding that essence of who you are, this was the man in the scripture who actually did it. He had lived completely, whatever he wanted. He had singers, male and female. Read Ecclesiastes, the first three chapters.

He does it all. And in the end of doing it all, when he just looks at what happens, because he comes to these conclusions, well in the end I'm just going to die anyways, and everything I create somebody else is going to take, and he gets very discouraged. And this is what I was talking to my friend about this week, that I believe that there is a lot of guilt, I believe that there is a lot of bondage that is being created by continuing to tell Christians that if you can find exactly who you were supposed to be, and you can live in the essence of your personality, and do the dreams, and dance your dance, and sing your songs, then you are going to have that contentment that the Bible promises.

And I believe the Bible says that the only way that that comes is through knowing Jesus, through knowing God as your Father, and knowing that you have favor through the cross. The only thing that brings peace, contentment, freedom from guilt, freedom to live in a way that is just completely exuberant for God is through the cross and what Jesus did on the cross, and it has nothing to do about what you do in your personal purpose, and you will never find contentment just by seeking that.

Not saying that you shouldn't do the things you enjoy because Ecclesiastes says this. Please read Ecclesiastes. But let me just tell you where it ended up for Solomon. And this is the verse that just stuck out to me, and it's not in your notes. Got it this morning. In Ecclesiastes, this is just two chapters into Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes, after he speaks about being able to fulfill his heart's desires. He says, after all these things, I realize they're meaningless, and he says in chapter 2, verse 17 and 18, so I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me, and all of it was meaningless.

I was just chasing after the wind. I hated all the things that I had toiled for after the sun. It's just amazing that this man who was able to have everything that we keep being told that if you get it, you're going to have contentment, he looked at it and said, it's nothing. It's meaningless. And a matter of fact, it drove him into a deep depression to the point where a little bit later in the scripture, he says, it actually, I gave myself over to despair.

In the end of Ecclesiastes, he gets to the answer, and the answer in Ecclesiastes was basically do this. Find out the things that you enjoy. Find out what God enjoys. Do it for God's purpose and enjoy doing the will of God. And if God is upon you when you do those things, that is the way to have contentment and peace. The scripture says that over and over again. Now, going back to the words of Jesus, what I want to give you is the ability to detoxify yourself.

It's like going on a cleanse diet from having to think every day, does God love me? Am I in the right place? Am I doing the right thing? And to move away from that so you can have a relationship with the Father and live the way Jesus lived, which we'll talk about in this scripture. Just a couple scriptures about personal purpose. Here's a few things that, verses that have been used that talk about that it's all about God's purpose.

Now, here's David in Acts 13, 36. Once again, we're moving to how Jesus lived his life in this same model of not being about his purpose, but his, but doing the will of his Father's purpose. David, a person that you could say lived in his purpose, right? If you were going to look in the scripture and find people that actually lived in their purpose, a person that fulfilled everything that they were supposed to do, David's one of the guys.

He slayed Goliath. I mean, come on. He was a giant slayer. He was the king at a young age. He went on, he led, he is remembered. There is a statue of him. I think it's at the Effizzi, isn't it, in Florence? But there is a statue of David in Italy today. He is remembered and scripture says that his kingdom will be remembered forever, throughout eternity. This guy, if it is all about purpose, he, it was about, you know, somebody having their purpose, he is the guy.

But when it speaks about him in Acts, what does it say? In Acts 13, 36. Now, when David had served who? God's purpose. There it is. In his own generation, he fell asleep. He was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. What was he there for? Was he there so that he could just be king and all these things? Actually, a lot of people get into the purpose that God has for them and they don't want to be there. Oftentimes, the purpose that God has for you is difficult.

When it's about our purpose, we tend to write beautiful movie narratives, right? Your life is going to win the Academy Award because you have created a beautiful picture of what it all looks like, but it's God's purpose. We go now to Proverbs 19, 21. Many are the plans of a purpose, many are the plans of a person's heart, but it is what? The Lord's purpose that prevails. Matter of fact, the scripture even says, you can chase your plans and call it your purpose all you want, but in the end, God is going to, he's going to mold and bend and it's going to become his purpose anyways and he will use you.

