Vision 7: Outcome #2—Learning to See
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Jer 17:5-9
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning! I’m Bill Connors, senior pastor here with Eastern Hills, and I’m blessed to be here this morning as the church gathers together on this Palm Sunday to worship the Lord and to reflect on His Word. I pray that this time is a blessing to you as well, but more than anything, I pray that our joining together today brings honor and glory to God, and points us to Him. Thank you Michelle and our choir and Donna for your musical presentation this morning. We appreciate all of your hard work and dedication in preparing for this morning.
If you’re visiting with us for the first time today, I hope that you’ve already discovered that Eastern Hills is loving, friendly, supportive, and encouraging church body. We invite you, if you are a guest with us today, to fill out a communication card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. Then you can drop that in the offering boxes by the doors on your way out after service, or you can bring them down to me at the front following our benediction at the end, as I would love to meet you and give you a small gift to thank you for your visit with us today. If you’re online, and visiting with us today, feel free to head over to our website ehbc.org, and fill out the communication card on the “I’m New” page. Whether you’re here in the room or online, we just want to be able to send you a note thanking you for your visit today, and to see if we can pray for you or minister to you in some way.
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VIDEO: Oscar & Wendy Ortiz, church planters in Puerto Rico
Opening
Opening
This morning is our seventh week of ten looking at our mission, core values, and desired outcomes as a church family. Joe did a great job when he opened up the series back on February 15 by speaking about our MISSION: People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. But I want to really quickly point out to you something about how we try to frame our Mission Statement (keep in mind that we don’t always do this because of space or context, but we have done so here): We have intentionally written our Mission Statement so that it literally has a “bottom line,” that sums up the whole thing for each of us: Jesus every day. Jesus is who we’re really all about. Our Mission Statement is really just a way of framing our reliance on Christ, our focus on Christ, our passion for Christ, and our service with Christ. And the bottom line of it is Jesus every day.
We also have talked through our Core Values together: AUTHENTIC FAMILY, REAL TRUTH, TRANSFORMATIONAL GROWTH, AND PRACTICAL IMPACT. If you missed any of those messages, you can go and check them out on our website, in the app, or on our YouTube or Facebook channels (keep in mind that Facebook only keeps live videos for 30 days now).
Last week, the message was from Ephesians 3, and we considered what it means to draw near to the unexpected love of Jesus, which is what our first Outcome is: “How am I drawing near to the unexpected love of Jesus today?” I guess you could say that the crux of that message was spiritual disciplines, and how God can use those to grow us up more and more into the image of Christ. This morning, we will consider our second Outcome question, using a part of Jeremiah 17 as our text.
So please stand as you are able to do so in honor of the reading of God’s holy Word, and turn in your Bibles or Bible apps to Jeremiah 17, where I will read verses 5-9. If you’re in the How to Train Your Donkey Bible Study, you know this passage very well, because it’s really the foundational passage for that class:
5 This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the person who trusts in mankind. He makes human flesh his strength, and his heart turns from the Lord. 6 He will be like a juniper in the Arabah; he cannot see when good comes but dwells in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land where no one lives. 7 The person who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence indeed is the Lord, is blessed. 8 He will be like a tree planted by water: it sends its roots out toward a stream, it doesn’t fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit. 9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?
PRAYER: Garrett family in the passing of Carol this morning.
According to Genesis chapters 1 and 2, before sin entered the world, Adam walked with God, and there was no conflict between them, no shame, no fear. Adam also walked with his wife, and the two of them were naked and felt no shame. There was no reason to hide—not from each other, and not from God. But then came the Fall—when Adam and Eve decided that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil looked tasty and could give them God-level wisdom, and for the first time, they doubted that God had their best at heart. They ate, and their eyes were open to what sin and fear and shame and death and separation from God feel like. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil hadn’t taught them anything about good—they only learned about evil, because they had already experienced the goodness of God.
