Gateway Church's Podcast
Moving Forward
I'm so glad that each one of you are here. Are you looking forward to a new year? I gotta tell you, I for one, there's a lot of good things that happened in 2008, but I'm ready to get this one behind me. If I can, I just be honest here. I'm looking forward to a new year. Before we talk about that, I wanna get you to pray about one thing with me. Seven years ago, when my wife and I came to Gateway Church, we had been tithers for years and years, but we didn't know how to give. Tithing is returning, giving is giving above that. We didn't know how to do that. Pastor Robert told me that he would teach me how to do that. And so every year, around the end of the year, he challenges us to give our best gift of the year to Jesus rather than to people. And so you may not have been prepared to do that last weekend. I just wanna challenge you today. Be prayerful about that. Don't feel under compulsion. God loves a cheerful giver, but I want you to pray about making a year in gift to the Lord, and you've got until Thursday to do that. You can either do it this morning, or you can do it online, but just be praying with me about doing that. And we know that God will bless us for doing that. Well, I really am glad that you're here. And as we start thinking about a new, a brand new year that begins on Thursday, I want to direct your thoughts into some ways that I think a lot of people don't consider. You know, a lot of people I've noticed, when they approach a brand new year, they do so, frankly, with some indifference. Because the thinking kind of goes like this, that one day is Wednesday, the next day is Thursday, in the grand scheme of things, does it really make all that much difference? I mean, that Wednesday night rolls into Thursday, we turn a page on the calendar, it says 2009, instead of 2008, is that really all that big a deal. Well, you let me push back on that just a little bit. Because I really believe that our God is faithful to move into whatever arenas that we open up to Him. And so I want to challenge you that if there are some areas in your life that you have not yet made available to God, that you would think about this year, making those areas available to God and letting his power and his goodness and his love begin to affect some things that we may have kept hidden from Him for a long time. Recently, I've been reading a book, it's not a Christian book, but it's a very intriguing book written by a Lebanese American named Naseem Talev. And the title of the book is "The Black Swan." The subtitle is "The Impact of the Highly Improbable." It's been about 17 weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list last year. And I had some good friends who recommended it to me, so I thought I would pick up a copy, very intriguing book. What Talev says in this book is basically this. He says that the things that impact our lives the most are the things that we are not likely to ever anticipate. And what happens is that after one of these great events happens in our lives, we look back chronologically, we look back at the events that preceded it, we sort of beat ourselves up and say, "You know, I should have seen that coming." The truth is it was completely unexpected and off the radar screen and impossible to anticipate. Well, my favorite story in this book is a story of where, when Talev talks about being called with a team of experts to do risk analysis for a casino in Las Vegas. Now, if you want a casino in Vegas, you want to know where your risks are, don't you? They had military analysts, they had logicians, mathematicians, and they gathered this team to pool their collective intelligence, and they talked for a week about what are the likely risks to this casino? So as you would expect, they talked about gambling fraud, they talked about security, they talked about people who count cards. The one thing that they never even thought about, was the very thing that almost bankrupted the casino, when a tiger mauled its owner on stage and almost killed him. You remember that, Siegfried and Roy? That almost bankrupted the casino. When I read that, it occurred to me. You know, the things that are most likely to affect our lives and have the greatest impact on us in 2009 are the things that right now, we're not even thinking about. In fact, a year from now, when we look back on 2009, the things that we will talk about the most are the things that right now today, we have no way of anticipating. What do you do with that? How do you prepare for the unexpected? Now, some of you are thinking about the worst, but let me tell you something, there are people in this room who will experience tremendous blessings of God in 2009. There are others of us in this room, who will face some pretty good sized challenges in 2009. Not on the radar screen yet. Did you know that both the blessings and the challenges equally can derail us from the purposes of God? And so God is with us in both, and God watches our heart in both. And so when we begin to think about the things that we cannot anticipate, how do you prepare for that? The only way to prepare for that is that we become a people so broad and so deep spiritually that with the grace of God that we can handle whatever comes our way, that's what God's after. And so that's what I want to invite you to think through as we anticipate Thursday rolling into 2009. And so as we move forward physically, chronologically, I wanna ask you to think with me about moving forward spiritually as well. And so open your Bibles to Luke chapter 19, and we're gonna take a look this morning at an old story about Zacchaeus. Now I thought about having a sing the song. My kids sang it for me last night on the way home and I realized I'd forgotten most of it. And I wanna also say that I didn't choose this text because Zacchaeus was short, and that's what I have in common with him. Choose this text because I think there's some things that God would speak to us today from this little story. Please begin reading with me Luke chapter 19, beginning in verse one. Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not because of the crowd. And so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him since Jesus was coming that way. And when Jesus reached the spot he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus come down immediately. I must stay at your house today. And so he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter. He's gone to be the guest of a sinner. But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, look Lord here and now, I give half my possessions to the poor. And if I've cheated anybody out of anything, I'll pay back four times the amount. And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house because this man too is the son of Abraham for the son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Now you and I are familiar with Zacchaeus in the context of sharing our faith, evangelism. This is the text that you hear when we're learning how to help people come to know the Lord. And rightly so that Zacchaeus did get saved. But here's my question. What was it exactly that made Zacchaeus lost? Because I think a lot of times we religious folk often clump people into categories. They're either saved or they're lost. Did you know God does not see people in terms of categories? He sees individuals. He knows your heart. He knows your hopes and your dreams and your disappointments and your ambitions. He knows those things and he's aware of those things. He's aware of what was happening in Zacchaeus. And I want you to know that Jesus did not see Zacchaeus as just some lost guy. Here's my question. What was it exactly about Zacchaeus? That made him lost. Here's what I believe it is. Zacchaeus was an image bearer of Almighty God. And the image of God that God had created him with was not available to God and therefore not available to the world around Zacchaeus. Verse two tells us that Zacchaeus was a wealthy man. That's what people could see. You know what Jesus saw? Jesus saw true wealth. Heaven's wealth deposited into Zacchaeus when he was created in his mother's womb that was being squandered on himself. Far above the physical riches that Zacchaeus had. Now I want you to notice with me specifically in verse 10. Jesus makes this comment. And I think it's very peculiar. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. This little Greek word for lost means more than not saved. It means marred, ruined, destroyed, torn up and done away with is the idea this word carries. This word, this Greek word for save means more than just save. It means gathered together and restored to wholeness. And so here's my question for you today. What in your life has been lost? I think it's entirely likely that all of us have areas of our lives that God gave us that are lost to God, lost to the world around us. Doesn't mean we're lost. Saved and going to heaven, but living beneath what Jesus makes available to us by His grace. And so here's my question for you today. What about your life has been lost? And here's what I would tell you in the very words of Jesus that the Son of Man came to seek after to restore completely to redeem. What there is in your life and mind that's been marred, torn up, stolen, forgotten about, done away with. That's what Jesus is after. So as we think about moving forward, I wanna challenge you with two thoughts today. Number one is this, to deal with your past. Deal with your past. It's the very first thing that Zacchaeus did when he turned his heart to Jesus. Look with me in verse eight. Look Lord, here and now, I have half my possessions to the poor. And if I've cheated anybody out of anything, I've paid back 400%. Here's what Zacchaeus realized. That before he was going anywhere with Jesus, that there were some things about his past that he was going to have to deal with. And so here's what he said, here and now I am unwilling to carry that baggage any longer. And so I would challenge you today that the same really is true of you and me, that before you and I can go anywhere into the future with Jesus, that there are some things about our past, that the Son of God is going to be requiring us to deal with. And here's what we need to know, the longer we delay in dealing with them, the longer God is delayed in dealing with our future. So let me give you quickly six things I believe that all of us need to think about dealing with. And number one is regret. You realize that the devil wants to keep you and bondage to regret over your past for the rest of your life. If he can't get you, if he cannot keep you from going to heaven, he at least wants to spoil the fun of the journey for you. And one of the chief ways that he does that is by causing you to regret things that you've done in the past. I was talking with a good friend about three weeks ago and he said, Marcus, he said, how do I go back and undo the past? What's done is done, I can't go back and make that decision again. I would if I could, but I can't. And you know what I realized? Here's the hard thing about time. It's so chronological. It just sort of moves on. And we make decisions by an act of our will and time marches on. And then you and I are dealing with the regret often of a decision that we made willfully. What do you do with that? I'll tell you one thing you can do with that, you can redeem that. You