Even the evil people in the world, he uses them for his purposes. One more, Romans 8, 28. We love this one because it's all about us. At least we've made it all about us. That if we love God, then he will cause everything we do to work out, which I believe is good, but it says, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to what? His purpose. It's all about God and I guess the question is, is that enough for you?

Because I've really had to battle with that question because I like when I'm the star of the story. I don't know about you, I love being the star of the story. I love thinking about all the things I want to do and there are some plans that God, he wants to bless the things you want to do. He has created, if you're an artist, he wants you to create art. He's given you gifts for a reason. He wants you just to run into those things, to enjoy them, but not to put value on your life because it went the way that you thought it should go.

So some of you are incredible artists. Some of you are incredible writers. And you have lost all the joy of your writing because your book has not been published. You no longer enjoy writing anymore because you haven't had the critical acclaim and success that you expect to be. So all of a sudden that gift, that joy, that thing that God wants to write, maybe it's only for four people to read, but that isn't good enough anymore.

And when is enough enough? Is a million enough? I gotta tell you, when you sell a million, five million's the next. And when you sell five million, ten million's the next. My book, Praying for Your Elephant, while it did okay, wasn't good enough that they came back and said, please write another one. And I was talking to my publisher and we have a really good relationship. They've asked me to do some curriculum on the side, but my name won't be on it, so nonetheless.

Right? So who wants to write if your name's not on it, right? Because you get paid. Whatever works. And this is what he said to me, and I thought this was hilarious. This is so funny. And I really don't care. It doesn't bother me anymore. He said, you are one of our most beloved authors that is commercially unviable for us. Oh, we did a thing on YouVersion. Go to YouVersion. If you go to YouVersion, it's this pretty big platform where they do a, I did a seven-day walk through my book, Praying for Your Elephant, whatever.

It was the biggest one. They had over a hundred and something, you can go on, a hundred and something thousand listens over this. I created a seven-day thing. A hundred and something thousand listens. Okay? It was more than Francis Chan. It was the biggest one they had ever had. Okay? A hundred thousand. I mean, that's a lot of people going through your seven-day thing. It did not translate to book sales at all. It meant nothing.

It was awesome. Go to the review page. Go to my review page. Read through it. Five-star. Hard to have five-star reviews. Okay? Everybody, people are like, this is as good as, you know, as Billy Graham. Like, they're writing stuff that's just ridiculous. You know what I mean? Amazing. You are the most beloved, one of the most beloved writers we have that is commercially unviable. Please go home. Woo! Love your stuff, man.

She can't sell it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't care. Because as I read through the 77 reviews or whatever it is, I see that a few people's lives were changed and it's God's book anyways. And I don't care and I don't need to write another one. And I got to the place a long time ago where none of that mattered. Jesus talks about this here in these things. Why did Jesus come and what was his purpose? Christ's ultimate purpose was to manifest.

Manifesting. That's a great word. Circle that word. To create. To manifest. To find creative ways within your personality where you get to express God's purpose in a really fun way. That you get to write. That you get to create. That you get to speak or have conversations or you enjoy making coffee so open up a coffee house. Just do it. But you get to manifest the presence of God. It's awesome. And when you can get into that vein, all of a sudden life comes alive again.

Because you realize God loves me and that's enough. It says, why did Jesus come? As Christ's ultimate purpose was to manifest not only the kingdom of God on earth which he did by his very presence but the very presence of God and the mind-blowing statement he makes is that we are to do the same. Mind-blown. Jesus says to you, these are all the things I do now. You are supposed to go do it. That's radical. That you are supposed to go do it.