There’s not a single part of humanity that wasn’t broken when Adam ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden. We went from physically perfect to bound for death. We went from morally clean to morally corrupt. Our thinkers were broken. Our feelers were broken. Our see-ers were broken.
Adam and Eve no longer saw themselves as God saw them—they saw that they were naked, something that God had never told them was the case. They saw that they needed coverings to protect themselves from each other. They saw God as someone to hide from, when He had designed them for a relationship with Him. They no longer saw themselves, each other, and their circumstances as God did.
In the Gospel, God has taken the steps necessary to correct our fallenness and set us right with Him. We don’t earn it or deserve it—it’s a gift. Though we deserve God’s wrath because of our sin, Jesus died to take the punishment we deserve. And then He was buried, and rose again on the third day (Easter), overcoming death on our behalf. So if we trust in Him as our Lord (completely in charge of your life, so turning away from sin) and as our Savior (the only way to be saved), then the Bible tells us that we have forgiveness and eternal life with Him because of what Jesus has done.
But when we’re saved, we’re still on a journey. We don’t believe and then become instantly perfect: instead, God begins working in us by the power of His Holy Spirit to be more and more like Him—more and more how He designed for us to be. He one day will make us completely whole in heaven, removing all of our sickness, frailty, and death… but until then, we’re all in this process of becoming more holy, more like Jesus.
But in the meantime, we’re all still living out the consequences of the Fall: our see-ers are all broken. We don’t see ourselves, each other, or what happens in our lives or in the world rightly. We need to learn to see things the way that God does.
Our church has five “Outcome” questions that we should each be asking ourselves as we engage in the mission of the church: being people helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day. We believe that a major aspect of the existence of Eastern Hills is discipleship: God wants to use our participation in the life of this church family to “move the needle” in our lives more toward godliness. Each Outcome question has five expressions of how we hope the needle is moving as we grow as believers and as a church.
Today’s Outcome Question is:
How am I learning to see myself, others, and circumstances as God does?
The five expressions of this Outcome are:
I know God’s Word and character well enough to distinguish between His voice and other things I hear or think.
When I listen to a sermon or read the Bible, my first instinct is to apply it to myself rather than to others.
I am aware of areas where I need heart transformation and have specific next steps to pursue godly help and healing in those areas.
I choose to respond with curiosity and compassion, instead of judgment, toward those I disagree with.
My choices this week reveal that my identity comes from Christ alone—not from myself, my accomplishments, or what others might think.
These five statements are meant to help us to consider whether we are trusting in man, or trusting in God; whether we are seeing correctly, or are deceived.
This morning, our focal passage challenges us to see that confidence in mankind brings a curse, that belief in the Lord brings a blessing, and that the direction that our hearts lead us in is deceptive, and not to be trusted.
1: Cursed confidence in the flesh
1: Cursed confidence in the flesh
You may already be thinking that I’m being a little bit harsh here. But I’m not meaning to be. I’m just using what the Scripture says about the position of one who trusts in the flesh—it says that that person is cursed:
5 This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the person who trusts in mankind. He makes human flesh his strength, and his heart turns from the Lord. 6 He will be like a juniper in the Arabah; he cannot see when good comes but dwells in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land where no one lives.
The Lord clearly says through Jeremiah that the person who trusts in mankind, who makes the flesh his strength—his source of hope, wisdom, and deliverance—is cursed, because his heart turns away from God. Let me be clear: This is not to say that we can never trust other people for any reason whatsoever. This is to say that there is no one who can save us other than God. There is no one who can overcome our deepest issue—our sin—other than God. There is no one who can make us holy other than God. There is no other source of true wisdom, no other source of true life, no other source of true hope other than God. So when we place our ultimate trust in anything other than God, then we’re going to go astray.
