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Gateway Church's Podcast
Reaching Beyond Ourselves
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Well, good morning. Happy Thanksgiving weekend. I tell you, this is just one of the most thrilling times. My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. And as great as Easter and Christmas are, I just, it sort of all focuses in the family mood and spirit of Thanksgiving. And to be here the week, the Sunday following, is just a part of a great seasonal joy for me. So, thank you for the warm welcome. Thank you, Robert. It's true, Robert and I have come to enjoy a very meaningful relationship, but I need to confess to you that I was a little troubled about to this particular weekend invitation from him. I hope you'll put up with my bewilderment. He has been, well, first, I should say, and will in a moment a little more, spoke at our Autumn Leadership Conference, an annual event, great event, of course made a great contribution. But he's also come just to be with a group of pastors that I will meet. It's a different 45 pastors every month, nine months a year, and a week a month. I spend with 45 different pastors and been over 3,000 participants over the last few years from over 60 denominations and inter-denominational representatives. And it's been a joy to have pastors come who just want you to talk to them about pastoring. Well, Robert's come to that. And one of the things that occurred to me, and this did not even occur to me till yesterday morning, I was feeling really excited about being here and suddenly kind of a Paul came over it. And this is the reason that I remembered talking with the pastors about how in building a strong, bibbically-based curriculum with your congregation, you have to plan out two or three years of basically where you're going to go, thematic materials. Of course, you do more detailed studies to get closer to it. And laying it out, where it fits in the calendar, too, becomes very significant. I was talking about the series preaching that you, you know, but you come, there's things that interrupt series. And holidays are among those things that are so dynamic in their own right that they kind of cloud everything else. Not to mention the fact that Thanksgiving weekend, you don't have the usual congregation because so many people are away with relatives and their relatives that are visiting, they're there. And it's a wonderful Sunday of celebration. So it's not meaningless, but you cannot use it to really accumulate the building of ongoing something with a congregation. It's kind of an interruptive week. And I said, and that's a week you can't get that much done. And I said, this is what I always do is I don't speak that week because it's not much you can do with it anyway. And it suddenly occurred to me yesterday morning. And I, you know, sometimes you come with an inch of making a phone call and say, I don't think I can make the plane, you know. No, I would never do that. But it was kind of amusing to me to think about that. And it's a delight to have you here because here we are bright and alert and ready for the Word of God. And also, I'm pleased because Robert having been with us at our Autumn Leadership Conference just three weeks ago, he and I had a chance to talk about what's been going on in the teaching. And he said he'd been doing this series on worship. And he didn't tell me the title of the series, which of course you know is beyond. And he had mentioned, though, and I said, listen, I'll just fit right in with that. And I said a kind of thing I thought I would do along the general lines I'm in fact doing. And you know what really moved me? And I say this with real sincerity. I was preparing my notes and I thought I'm going to title this message, I think, reaching beyond ourselves. And I didn't even know that beyond was the name of the series. And it's one of those things when you arrive and you make the discovery, you feel like the Lord really has been guiding you and notwithstanding the fact that Robert saw it as a useless Sunday morning. And so here I am to serve God in my own week away this morning. And I'd like to ask you to open your Bibles to the 12th chapter of Romans. And in a moment I want to tell you why I turn to this verse from among the scores of verses you could turn to in the Bible that talk about extending hands or lifting hands or raising hands or reaching with our hands in praise, adoration, or prayer to God. And I want to talk to you about why. But we're going to read this. Romans 12 verse 1. "I beseech you, therefore, brethren." Please note the word therefore because it means we're drawing a conclusion on the basis of what's gone before. "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." My translation reads. Some say spiritual worship. There's different ways this is expressed. And let me quickly tell you the dilemma that translators have with the word that is translated there. And there's a combination of the intellectual soundness, the reasonableness of something, but also the spiritual dynamic that there is. So it's both spiritual and it's rational. And how many times people think of these as separate qualities. Things are spiritual and they're kind of mystical, but they're really not. There's few things. In fact, there's not anything more practical than true spirituality and functional and sensible, sane, and of course rational, which is your reasonable service or your spiritual worship. Present your bodies not being conformed to the world, but transformed. As really by that worship, your mind is constantly being sharpened, honed, and you thereby begin to discover the unfolding of the good and acceptable and perfect will of God in your life. But it's borne out of worship, which is predicated by the word, therefore, on everything that's gone before. Romans 12 is a turning point in the book. Those familiar with the outline of the book of Romans know that the theological portion comes to this part and the practical moves from there. Doctrine always becomes practical or it's not really doctrine. Doctrine is not just a combination of ideas. Doctrine is behavioral guidelines that are rooted in the nature and the truth of the living God. And when you come to the, this pivot point of chapter 12, it's flowing out of such great things as that we have been saved justified by faith, regarded as perfect in Jesus Christ, that we're without condemnation, that God has poured out His love in such a way that it's inseparable. