JUN 2 2019 | Thriving or Surviving? S1E1 | Thriving or Surviving?

Sea Change Church · Thriving or Surviving? · "Thriving or Surviving?" Pastor Harry Wilson · June 2, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Oh, good morning. My name is Jess. I work with the youth group. I've been going on three years now. It's been really sweet. So I'm going to read from Jeremiah 1, 4, 3, 8. If you guys could grab your Bibles, we'll read through that together. As you're getting to that passage, I just want to say, the first service, I was like, maybe it's just nerves and I was like all choking up. But like, it really is, yeah, real feelings. I'm really proud of you guys. Yeah, it's really an honor to be a part of the youth group and to be with you guys.

So, all right, you guys are there. Jeremiah. Jeremiah 1, 4, 3, 8. I'm also going to read Jeremiah 12, 5. Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth. But the Lord said to me, Do not say I am only a youth, for to all to whom I send you, you shall go.

And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Jeremiah 12, 5. If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?

And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? The word of the Lord. Awesome. Thanks, Jess. Really, really cool having Jess read. She is our longest active youth leader besides my wife. And so it's just cool having Jess here and serving alongside us for so long. Yeah, my name's Harry. I'm the student ministries pastor on staff. And grateful to be here with you today. I love seeing, I got my picture updated.

The last one, I looked like I was 14. And now I'm aging well, I think, in these photos. So I'm getting older. And that was only like two years ago. But somehow you said 17. I thought I maybe gained like four years. But Bev doesn't think so. And anyway, so yeah, it's just good to be here with you today. And I want to let you know we're in this new two-part series, as I'll be speaking this week and next week, called Thriving or Surviving.

And we're going to talk about what it means to thrive, what it means to flourish as human beings, walking in tandem with God. And I'm not going to be leaning on what looks to be 16 years of wisdom. It's 24 years, actually. But I'm not going to be leaning on my 24 years of wisdom to tell you that. We're going to be really heavily leaning on the book of Jeremiah. Because this book, I think, in the way that Jeremiah lived his life, the way he responds to God, and the way that God speaks to him, helps us paint a picture of what it really looks like to just thrive in this life.

It's just been a really powerful book for me. So we're going to lean on that. And one thing I think that's important when you're talking about thriving is to just kind of take a temperature check, to say how are we doing as a culture, as a society, as a nation? Like, are we thriving? We live in one of the most prosperous nations in the world, at one of the most prosperous times in the world. We are living longer. We're eating better.

We know all the right diet restrictions, right? Like, and we're more wealthy. Like, so should, are we thriving in the way in which we think maybe we should be? And I think I included some graphs there in your notes. And I think these graphs, there's a lot of ways to check that. But these graphs give us a hint that maybe we're not thriving, even though all of that is progressing so well. Maybe there's still a lot of work that needs to be done.

And the first graph is a, on the left, it's a percentage of college students who say they have a psychological disorder. And what you see is this is kind of stable in this graph for around three to five, depending on your gender. And then once we get to 2012, we start to see this skyrocket upwards, especially for women. But for both genders, you see it start to really pick up with more college students claiming, like, that they have a psychological disorder.

And that's not just a claim either. That's, there's also an increase in some self-harm type behaviors that they've seen. And so more and more students are having a lot of issues when they get to college. And then if we look on the graph on the right, which is, it's titled, The Decline of Religion's Relevance for Today. This is the percentage of Americans who do not believe that religion is out of date. It's another way to say that.

These are people who believe that God and religion is still relevant. And we see that this is, if you look at 2000s, about 81% of individuals are saying, yeah, God is very relevant in our culture. And we're seeing this sharp decline up to, you see it hit a peak or a low point in 2012, dropping about to 69%. And so we see this is on a pretty steady decline for individuals who are saying God is really, really relevant.

And I do find kind of fascinating on these two graphs that 2012 is kind of a catalyst year. You see that right after 2012, well, 2012 for the religion graph, you're seeing that more and more people are saying God's not relevant. And then it's the same year that it starts to take off right after 2012, that individuals are starting to have more and more college kids, more like psychological disorders. And I'm not saying that those graphs are causal, that those are directly causing each other, but I think there's probably some correlational things happening there.