There’s nothing that this doesn’t include. If we put our ultimate trust in money or power or fame or control or jobs or government or entertainment or social media or walls or phones or doctors or physical fitness or a political party or cars or AI or whatever that is man-made, if we put our ultimate reliance in any of those things or anything else other than the Lord, then we are going to be disappointed, because nothing can do what only God can do. No one and nothing can make us more like Jesus except God. However, the way that we are most likely to do this is by trusting in ourselves—in our own wisdom, our own strength, our own fortitude and self-control, our own resources.
In fact, Proverbs says:
26 The one who trusts in himself is a fool, but one who walks in wisdom will be safe.
The problem goes back to humanity’s brokenness. The Bible’s description of the holiness that we have in our own strength is not pretty:
6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
BILL: 8:6A
6a Now the mindset of the flesh is death,
So how does our passage describe the cursed person who trusts in mankind? It says that he will be like a juniper in the Arabah. The Arabah is the desert that runs from the southern tip of the Dead Sea to the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, which is the eastern of the two northern “fingers” of the Red Sea. Here’s a picture of a juniper in the Arabah. God says that the person who trusts in mankind is like this tree. Spiritually dry, desperate for water. This person cannot see when good comes: he takes no notice of it, does not see it as a blessing, and is blind to the reality of the provision of God in his life.
This person dwells in parched places in the wilderness—miserable—in a salt land where no one lives—alone. This is not a picture of hope or health or prosperity at all. Keep in mind that this person has turned away from the Lord, and this is the result.
Earlier in Jeremiah, the Lord described this using another illustration:
13 For my people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves— cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.
The person who has never trusted in Christ can only trust in mankind. This is the only resource they have at their disposal, because they don’t have the Holy Spirit. These people are lost, bound for hell without Jesus. If that describes you, then the only thing you can do is trust in Christ for your salvation.
But the person who already belongs to Jesus through faith isn’t immune, because we’re still dealing with the pull and the power of the flesh. We still choose to trust in the flesh—to make it our strength.
How do we do this? Our pride challenges us to do things our way, ignoring the commands of Scripture. Our fear works to keep us from believing the promises of God. Our selfish desire strives to get what it wants instead of what God wants for us. Our need for affirmation or approval from others crowds out our desire to walk in way that’s pleasing to the Lord. We trust in our job to provide, instead of the Lord who provides the job. We rely completely on our intellect in decision-making, considering neither the Word nor the Spirit.
See? The Christian is still prone to make our flesh our strength, instead of trusting in the God who said to Paul:
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 10 So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
When we trust in our flesh, we’re like the juniper in the Arabah—we can’t see when good comes. And like in Paul’s life, God may want to bring the good through the very weakness that we would try to cover in our own power. We need to see ourselves, others, and our circumstances as opportunities for God to showcase His strength, His power, His plan in us and through us and around us and with us.
Unlike the lost, who do not have access to any strength but that of the flesh, the Christian has another option for where to place our trust:
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.
16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?
Instead of trusting in the flesh, we are to place our confidence in the Lord:
2: Blessed belief in the Lord
2: Blessed belief in the Lord
Trusting in the Lord is the way of blessing—not necessarily the way we tend to think of blessing… as health, wealth, and personal safety. While God may choose to bless us in those ways, this is not the point:
7 The person who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence indeed is the Lord, is blessed. 8 He will be like a tree planted by water: it sends its roots out toward a stream, it doesn’t fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.
Rather than putting confidence in the flesh, this person trusts in the Lord. And rather than being cursed, the Scripture says that this person is blessed.
Through Jeremiah, the Lord paints the picture of another tree. Note that the difference between the two trees isn’t the tree itself—its the source from which the trees draw that’s different. The source IS the curse or the blessing.
The first drew strength out of the parched, salty ground—confidence in the flesh, which is no strength at all. But this second tree is planted beside a stream which supplies it constantly with moisture, with strength. This tree does not need to fear heat or drought, because it has a constant source of vitality that it trusts in. Since that source is reliable and secure, the second tree remains green, and constantly produces fruit. The ultimate blessing is God Himself, not the fruit. The fruit is the result of the source, not the other way around.