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. And then it's dramatically illustrated by chapters 9, 10, and 11 of how even the rebellion against their Messiah does not separate the Jews from God's ultimate purpose in them as that great theological revelation of the 9, 10, 11 chapter of Romans unfolds. And out of the context of all I just recited very quickly, there comes therefore, I beg of you everybody, praise God and use your bodies to do it. Using our bodies in praise is something that is a little difficult for some people to fathom and I want to reference my own difficulty with that and what got me to this verse years ago to say the things I'm saying about it right now. But the first I have to tell you about an experience that so beautifully illustrates that the most natural thing in the world for us to do is to use our hands to express ourselves. There are many parts of our culture humanly speaking and especially different ethnic groups are very expressive with our hands and among the most expressive are the Jews. Having taken groups to Israel over 30 times and taught people there. I've had great exposure involvement with Jewish people and the guide that I've worked with for years, Ami Levy, Ami has a story he will tell each group because he gestures a great deal with his hands, very expressive with his hands which of course all of us have a measure of that but there's this unique idiosyncrasy of Jewish people that it just seems and he says we can't talk without our hands. This is we Jews have to do this. He tells a story about a man who was pulled over to the side of the road and he'd spread a map out on the hood of the car and he was in some country road in Israel and couldn't find his way to Haifa and he was anywhere the map and an Israeli farmer came walking along, had a watermelon under each arm and as he was walking along the guy turned him and he says by the way could you could you help me? He says I can't find my way to the road to Haifa. The farmer walked over to me and he says here the guy took the watermelon put under his arm and he says here he just asked him and he says how can you tell me how to get to Haifa when he got watermelons out he says I don't know. I was raised in a number of denominational environments which has an interesting story behind it because it wasn't because of passive commitments or you know being church hopping and like hallelujah hobos of some kind but our family moved frequently when I was a boy I'm a depression baby and the family was finding places where my dad could work and I remember my upbringing which I've benefited me in many ways because we always went to the house closest to where the church closest to our home wherever we landed that the church had preached the gospel whatever it was so they were always churches that preached the word of God and where the word of God was authority and Jesus Christ is Lord but many of those years were in Presbyterian churches and Presbyterians traditionally are not perceived as being especially expressive and while we were involved in Pentecostal churches too and I grew up with a certain liberty most of the influence especially going in my teenage years as Presbyterian and when the Lord called me to go into spirit filled ministry as Pentecost a train for Pentecostal or charismatic ministry I came to a college where I began to train and as I came there I was in an environment that was not like the church I'd come from and everybody among the most visible things they did when they'd praise and worship was lift their hands and I I was not unfamiliar with the idea and I didn't object to it but I really it was just not part of what I did and it didn't make me angry sometimes it makes people angry but I was fine I could I could go with this but I but I didn't want to do it and one day I thought what is it that that's resistance in you so I got out concordance and began to study to find out and I was astounded how often the expressiveness of our hands is called for and worship it's God's idea it says though he said I gave you hands for a lot of reasons among them is to present yourself to me that it is one of the most natural things we do as we'll see in a few moments and I want to get you ready right now because you're I'm going to invite you to write down five words and the beginning letter of each of those words will conclude by with the word raise or raise your hands and I want to go there in a moment but when we when I studied that I found the scriptures full of this and Roberts probably in the last few weeks taught you about the fact that both praise and bless excuse me thank and blessed to give thanksgiving and to bless God bless the Lord of my soul that the word in the Hebrew language literally means to extend the hands and we extend our hands when we bless so why should that be so surprising but I'm not bringing this message because I think there's any resistance to raise hands certainly in this congregation but because I think that everything that we do should transcend merely reasons of our choosing to accept a tradition there'd be something that is imbued with significance in our understanding and so I wanted