can make a ministry out of it. Because the very best person on the planet to minister to a person who goes through a horrible tragedy is a person who has been through that very same thing and dealt with it in the grace and wisdom of God. That's the best thing. And in fact, Paul says that in 2 Corinthians one, verse three, listen to what he says. He says, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. Who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. Listen, there are people here today who've had abortions, who've had affairs, been addicted to drugs, addicted to alcohol, you've done horrible things because you intended to do them. An act of your will. Was it sin? Yes, it was sin, but it was not unforgivable. And we carry all that regret into the future and the word of the Lord to you today is to lay that down. And so I wanna ask every person in this room to pray this prayer with me. Father God, we come to you in Jesus' name. I confess my sin and I confess I carry regret, I need your forgiveness and I need confidence that I am forgiven completely. Thank you for your grace, thank you for your power. Help me live without regret in Jesus' name. Now be done with that, be done with it. And the next time the devil brings regret to you, you tell him to go take it up with Jesus 'cause that's exactly what you've done. Here's the second thing I believe we all need to think about dealing with and that's unforgiveness and bitterness. Unforgiveness and bitterness. Now I believe that every single person in this room needs to think about unforgiveness and bitterness because the fact is, is that if you have never done an inventory of your thoughts where you've gone back into your history and thought through all the people and all the circumstances that have hurt you, if you've never done that, you are carrying unforgiveness and bitterness. You just are. And it's time for us to lay those things down. Now listen, let me be clear here. When I'm telling you to lay that down, we're not saying that what happened to you was okay because it was not, but can I just be honest enough with you today to tell you that you're carrying that unforgiveness is not hurting the person who did it. The only person you're hurting is yourself. The word of the Lord to you today is lay that down and here's the implication. You're not going anywhere with Jesus until you do. Lay that thing down. Here's the third thing I think we need to deal with and that's unconfessed sin, secret sin. Sin we justify. Sin that nobody knows about that we secretly enjoy. Some immorality or some unforgiveness or some very small dishonesty. Listen, you don't have to be perfect to walk with God, but you do have to be sincere. And I believe that the way to deal with this, let me tell you how I've dealt with this in the past. As I just very sincerely told God, God, you know what? I'm guilty of this sin and frankly, I enjoy it. I wish I didn't, I wish I hated it, but I don't. That says something about my heart that I don't want it to say, but the truth is I like it and I know I shouldn't, but I'm sort of torn in this bubble of guilty pleasure, if you will. So what do I do with that? And the power of the Holy Spirit began to wean me off of that sin so that my life could bring glory to God in that area. And so I wanna tell you, if you're struggling with the sin that's a secret and nobody knows about it, don't keep that thing a secret any longer. Tell that thing to God, tell it to God. God, I enjoy it, but I wish I didn't and going forward, God will begin to wean you away from that thing. Here's the fourth thing that I need, I think we need to think through and that's negative views of God. A negative view of God, maybe you picked up a negative view of God from the church in which you grew up. Or you know what? I think a lot of us were not raised in church, picked up on a really negative view of God. Sometimes we pick up on a negative view of God because of things that happen to us by a church or a pastor. Let me tell you a really difficult thing, is that churches and pastors are God's representatives on the earth, if you will. But sometimes we do things that are not right. And a lot of people get hurt as a result. You may be here this morning and are saying, you know what? If God sat by while this horrible thing happened to me and now he wants me to trust him, I've got news for that. Well, listen, I think we need to separate what people did from God. And let me tell you the goodness of God in your life, that God brought you here to heal you and that's not so bad. Don't miss the healing that God is offering to you in Jesus by bringing you here to Gateway Church because it really is available to you. Here's the fifth thing I think we need to think through. And that's ending dangerous relationships. Now, for the record, I wanna say, I am not talking about your marriage here, okay? But all of us with kids, we warn our kids of dangerous people, don't we? And we should. But you know, I think sometimes we adults need to be warned. There's some dangerous people out there. And anytime the devil decides that he is going to sidetrack you from the purposes of God, the number one way he will try to do that is by sending you a dangerous relationship. Let me define for you a dangerous relationship. A dangerous relationship is one that does not help you get closer to God. And I think we need to think through all of our relationships. Now, I'm not saying that we need to dump all of our lost friends. What I am saying is that if you have a friend who does not claim Jesus as his or her Lord and that's your closest friend, I'm telling you today that that is inappropriate. And the reason for that is