The imagery here is echoed in Psalm 1, where the person delights in the Lord and His Word, which then bears fruit:
2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
There are a couple of other things that we need to notice between the two trees in Jeremiah 17 if we are going to learn to see things the way that God sees things.
First, there’s no hint here of retribution theology. You see this idea throughout the book of Job. His friends were so convinced that “good” things happened to “good” people and “bad” things happened to “bad” people that they accused Job of being wicked, even though he wasn’t. Instead of that retribution idea, we see the reality of life: Note that the tree in the desert had good come to it, but it just couldn’t see it. The tree by the water faces both heat and drought, but does not fear or worry.
This leads to the second thing we must notice: That one can be a dried up, shriveled tree in the midst of worldly prosperity, and one can be alive and fruitful spiritually in the midst of worldly difficulty. We saw this last week with the “outer man” and the “inner man” in Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians and in his confidence in 2 Corinthians 4. We can be miserable when we have everything the world can offer, and we can be full of hope and peace and joy and love when we have nothing but the Lord.
Again, the source is what matters. When we believe the Gospel, God Himself—the Person of the Holy Spirit—comes and takes up residence in us. It is because of that indwelling of the Spirit that we have constant access to the life-giving water. Jesus said it this way in John 7:
BILL: JOHN 7:37b-39a
37b “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” 39a He said this about the Spirit.
We bear godly fruit through the work of the Spirit, not our own strength:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Now, if we are in Christ, we always have access to the power of the Spirit, however, that doesn’t mean that we always avail ourselves of that access. As we said earlier, we still go looking for water where there is none. We still try to do things in our own strength, our own way. How do we learn to see things the way God does? We do so by learning more and more what God has to say through His Word. Paul said in Ephesians that the Word of God is the “sword of the Spirit:”
17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God.
And in Hebrews, we see that the living Word is what shows us the truth about who we are deep in our hearts:
12 For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
So the last thing that we need to understand is that while we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, there’s still a struggle going on on the inside: at the level of our hearts. The flesh, while crucified, doesn’t want to stay dead. Instead, it constantly is manufacturing idols, trying to lead us astray from the path of life, and hope, and peace. It will do all it can to deceive us.
3: Deceptive direction of the heart
3: Deceptive direction of the heart
The message of the world is that our hearts are all that we need to make wise choices. How many songs have the messages, “Listen to your heart,” “Follow your heart,” and, “Trust your heart?” How many children’s movies carry this same overall message? I’m just going to say this as clearly as I can: This is terrible advice. Scripture is clear about the trustworthiness of our hearts:
9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?
Allow me to use my own physical heart as an illustration (knowing that any physical illustration has its limits). Many of you have been so kind to ask how I’m doing since my bought with atrial fibrillation (Afib for short) last year. I have been Afib-free, as far as I know, since last June, praise the Lord! But I digress.
Essentially, I had one area of my heart that was in a state of panic. It was sending wrong signals that made the top part of my heart beat out of sync with the bottom part. This is a problem, because the top part of your heart beats to move blood into the bottom part, which then immediately beats to pump the blood through your body. Well, the top part of my heart was just doing whatever it wanted to a lot of the time.
It’s not that this causes much of a problem with your heart itself. I didn’t feel very well when I was in Afib, but it was manageable. The problem is that when your heart beats out of sync like that, then blood can sit still for too long, and then it can begin to form a clot. And when a clot gets shot out of your heart into your brain, that’s what causes a stroke.
Spiritually speaking, our hearts have kind of the same problem. When left to do whatever they want to do, they go astray because of the Fall. Our hearts are broken! Adrian Rogers is credited with coining the adage:
“The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.”
—Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)
Basically, our hearts get it wrong. Scripture doesn’t shy away from this reality:
12 There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.
2 All a person’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs hearts.
18 But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slander.
Do we see the connection to the earlier passage? Our hearts trust in mankind—they are the first tree. And they will try to deceive us into going the wrong direction. So what are we to do about this?