to leave you this word and to go there with that but in this passage of Scripture the foundation of it is everything that's been done from you for you present your bodies holy and acceptable unto God at the time I was studying that through and found it was not only biblical but it was so practical it's so it's so right it's the way you know nobody says to someone who's given them a beautiful present oh thank you you know we say oh thank you oops you know you know I don't want to get fanatical about this the sense the sense of sanity practicality just plain the human Lord Lord why do you make so much of hands in the Bible there's a laying on of hands for any number of reasons from praying the sick to seeing people delivered to commissioning people the ministry there's see people filled with the spirit there's there's so much of lay of hands involved in the scripture of raising hands extending hands I said Lord why is that and the Lord said what do you use the most what do you use the most in your life and I realized the busiest member of my body and yours too is our hands and what is more sane than regularly as we come to the Lord say Lord these hands I want to bring them to you because they've got a lot to work to do this week going to be you know taking care of our kids this week I'm going to be working in my in tasks that there's things that are beyond my capability everything loved ones is beyond our capability it's not a commentary on our intelligence it's just on our finiteness and our limits I need to constantly be reaching beyond myself reaching beyond ourselves and when we come in worship not just when we gather an assembly but come before the Lord raising our hands is practical for at least five reasons shut down these what do you the first is because it is the way to reach and present your heart to God reaching and each of the words will be like that reaching asking inviting surrendering embracing I'll say them again reaching is the first one the Bible says in the third chapter of of lamentations let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord let us lift up our hearts with our hands in fact could I ask you just do like this with your hands and just to form a kind of a cup and just saying you know obviously the the physiological heart is right here but presenting myself to the Lord here here here I come and say Lord I want to in fact we sing Lord I give you my heart I give you my soul Lord I come to present my heart to you the Bible says that the extension of my hands reaching to God is reaching in a presentation of my heart let us lift up our hearts with our hands reaching beyond myself in order to present my heart to the Lord secondly write the word asking if you will the word asking Psalm 63 David's running for his life and it's an unjust assault that is coming and he cries out to the Lord and he says Lord says thus will I bless you as long as I live he's in a cave by the way writing that song it's a song brought in a moment of darkness and pressure and he's calling out to the Lord says Lord thus will I bless you while I live I will lift up my hands to your name he's basically saying I don't even know if I'll have another day but I'm asking you to be my deliverer and of course he was delivered marvelously by God's grace from from Saul's unjust chasing him but that request asking of the Lord I come to ask I've thought of it in this terms too not just asking for things we need but asking for counsel from God asking wisdom many times I think of myself and I there's you have no idea I don't say this for any reasons of ostentation or attempt to verify something of unique or profound humility I cannot tell you the frequency that I will say to the Lord Lord I'm just a little boy I'm just a little boy and I need you in this matter I feel like sitting in the school room of heaven and lifting my hand and asking Father God what do I do about this and none of us in this room are superior to another in the fundamental needs of the counsel and the wisdom of God in our lives asking and I come and just lift my hand to say Father I come to ask inviting Solomon was dedicating the temple and the Bible says he knelt there was a huge platform that had been prepared and he he knelt before the people of Israel the royal king of the nation down on his knees in his royal robes with his hands it said and Solomon spread forth his hands and he issued an invitation and said Lord the heavens of the heavens can't contain you much less this building that we have built but God would you come and dwell here and among the most moving scenes in scripture is the fact that the priests were unable to minister because the presence of the glory of God filled that temple and there's not one of us that don't need the profound presence of God in our daily life can you say amen to that we need we need his presence and it comes by invitation and Solomon models that with hands extended saying Lord I want to invite you into not only this place but this place right here and I want to in a moment tell you a story and conclusion that talks about this stretching our hands and saying Lord come into this place and this place being the every place of our lives on our human circumstance when there came the call to surrender that we you see in any kind of an environment the next word is surrendering the yielding the most the uniform the universal signal of surrender is up raised hands just I give up I give up you wonder if there's somebody here this morning that's where you are this morning but you're ready just to give up period rather than come and say Lord I give up to you I'll tell you there's a world of difference between just giving up and giving up to God because he will take over whatever we surrender to him and many of us learned a long time ago and some more recently and perhaps some today