because 1 Corinthians 1533 says, do not be deceived bad company corrupts good morals. Now notice it doesn't say that good morals will absolutely change bad company. Bad company corrupts good morals. And so the truth is is that if your closest friend is lost, you share the gospel with them. And if they decide not to get saved, it's time for you to separate yourself from them. 2 Corinthians 614 says, do not be yoked together with unbelievers. Now, we think about this in terms of marriage and business. I want you to think about it in terms of friendship. Do not be yoked together with unbelievers for what derighteousness and wickedness have in common or what fellowship can light have with darkness. Listen, trust God to bring you better friends because the truth is is that if your life ever hits a very, very difficult spot, your lost friends will dump you. Look at the prodigal son, but the friends that God sends you will stay with you closer than a brother. Here's the sixth thing I believe we need to deal with and that's reconciling broken relationships. Now Jesus talked a lot about relationships and the value of relationships. A couple of weeks, a couple of months ago, Pastor Robert started a sermon in Psalm 133. Remember Psalm 133 where brothers dwell together in unity, their God commands a blessing. Well, here's my question. If we're willing to tolerate the opposite of unity, does that mean we get the opposite of blessing? I'm just asking questions here today. Jesus said in Matthew 523, he says, "Therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar "and they'll remember that your brother "has something against you." Now listen to what it doesn't say. It doesn't say if you come to church and they'll remember that you're harboring unforgiveness against your brother. It says that if you come to church and you bring your gift there, but they'll remember that your brother is upset with you. Verse 24, leave your gift there in front of the altar and first go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Here's what God is saying. God is saying to us, look, if you're willing to tolerate a broken relationship, do not assume that everything between us and God is okay because it's not. Now, there is one caveat to this, Romans 12, 18, says if it's possible as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. The truth is, there are some folks that you will not reconcile with because of them, but as far as it's possible with you, I believe we need to try. And let me give you my opinion. This is just my opinion. This is not in scripture, my opinion, that the first day of heaven is gonna be reconciliation day because God will not tolerate us living in heaven with people with whom we will not speak. And so I believe that the first day of heaven will be days when God goes and gets all the people who are upset with each other. And in the presence of God there, we sit down and we work that out. Let me tell you something. If you wait till then, it'll cost you reward in heaven. Don't wait until then. Let's go make those relationships right before that. Now, let me tell you why it is, I believe that we need to deal with our past. And it's this, because our memory of our past has a way of causing these things to be established in our present circumstance. I think the reason that most people don't go on with God, it's not because they don't want to, it's because they don't know how to. Most people really do sincerely want to walk with God. They want to go on with God. But they get stuck. And the reason why is because there's some old things that keep cropping back up that we simply don't know how to deal with. But I'll tell you this, if we really believe that we're going to move forward with God without dealing with our past, I believe we're going to be surprised. Isaiah says, in Isaiah 43 verse 18, he says, "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old, behold, I'll do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." Now, in the Hebraic understanding, what we do when we remember something is we reenact it. That's why in the church, there are two lasting ordinances, water baptism and the Lord's Supper. Has it ever seen a bit of a strange thing to you that we come to church? We dunk people in water and we eat together during a service? It's a very Hebraic way of remembering something that causes that thing to be established in our lives. And so in the same way, Isaiah says, "Look, don't remember that way the stuff that happened to you in the past. Stop reenacting your past, stop dwelling on it, stop serving it." Because the truth is most of us have a horrible tendency to recite, to reenact and to relive what we've been through in the past. And that kind of remembering has a way of barricading us against what God wants to do. This new thing that God wants to bring to us. And it establishes today the painful stuff that we didn't want to go through the first time. And people keep reciting it, reliving it. I'm not saying just forget about it. I'm saying deal with it the right way. The right way is to bring it to Jesus. First John 1-9 says that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just. And will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Now I want you to notice two things about this. Jesus is not only faithful to forgive. He also brings justice to us. You see, when Jesus died for our sins, justice was served. You don't have to live with it any longer. So you give it to Jesus and you move forward. We need to deal with our past. But the second thing is I believe we need to embrace a new future. Now when in verse two, Luke 19-2 says that Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, you need to