And so all of this to say is that maybe we're not thriving the way we think, and especially not thriving the way we think we should be on our own. Maybe wealth and health and all these things aren't quite enough without God. Maybe we're not thriving the way we think we should be. And so let's turn to Jeremiah verse 4 and 5 to get some wisdom on this. It says, Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. What I find so interesting is, as we look at these graphs, and this graph is saying that, you know, Americans are viewing God as less relevant, that when we turn to the scripture, and we look at our relevance to God, God is saying, Before you were ever born, before you were even relevant in any sort of capacity on earth, you were relevant to me.

Before you were born, I knew you, and I consecrated you, and I set you apart. Like before you did anything tangible, anything relevant, you were relevant. If we could graph God's perspective of our relevance, it would be a straight line at the top of the charts. God says you are deeply loved, and you are deeply relevant. And so, what do we do with that information? Knowing that God loves us, he's separated us, he says that we're relevant.

I think one thing to know is, we no longer have to strive for our own relevance. We don't have to work so hard in this culture to be relevant. And we do live in a culture where we are just working very hard to remain relevant. Part of that is an increase in social media, increase in online presences. I can't tell you how many individuals have come to me and told me, I'm starting a podcast, I'm starting a blog, I'm starting a vlog, I'm starting, like just continue, so many individuals are coming and telling me that.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing, right? That can be a creative outlet, that can be positive. I'm not talking about your blog, I'm talking about like your neighbor's blog. It's not you. But so many people are talking about just wanting to be, they want to be relevant. And I'll be hypocritical too, because Adam and I are starting a podcast. So he wants to talk about the messages on Sundays, and he wants to talk about different social issues like education, so him and I will be doing that.

And so it's not all bad, but I do think it paints a picture that we are striving more and more to be relevant today. We talk about purpose at this church a lot, but we don't necessarily talk about it in a positive light. We don't talk about purpose as in there's this one thing that you have to do, and if you do that, if you, you know, accomplish these career goals, or marry this spouse, or have these kids, or that, that's gonna make you happy, right?

We don't endorse that message, but the message we do endorse is the message here in Jeremiah that you are made with purpose, with value, you're consecrated, and you're set apart. I put in your notes that the existential question of purpose is answered in Jeremiah 1. It is to be known by God and to respond with the knowing and seeking of God. God, the entirety of our life becomes our personal response to God's preexistent call.

Your life is a response to God's call since before you were born, since he set you aside, since he consecrated you, and you spend your whole life in response to God's call. That's purpose. You're painting a picture of response with your life. So the question becomes is, how are you gonna respond? That's purpose. That's our purpose, to live our life in a response to God. Let's read Jeremiah 6 through 10. Then I said, Ah, Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.

But the Lord said to me, Do not say I am only a youth, for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, Behold, I've put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.

So God calls Jeremiah, he calls him forward, he says, you're gonna be a prophet to the nations. And that's a big call, right? That's not just a prophet to his nation, to Israel. It's a prophet to plural nations. And Jeremiah says, God, I'm just a kid. I don't know how to speak. I'm just a kid. It's the same excuse that Moses gives God when he encounters God in the burning bush. He says, Lord, I'm not eloquent. I can't lead my people to freedom.

I'm not eloquent. God's encountered this excuse before. He says, man, I'm just a kid. I'm just a youth. And what I find so interesting is God doesn't argue with Jeremiah here. He doesn't contend with his excuses. He doesn't say, oh, Jeremiah, like, you're pretty eloquent. I've seen you speak before. Jeremiah, I know you're young, but you're mature for your age. Like, that's not at all what God says to him. God says, don't say that.

He says, don't say that, Jeremiah. Don't give me that excuse. Don't tell me you're just a kid. Don't tell me you're only a youth. He says, Jeremiah, the problem is you're focusing on the wrong thing. You're focusing inwardly on your own shortcomings when you should be focusing outward at my greatness. You're focusing on your limitedness when you should be focusing outward on my limitlessness. Focus on me, Jeremiah. You got your eyes in the wrong place.

Put in your notes that if we focus on our own shortcomings, we will become discouraged. discouraged. If we focus on our successes, we will become disillusioned. But if we focus on the infinity of God, we will become, as God calls Jeremiah at the end of this chapter, a fortified city, iron walls. That if we focus on God, we put our eyes towards him, take it away from how great we are or how limited we are, put our eyes towards him that he will build us up, he will establish us as fortified city, iron walls.