that's something you're wrestling with right now bring it to him and surrender this time of worship before his throne in fact you may never have lifted your hands to the Lord not so much because of resistance but fear sometimes intimidation as with me in that college situation where it was new to me and I decided I better go find out what the Bible says and I just decided I need to get over it and so lifting hands is not something I came by in some superficial exuberance and no one is asked to do this out of mere excitability it's the reason for the message it's to see the reasons behind it come in surrender to the Lord and then finally embracing because in him surrender it doesn't just end there I come and say Lord I want I want to submit to you your way but then to reach out and as the Bible says in the 11th chapter of Hebrews that these great heroes of faith having seen from afar what God had promised embraced the promise and in worship we come and embrace what God says and the beautiful thing about embracing the promise is it isn't just an idea it's the Lord himself for in Christ all the promises of God are yes and amen and so this reaching asking inviting surrendering embracing all of these things are the things that are the perhaps as simple a summary just to raise our hands to the Lord with understanding it is the most sensible practical thing and it aligns with everything that and as I I'm asking a question I'm reaching beyond myself like a little child wanting to reach and get something off the table I'm coming to embrace what God has offered in promise several years ago I was I had a moment of real remarkable discovery and it was related to the fourth chapter of the book of Revelation where the Bible says the angelic creatures called the cherubim there's four of them and they're around the throne of God it says they're in where the throne of God is you can read about in the fourth chapter of the book of Revelation where the throne of God is it's central to this huge huge worship center which really looks like a gigantic atrium there's a there's a lake there's a small sea and the hosts of angels and innumerable people praising God but at the center of the four creatures around the throne the four living creatures are called the cherubim and when they begin to worship the Lord then the next tier begin the elders there's 24 elders around the throne they begin to worship then angels near the throne begin to and then the whole host of angels and then by the time you go through the chapter four and five it ends with everyone praising and worshiping God and so this worship that begins with them they're basically the worship leaders of creation that they worship and everything else like like ripples going up from a common center just begins to spread something about that scene was drawn to my attention some years ago as a result of an evening in which we had gathered as we had come to the place in our on a Saturday night with the pastoral staff this was early in the church's life we were only about 700 in the church at the time 700 in attendance on Saturday night we would go over two of the pastoral staff members and I and we would just pray through the sanctuary and this one evening while we were there praying we would go at 10 o'clock I'd have the guy that said look stay home with your family just when the kids have gone to bed then come on over we'll pray for about an hour and go home and go to bed be in bed by 11 30 I suppose and we'll be ready for the next day so we were there and there was an knock on the front door we were just we weren't praying as a unit we would do that at the end we'd just walk around in each one pray as we felt impressed all of walking around the room and I went to the front door I was closest to the door and opened the door of the church and it's like 10 15 and there was one of the college kids in our church who I didn't know that she lived across the street in a condominium and she'd seen the lights on and she said pastor Jack she said I saw the lights on from my apartment window is there a service and I said well no we're just here praying and she said well could I come in and pray well you know I really didn't want her to be you don't say no you can't you know you were kind of hung with it and I so I said we'll come on in Gail and she came in and so I said we're just praying around the sanctuary so go ahead well she did it was just a few minutes after that that I felt very impressed to do something that was not any contrived thing I'd never done before but I said to the other three in the room I said I really feel very moved the word each go and stand in the corner of this small sanctuary and this little little building only seated about 220 people so just get right here and then easily in the center you probably put it six times in this room and so I went over this corner and and Gail was over there and John was there and Paul our youth pastor was over in that corner and I want to emphasize Paul our youth pastor he's going to say something not talking about the Apostle Paul when I said that the Paul the youth pastor and I said I feel like we're supposed to extend our hands as though we are creating a tent and to just come before the Lord with worship and create the phrase that come to me build a canopy for my presence build a tent for my presence is not unlike what the Lord said to Israel as they came out of Egypt and so we we were doing just very simple action and everyone knew I wasn't doing talking about something weird and I tell you that because you're going to hear something weird in just a minute when we extended our hands we began to sing just hallelujah praise your name oh Lord and many minutes went by we didn't keep track of it but it was amazing how worship just seemed to flow without any any effort and then we all just seem to