Remember the movie The Dead Poets Society where he's speaking I think about Whitman and he says, you know, the song goes on and on of the world but we get to what? Contribute a verse. Why did Jesus come? He became to manifest and so my question is is whatever you're doing can you do so in a way that brings you joy? Maybe God's purpose for you is to sweep the floors. Can you do that in a way that you know if you're doing it for your father and he is so pleased with you and loves you and he blesses you and when God's blessing is upon you when you're in alignment with God's stuff whether you're sweeping the floors or whether you're up on the, you know, in Wall Street or wherever you're supposed to be or at the height of your, whatever you're doing the blessing that God comes the touch and connection that comes with the kingdom of God with the Father's love will give you such a profound experience of well-being of presence and of, I guess the word could be purpose that it's like nothing you've ever experienced.

It's like nothing any drug could give you. It's like nothing any purpose could give you if you're seeking your own purpose if you are the star of the story because Solomon was the star of the story and he says in the end I hated my life until I figured this out. So in the very end the chapter he says what's it all about we go about it we're going to look quickly at three things that Jesus did and the first thing in order to execute a life that if you were going to detoxify yourself from this personal purpose and get into God's purpose you're going to have to get in touch with what God's doing in the world.

You're going to have to get in touch with what God's doing in your own personal heart and until the corner of your heart is in touch with God on a regular basis you're probably not going to have an understanding of what's happening outside of your heart because God's knowledge it says in the scripture comes to your heart it says the spirit searches the mind of God and we know the spirit lives within our hearts and it says in the scripture that God takes the thoughts the spirit takes the thoughts of God's mind and he gives the mysteries he lets you understand deep mysteries deep understanding beyond the headlines that's why the news is kind of ridiculous because the news is not harvesting their opinions or their knowledge from the deep mysteries of God that lets you know why something is happening and even if you don't know why it gives you an understanding of what to do about it that's why John Stott says you should always read the news with the Bible in the other hand but it is on corner one of your heart that if you want to understand what's going out in the world then it needs to start with your heart this means that you take dedicated time to sit with God every day that's it make a list of questions for God read the Bible every day that you take dedicated time 15 minutes half hour one hour and you get better at it it's just like working out if you do 10 minutes actually you can get to 20 get to 30 you know Martin Luther I think it said he said he had so much going on he was so busy every day that he couldn't make it through a day unless he spent three hours with God he just got to the point you can you can increase your ability to spend time with God but if you are not spending time with God and claiming the terra firma of your day you're calendaring it out you're staking in the ground of your calendar because it's just a calendarable event you calendar time with God you're going to have pretty much a difficult time or no or absolutely no clue of what God is doing around you Jesus regularly was getting away every single day I don't do a lot of shoulds here I don't do a lot of dogmatic you have tos but I will say that you should spend time with God if you can every single day in a quiet place that's what the first part of this message was about when we said Jesus says when you pray go to your room and be alone with God so here's the first thing that we see with God three things Jesus displayed purpose of visible presence he displayed purpose his purpose was to be a visible presence of the Father he says anyone who has seen me has seen the Father not only is this a radical statement because Jesus is saying that he is God which is a very radical statement one of the things it begs to us is when people see you do they see God I gotta say I've been trying to be very aware of body language and presence and if you study that there's a lot about it and I believe that when somebody is in touch with God and there is a peace of God upon their life that there is a visible presence of the way they carry themselves that is different I took my daughter yesterday we went to one of my favorite little coffee houses and we sat there and we were doing creative things and writing and a person came in and they were frustrated something had gone with their parking and they were just agitated and they were four to five feet from me and it was just messing with my mojo you know what I'm saying have you ever experienced that that person they walk in and all of a sudden everyone in the room is tense there's just a sense because what's going on on the inside affects the outside and unfortunately they sat by me is there a reason to tap the table for 20 minutes stop tapping the table now I'm starting to get tense Jesus because of what he was doing in his room alone or on top of a mountain or quiet had the ability to increase the margins of his outside presence I gotta say one of my favorite scriptures in Psalms says that God has made the boundary lines around me spacious the devil loves to contract your life so that there's no margin you don't sleep well you're too busy you don't rest you're on edge when there's no margin we make really poor decisions and you can tell when a person walks into their room the interior space of their heart is it an open floor plan or are they living in a tiny little crowded studio with seven other roommates there is a visible presence