My little brother, Noah, he's one of my best friends. I love him. And it's just been awesome getting older with him and we've become so much closer. When my mom was pregnant with him, he had a stroke in the womb and the doctors didn't think he was going to make it and he does. He ends up making it. And the doctors proceeded to tell my mom and us that, you know, Noah's not going to really be able to function very highly for the rest of his life.

You know, he's going to have to need a lot of help. He's going to take your whole family. He's not going to be able to drive. He's not going to go get a college education. He's not going to go succeed well in this world. He's really going to need the whole family to rally around him. And so that's what we did as a family best we could. And one thing, kind of quirk that Noah had with some of his learning disorders is he really, certain textures just really bugged him.

Like, I don't know what it was, but there's certain textures that he could just not handle. And one of those things was cotton balls. He really did not like cotton balls. Something about cotton balls like freaked him out. And he called them bucky balls. He said, and he said them with just fear, just bucky balls. And so as a family, we thought, all right, let's do some immersion therapy. Like, we're smart. Like, let's just, you know, let's kick this habit real quick.

Let's go do some immersion therapy. So we're educated and we're like, you know, let's just fill a room full of bucky balls and we'll just not tell him about it. And we'll just, you know, maybe someone will videotape it. I don't know. And we'll just kind of guide him gently into the room full of his big fear. And sure enough, as you might imagine, that didn't go well, right? He starts crying, yelling bucky balls, running down the hall.

I've become a psychology major now and I've come to find that, like, psychologists do this but they do it pretty slow, right? It's usually like, they show you like a picture of a cotton ball and you know it's coming, right? And they go from there. They're not throwing you into the deep end right away. And what's been amazing is to see this kid who was afraid of bucky balls and to see, my wife and I had the pleasure just a few weeks back to fly out to Missouri where he attends college on his own and watch him walk across the stage to get his bachelor's degree.

Yeah, amen, right? It was just so, so cool and powerful. He's living on his own with his roommate doing his life and what I've learned from this story is God does not contend with excuses. He's not worried about your excuses. He's not interested. We often have very valid excuses. I got a valid point like I had a stroke or I, you know, God, I'm not strong enough. God, I'm not educated enough. God, I don't have the financial means to trust you in this way.

Like, we can have very valid excuses. The problem is is God does not contend with your excuses. He says, take your eyes off within and focus on me because I will make you fortified city iron walls. We are called, as I put in your notes, by compassion, not qualification. Called by compassion, not qualification. God equips us and he sends us out. Right? As he did in this story with Jeremiah where he puts his hand on his mouth and said, I've given you my words and I send you out and you don't have to be afraid.

Don't be afraid because I am with you. So what kind of life are you living? Are you living a life where you're afraid to step out into the deeper waters in which you're called? Or are you living a life where you know that you are sent out in the power of the living God? What kind of life are you living today? Eugene Peterson says it this way. He says, it is easier to define oneself minimally as a featherless biped and live securely within that definition than to be defined maximally as little less than God and live adventurously in that reality.

What reality are you living in today? Are you just a happy accident of science and spending out your, you know, the days you've been given on earth? Are you a purposeful, consecrated being loved and ordained by God since before you were born? What reality are you living in today? I want to live in that reality. Let's read Jeremiah 12, verse 5. If you have raced with men on foot and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?

And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? I want to fill in some of the details here because we're jumping from chapter 1 to chapter 12. And so let's fill in some of the context. Something that's going on is Jeremiah gets this call and after he gives these excuses he decides to push in and to do what God has called him to do. He receives this kind of training by God where God sends him visions and he starts to get built up and God's speaking to him.

And at the same time there becomes a new king on the throne and that king there was kind of a downtime for the temple. That king kind of reestablishes the temple, cleans out the temple and kind of makes Judaism and religion popular again and people are going to the temple and they're praising God and it looks pretty good on the outside. But what they are also doing is that they're not only praising God on the Sabbath but then on the following days they would go out to the outskirts of the town and continue to participate in pagan practices one such being child sacrifice.

So they would go and participate in awful practices such as that and then go and praise the Lord's name in the temple. And as Jeremiah is rising as a prophet one of the first thing he starts to preach is we cannot do this. We cannot live a life that is split in this way. We can't live this life compartmentally. He says God is going to bring judgment on you. And that wasn't a popular message at the time that God was going to bring his judgment based on the way you're living and it makes us ask the question what does our Monday through Saturday look like?