stop just at once and we did Paul our youth pastor Paul stepped forward from the corner and he said when we felt that unique sense of the presence of God as we had extended our hands and said Lord come and go all here he said the Holy Spirit whispered to me that this seemed so right because we had where we were standing in each corner of the building we had aligned with an angel at each corner of the building and that's it's all there was to it that's all he said and because we of course believe that angels presence is often places where we are that he gives these angels charge over us it's not anything that's unusual so it didn't seem mystical but didn't really give it much thought until next week I'd come to a morning prayer meeting and the men in the church had come on their way to work and it was about six o'clock in the morning and while I was praying there the Lord spoke to me while I'm on my knees and I'm not even I hadn't even thought about that Saturday night encounter earlier that just a few days before and the Lord whispers this to me get ready here it comes nudge the person next to you say this is going to get weird now right now the Lord the whisper came to my heart the four angels that I spoke to Paul about Paul the youth pastor that I spoke to Paul about are the four living creatures of the four cherubim around the throne in Revelation chapter four well I didn't say this to the Lord but I don't want to tell you what I thought when I this comes into my mind and then I thought well of course Lord I mean I knew that all the time I was I mean where else would they go but 143 44 Sherman wave and I was California the four square church little congregation there why would they not be here that I didn't say that what I wanted to say was God do you realize that there are entire cult systems that have begun with less material than this I was really puzzled by I knew it was the Lord but I didn't know what to do with it I opened my Bible there just the guys are praying open to Revelation chapter four and I read it and I didn't know any more than I did before and I just let it go the ancient creatures around the throne and it was a little over a week later that I was you know that I brought that book out here and didn't bring it thank you I brought this for this purpose then and didn't care to the platform and all of a sudden walking in from the parking lot this one day again not having to I would did not try to figure these things out let me tell you something you have something unusual Lord speaks to and you believe it's the Lord and you say I can't figure this out it seems weird leave it alone just leave it alone and there's something you're to learn it'll get clear later but don't go around kind of just oh boy I just struggle with this forget it you know if there's if something's true God will get it through to you clearly and it'll be an alignment with a scripture and alignments the key word here because all of a sudden I saw it and I didn't see it by reasoned analysis I saw it as I was walking in from the parking lot that day and there it was just like that came back to my mind the Bible says the Lord the Lord's throne is settled forever in heaven and that his word and his authority the rule of his kingdom what he determines and declares what he wills what he will prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God that is talked about in Romans chapter 12 that we began with this morning that that rule of God in your world and mine in your family and mine in your business and mine in the details of mine and my soul the issues of my life that his throne is settled in heaven and as I worship him and as we did that day as I worship him here I am in my place on earth and the Bible says when we draw near to God that he draws near to us and that as we that night had given ourselves to say Lord we worship you in this house that we had come in alignment as you or I will anytime we extend ourselves to come into the presence of God and say Lord I want your presence here I want your grace upon my life today's decisions the matter I face now you step out of an office out of a conference room where something is beleagering your your own mind and you don't know what decision to make it's excuse me a minute and get along and extend yourself before God and just say Lord I come and I say let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and you get alignment with God and the four angelic creatures around his throne become right around where you are and it's not the word after angel presences but it explained the proximity to which we are brought when we come with worship and reach beyond ourselves this morning I want to ask you if you would just open your hands in front of you just like this and as you do loved ones in just a moment your meeting is going to be dismissed and I don't know which of the pastoral team is coming to bring us to conclusion but as they come I'm going to ask you to let me lead you in a prayer but would you just with me reach your hands upward and the sensibleness of this is so clear and while this may be something you've done a thousand times before yourself or maybe it's the first time just very simply let's pray together would you say with me father God I lift my heart with my hands according to your word take my heart all that I am I want to be aligned with your rule I want to keep your hands right there and I want to pause a moment if there's anything right now you want to bring under his dominion his rule his guidance his direction his healing his entry of his kingdom power and right now let's continue and so Lord I present to you all it concerns me that for your glory by your power my life of worship may find the release of your will in my world through Jesus Christ my Lord just go ahead and speak praise to him for just a moment right now