So in June, I had a cardiac ablation in order to correct the problem. My cardiologist described what he would do to try to correct my Afib: He would map my heart, then find the spot that was causing the problem. Then he would burn a tiny wall of scar tissue around the point that the problem originated from, so that the poorly-timed signals could not affect the rest of the heart. The problem is still there—it has just had its influence blocked.
Again, moving into the spiritual realm: our hearts don’t want to die. They don’t want to stop running the show and submit to the Spirit. So they lie and deceive. The fallen state of our hearts prevents us from seeing rightly. We need to build a wall around our hearts to keep them from leading us down away from God.
We saw a moment ago in Hebrews that the Word of God judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. It’s the Word that builds up that wall and prevents us from trusting in the flesh. Notice what the psalmist said:
29 Keep me from the way of deceit and graciously give me your instruction.
In Proverbs, Solomon said:
20 My son, pay attention to my words; listen closely to my sayings. 21 Don’t lose sight of them; keep them within your heart. 22 For they are life to those who find them, and health to one’s whole body. 23 Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.
And Paul wrote to the Philippians, telling them how prayer and the Word work together to guard our hearts.
6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things. 9 Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
The world is full of the lies of the heart, because it seems that throughout at least western society, we’ve decided that the heart is always right: that in fact, it is the determiner of what is true. This is a lie from the pit of hell.
Your heart might tell you that you must have something, so you steal to get it. Your heart might tell you that your happiness is the most important thing, so when you come into conflict with your spouse, it suggests that finding someone else would make you happy. Your heart might say that you’re trapped in the wrong kind of body, and you should present yourself as something you’re not, or worse—try and change it medically. All of our hearts tell us things that just are not true.
DO NOT follow your heart! Instead, trust in the Lord, and let your confidence be in Him:
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight. 7 Don’t be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil. 8 This will be healing for your body and strengthening for your bones.
In his excellent book Gospel Treason: Betraying the Gospel with Hidden Idols, author Brad Bigney writes:
God tells us to live a commandment-oriented life. Whatever God’s Word says is what we should want to do, whether we feel like it or not. … Often, to obey God’s Word, you must do something that you don’t feel like doing, or refrain from doing something that you feel like doing. Get used to it.
—Brad Bigney, Gospel Treason: Betraying the Gospel with Hidden Idols
Tell your heart what is true. Tell your heart what is honorable. Tell your heart what is just and pure and lovely and commendable—what is moral and praiseworthy.
And one last thought: we are to do this for one another, as well.
12 Watch out, brothers and sisters, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.
We should be invested in each other’s lives, and have permission to speak the truth to one another IN LOVE. More on this after Easter.
Closing
Closing
So we return to the question: How am I learning to see myself, others, and circumstances as God does? Is my confidence in the flesh, or is my trust in the Lord? Am I believing the lies of my heart, or am I trusting in God’s Word to determine what is true? We’re all on a journey of learning these things. It’s a choice we make minute by minute, situation by situation. May we as a church family continue to grow in this regard.
But it starts with faith in Christ. He’s made the way for us to be made right with God, and it is He who gives us His Spirit. But that only happens through belief.
Baptism
Church Membership
Offering
Prayer
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Neighboring Moments
We thanked city workers who were working so diligently across the street, and bought them pizza for lunch.
Bible reading plan: Ex 40 (finishing Ex today); Jn 19 (finishing Jn on Tues); Pro 16; Philippians 3 (finishing Phil tomorrow). Will have read all of Gen, Ex, Ezra, Neh, Est, Job, Matt, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 & 2 Cor, Gal, Eph, and Phil by Tues. That’s one quarter of the Bible, just since January 1.
Pastor’s Study tonight: Sermon on the Mount Matt 5:38-42
No Prayer Meeting: Church-wide Seder Meal if you would like to come and experience that.
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.