and when Jesus walked around there is a visible presence I have worked very diligently for the last five years to not create a spirit of craziness on Sunday mornings I remember earlier in my days when I would get to church and I would start working and it was all business and I'm running the pastors running around and you're creating this people walk in they're like that's the last thing that I want to be like there's a visible presence and so often times you'll see me just sitting on the couch or at the front desk I try and there are emergencies and things happen but I try my best to be a visible presence and that is something Jesus talks about he says when you see me you see the father and so just people see you when you walk into the room there is a way to walk into a coffee house or a room that will actually change the entire atmosphere of that room when you walk you know when you're in a really good mood and something's happening you've got to check in the mail or something it's Friday you're off you're going on vacation you get everything you know that feeling that week before you go on vacation and everything's really hard you get it done and then like you finally get it done and then it's like you put your email on you cannot get a hold of me I'll be out of the country do not expect a response you know they need that for text and you know and then it's like and you go and like you walk into your Starbucks wherever you go and they're like how you doing what's up my man doing good how you doing you're just like who is this guy you know what I mean that's amazing the visible presence of God how's your visible presence coming in for a landing Jesus also displayed the audible presence of God everything Jesus said was a translation of the Father's heart everything Jesus said was on purpose all of the words were translated to the filter of God's heart because he was repeating to the world the things that the Father had said to him and if you are not drawing in or creating a place in your life where you allow the love of a Father to speak to your heart then you will not have the same words to speak to a broken world when you have time in the morning and you have God and you know that he says I love you I care for you and this is why worship is a really good thing because you can listen to worship or you read the word of God about who you are and what he's about and how much he loves you then you begin to translate you will speak differently during the day there is a physical presence there is an audible presence how do you speak to your wife how do you speak to your children remember one of the things once again about the visible presence I could do this I learned it from my dad I did this like mad face you know I've never hit my children or gone off or anything but I have this like face about me that I get that can be very intimidating I found out and my wife said to me you know that for a four year old that's really like that doesn't work and I realized that I just needed to change my face which is hard to do stern you know that face works you know I get some leverage off that like mean face or whatever it is when we spend time with the father which is what Jesus talks about the second thing of execution is that he only says what the father says verse 10 the words I say I do not speak on what my own authority rather it is the father living where doing whose work his work how's your mouth how's your language how's your attitude how's your intonation and I say that changes from spending time with the father final thing the purpose of kingdom bringing works not only is there a visible presence Jesus walks into a room doesn't say anything you're going to see the father because when you see him you see the father when he speaks you're going to hear the father and finally when he does something it's going to be the kind of thing the father would do so every work Jesus did was in agreement with God's will and carried with it all the power authority of heaven wow if you know what the father is doing and you see it it's pretty easy to see when God's on something it just doesn't look like the world and you say I see the father doing that I'm going to step into that thing then when you do that that you will take all of the power of heaven all of God's resource and he'll just go you wonder why some people you know in ministry or in life you just see that they have this incredible momentum the wind is at their back not that we don't have headwinds like Paul had and these different things but there are moments and seasons of reaping it says do not become weary in doing good or doing good works for your father in heaven in it's right season you will reap a what remember what I said a few weeks ago a harvest a harvest of fruit finding out God where are you touching what are you doing if you see somebody else doing step into those things every work Jesus did was done in agreement with God's will and carried with it all the power and authority of heaven in the final verse verse 11 at least believe he says that on the evidence of the works themselves so he's saying if you don't believe what I say and if you don't believe just by seeing me then just look at the stuff I'm doing and when you see how radical that is then believe in that if you need that to happen believe in the evidence of the works there is evidence of the works very truly I tell you whoever believes in me will do the works that I have been doing and they will do even greater things in these because where I am going to the father I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the father may be glorified in the son you may ask for anything in my name and I will do it we're going to get to that little fun scripture next week because that is a quandary I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the father what may be glorified so when Jesus does something who's glorified him the father will be glorified in the son and you may ask me anything in my name and I will do it amen amen