What's our week look like before we are showing up on Sundays? And so Jeremiah's message gets rejected by his people. Just completely rejected. So much so that they start mocking him taking his phrases and twisting them. He starts to they start beating him. There's some rival preachers at the time and prophets who they're kind of embracing their messages instead and those prophets are more like false prophets. And so Jeremiah gets beaten.

He gets thrown in prison and he gets just totally mocked and rejected by his people. And so that leads us to about chapter 11 when he gets on his knees and he just offers this whole prayer of God saying God, why do the wicked prosper? Why do the wicked prosper? And he lays out this prayer that's basically a prayer where Jeremiah's ready to give up. He's saying God, what has happened? You've told me you said I would be fortified city iron walls.

You said your word would be with me. You said you put your words in my mouth. You said you consecrated me before I was born. I told you I wasn't ready. I told you I was just a kid. I told you I couldn't do it. I told you I wasn't eloquent. Jeremiah goes right back to his excuses. He says God, what has happened? You've abandoned me. And many of us have felt that when we have these mountaintop experiences with God and we feel God's intimacy and his love and then our life goes on and we suffer and we go through this just hardships in this life and we can start to have our excuses sound really, really good again.

And so what's God's response to that after Jeremiah just goes out in prayer? God says, Jeremiah, if you've raced with men on foot and they have wearied you, how then are you going to compete with horses? What he's saying is, Jeremiah, how are you going to step into the fullness of the life that I have for you? If you're weary at this very beginning portion of your ministry, you're weary because of the wicked people around you.

If they've already tired you out, how are you going to step into the fullness of the call and the life that I have for you? Jeremiah, I got you scaling mountains but you can't scale a mountain if you're fatigued at the base. You've got to step it up and you've got to keep going. You've got to persevere. Again, God doesn't give Jeremiah any advice except keep pushing. He doesn't say, hey, Jeremiah, maybe change your message.

They'll like you a little bit more. Maybe, you know, like if you change your tone, if you do this. God doesn't say that. He says, simply persevere because I got you scaling mountains. I got you competing with horses. I put in your notes that we have been fooled into thinking that human thriving mandates unwavering success and frequent mountaintop experiences. But the reality of flourishing is found in the persistence of an everyday faith that is honest but not circumstantial.

Honest but not circumstantial. Right? Jeremiah prays an honest prayer. He says, God, where are you? That's positive. Right? Getting on our knees and saying, God, I feel abandoned. That's positive. An honest prayer but it's not our life of spirituality, our life of seeking after God is not swayed and changed by the changing of the tides. We need an honest faith that's not circumstantial. I also put that faithful perseverance is a key ingredient in the secret sauce of thriving.

Simply persevering forward. Adam often quotes saying that the only way to stay married is to stay married and part of what, there's actually some empirical evidence behind that. My wife and I got to take a psychology marriage course together this year and what they found is that couples who are unhappily married and if they simply persist, don't go to counseling, don't do anything special, but just simply persist for five years, that those same couples five years later, 86% of those couples now report being happily married with high marriage satisfaction.

86%. So sometimes the key and the secret is to simply push forward. Now, I'm not saying don't go to marriage counseling. I'm not saying don't join a married group. I'm not saying don't do those things. I think those numbers would actually skyrocket if you're out there and you're seeking help. So, but part of the key and the secret ingredient is to simply push forward. That's what Jeremiah does in this story. He pushes forward even though he's been mocked, he's been beaten and abused, he's going to continue to preach a message of truth to the people that have rejected him.

And so he hears God's call and he pushes forward. Even though he doesn't feel like it. And that is, that's a call for us. I put that Christian spirituality is not dependent on the ebb and flow of how you feel. Right? And we live in a culture that just celebrates how you feel. Everything revolves around your feelings and that's not all bad. Like, I'm a sensitive guy. I get it. There's some feelings that are very important but we can't have our life be dictated based on how we feel.

And so many of us have made the, you know, the excuses of just, you know, I'm not, I don't really feel like going to church today. I don't really feel super spiritual today. I'm not really feeling close to God today. Like, I'm just not, I'm not feeling it. And that kind of becomes good enough. And my suggestion is, if you're not feeling it, because we've all experienced that, well, perhaps you could put your hands up in worship and praise and maybe your heart will follow.