understand, this is the only time in all of early Greek literature that this word, chief tax collector, was ever used. All the mountains and piles and reams of early Greek literature that we have for history, not just the Bible, all the other writings. This little word for chief tax collectors only use one time right here in Luke 19-2. Here's what this tells us. There weren't very many of these guys. Listen, Zacchaeus was a multi, multi, multi, millionaire and repenting completely ruins him for the life that he had built for himself, completely ruined him. Now most of us cannot imagine a future brighter than millions and millions of dollars. But here's a guy who had millions and millions of dollars and said, you know what, I'm trading all of that for whatever this Jesus is offering to me. Because he realized at the end of the day that Jesus did not come to get something from him. Jesus came to give something to him. Listen, whatever you can build for yourself will pale miserably in comparison to what Jesus wants to pour into your life. Human potential is never fulfilled outside of Jesus. God created the world in such a way that it will fail miserably without him. But you know what most of us live so much in the world that we become acclimated to the spirit of the world and accustomed to living in the middle of deadness. My wife and I have a restaurant that we really enjoy down in Fort Worth called Sardines. Now if you've never been to Sardines, it's a joint. All right, great Italian food. But I mean, it's the darkest place I've ever been in. You walk in, if there's a step, you're tripping over it. 'Cause you can't see. When they bring you your menu, the only light in the whole place or the little candles that are sitting on the tables. And so when you come in, everybody holds their menu over to the candles so they can see. You know what, in about 20 minutes. It's about as bright as it is in here. Because our eyes have a way of acclimating to darkness. Are you catching this? When we allow any small darkness, even small darkness into our lives, we have a way of acclimating to darkness. Even if it's small darkness. And I think we need to be reminded that God has given the devil freedom to traffic anywhere there's darkness. And so even a small darkness, we rationalize it. We justify, well, everybody does that. That's little bitty compared to what other people do. You know what, we acclimate to it. And what it does is it numbs us to what God is doing in us. We get to where we say, you know what, I don't even feel like I hear God anymore. That's what darkness does to us. But I want you to hear something now about light. You realize that on the first day of creation, the very first thing that God made, Genesis one, verse three, let there be light. But it was not until day four that God created the sun. Here's the message, real light, real light, does not come from lamps or the sun. Real light only comes from God. And with that understanding, I want you to hear just three, there are hundreds of scriptures about light. Listen to these three, John says this about Jesus. John one, verse four, in him was life. And that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness. Darkness is not even understood it. John eight, 12, Jesus spoke again to the people. He said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but we'll have the light of life. And here's what it says in Revelation 22, verse five, about heaven, it says, there will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp, the light of the sun for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever. You know a lot of times like Zacchaeus, we walk through some pretty dark days before we realize everything that is available to us in Jesus. But I wanna tell you today that you don't have to let your darkness determine how far God wants to take you. This past week I was looking at our calendar. And I realized how much our calendar prophesied to us. Because every year Christmas comes just before the new year. First comes Jesus, then comes newness. That's what Zacchaeus found. That's what's available to you. I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes. And there may be some things that the Lord is stirring right now in your heart. When the Lord begins to stir things in your heart, I wanna tell you the best thing you can do is to pay attention to that. Because that is an indicator of what God wants to touch with His grace and with His love. What is there about your life that God says is inappropriate for the new thing that He wants to do in your heart? (gentle music) The word of the Lord to you today is, let's leave that in 2008. Let's just drop it. Let's walk away from it. Let's just leave it there. Why would you wanna carry around baggage that only weighs you down? In just a moment, we're all going to stand up. And when we do, there'll be an Altar Ministry team that comes down to the front. And these are people that we know, that we trust and love. We've trained them to minister to your needs. And so if you have any need that the Lord is stirring in you, you may have brought in here a burden that God did not put on you. Listen, you don't have to leave with that. Let's walk away from those things. Let's let the Lord do His new thing. But let's let Him do that free of our baggage of the past. So if God is stirring your heart right now, I want you to really pay attention to that. Holy Spirit, we love you and we trust you. We turn our attention to you right now. We pray, Lord, that you will touch us in ways that we've not been able to make available to you in the past. We pray that you'll draw every person today, that you desire to touch in a deep way, in Jesus' name.