Like, perhaps open the word of God and maybe your heart will follow. Perhaps get on your knees and pray and maybe your heart will follow. Like, go through the motions if you have to. Do not let your spirituality and your relationship with God be dictated by the ebb and flow of how you feel. Unless, of course, you're comfortable running amongst men. Just keep in pace, running amongst everyone beside you. If you're comfortable with mediocrity, mediocrity's got some benefits, right?

It's comfortable, you're not going to get pushed too hard, you can kind of run with the pack, right? It's got some benefits. I wrote in your notes, in a culture of participation trophies, you can simultaneously enjoy the comfort of mediocrity and a facade of victory. But I think God has called us to so much more than that, right? God has called us to compete with the horses, not run amongst men. Compete with the horses.

Step into the fullness and the life and calling that he has for us. And so that question of how are you going to run with the horses begs a further question of what kind of life do you want? What kind of life do you want? And are you willing to pick yourself up from a difficult spot like Jeremiah was in? Not feeling like continuing to preach to a people that rejected him? Are you willing to continue to pick yourself up from a difficult spot and follow after God and go through the motions and trust him even though it's hard?

I have a friend of mine. He goes to my jujitsu gym where I train and he's got an interesting story and I've known some of it and part of his story is he grew up always wanting to be a lawyer. Just really wanted to be a lawyer like that. That was the calling is that he was going to be a lawyer and so he went to law school and attended that and he was just excelling. He was the top student in his class at law school. Just totally excelling.

And then he graduates law school and he goes to take the bar exam and he fails his first try which he's bummed at but a lot of people fail the first try so he says okay and he takes it again and he fails again and takes it a third time and fails again and a fourth and he doesn't seem to be able to ever pass this bar exam. He just for whatever reason could not pass the exam and even though he was thriving in his class and so what happens is he falls just into a deep depression takes up just a lot of drinking and alcoholism and he gets to the point he was telling me the other day where he was just drinking himself to sleep.

Just couldn't handle life. He gains a ton of weight. He was in good shape and now he's about 350 pounds and just really really just struggling and so I was chatting with him the other day and he's telling me that he's losing a few pounds. He's losing weight. He's kind of working and he's on his way and he was asking me like oh when are you going to train next? I told him I'll be back tomorrow and he said great I'm coming tomorrow too after this class I attend and I asked him oh what class are you attending thinking like maybe he's gone back to school and he tells me he kind of looks around making sure no one's listening and with just he kind of whispers to me well you know I'm going to an AA meeting and just he says it with just like the shame fell on his face and he's my friend so you know I feel comfortable pushing him and I said well why'd you say it like that?

Why'd you say I'm going to an AA meeting like that? And he said well you know I'm just you know I'm really embarrassed I'm just embarrassed that I'm going to these meetings and so you know I told him you know I don't think that's embarrassing I don't think that's embarrassing what you're doing is you're picking yourself up from a dark place you're taking responsibility from your life you're saying you know what there's more for me than the dark hole in which I'm in and I'm going to do everything I can to seek help and to step out of it that's not embarrassing I told him I said that's empowering and he's my friend so you know again I can push him and I said look here's what's embarrassing embarrassing would be if I drive by I see you drunk in a ditch I gotta somehow get you into my car and tuck you into bed that's embarrassing but that's not what you're stepping into anymore you're stepping into a life in which you're seeking after help that you're taking responsibility it's empowering I said keep going and we live in a culture in which there's sometimes some stigma about seeking help and I just want to break that for this church for our culture for our society I just want to see that broken that seek after help we want to be a church that if you need to pray come and pray if you need help like get contact us we have counseling services we have pastors we want to be available to you to seek after help it's nothing embarrassing it's empowering to step into the life in which God has called you amen there's a your take home today is this I want you to it's a at the end of your notes called thriving take home ask yourself what kind of life do you want and then list five qualities in which you believe would amount to a life of thriving if you had these five things in your life well these five things this would this would amount to me thriving and then what I want you to do is go contact somebody you trust somebody you love have them read over your five things and make sure those really are five things in which are going to lead you into the fullness of the life that God has for you five practical things and get some accountability for it amen let's pray God thank you that you have called us to so much in this life more than we could ever imagine God before we were born you consecrated us you chose us Lord and we can step into this life unafraid of the tribulations to come Lord you did say that we would encounter trouble in this world but we can take heart because you've overcome it so we can just seek after you with the fullness of our heart because you know we know that you will build us up to fortified city iron walls in your name amen