Hope Church LV Sermons
Open My Eyes
Over the last five days, we have embraced a brand new year. Believe it or not, 2012 is gone, and 2013 is here. And what happens every year during this time is that millions of people make a bunch of new commitments or new promises that we refer to as new years resolutions. And the goal in making these resolutions is to actually somehow improve our quality of life. And believe it or not, studies have already been done in the past five days to determine the top resolutions for this next year. And as you would probably imagine, the one that ranks at the top is the same one that ranks at the top every year. Eat healthy and exercise more. Another one of the top resolutions this year is to find a better balance between work and family. It's a pretty good resolution. Another one was to volunteer time to a meaningful cause. It's a good resolution. One of the other top ones was to save more money and get organized. Now let's be honest this morning, how many people in the room made at least one New Year's resolution raise your hand? Couple of people, okay. Well, you are not the only one. Studies show us throughout history that 45% of Americans make at least one New Year's resolution. That equates to about 141 million people. Now this is funny. Of those 141 million people, 25% give up on their resolution within the first week. Now let me just say this, if you go to Hope and you made a resolution, do me a favor, last longer than just one week, are you serious? It's 35 million people who could not even live out their commitment for one week. The studies also show that by December the 31st, only 8% of those who make a New Year's resolution will actually see it come to pass. Now I don't know if you're a person who is a fan of New Year's resolutions or not, but I do wanna say today as we begin, that our pastoral team really took some time at the end of last year and prayed about how this community of faith should start 2013. And we were led to something very, very specific. We felt led to dedicate the entire month of January to us as a fellowship, experiencing a fresh encounter with God. Over the past 11 years in our history as a church, we've set aside many seasons to do different things. We've set aside seasons that specifically focused on reaching the lost in our city and around the world. We've set aside seasons to really think about our stewardship as church and as Jesus followers. But as we enter into this month, here's what we're praying. We're praying that in the life of our church, we would experience a spiritual awakening. And we're gonna seek God together in numerous ways over the next month. And I'm gonna tell you more about that in a few moments. But one of the ways that we're gonna seek God together is through a three part teaching series that we're starting today called Open My Eyes. And in this series, here's what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about how you and I can experience more of God on a personal level, as a church and in our city and in our world. And I believe this could be one of the most exciting months in the history of Hope Church. So if you have a copy of the Bible this morning, would you take it in turn to Psalm chapter 119. And in just a moment, I'm gonna start reading in verse nine. If you've never taken the time to really study through Psalm 119, it's one of my favorite chapters in all of the scriptures. If you don't have a Bible this morning, we're gonna put this up on the screen for you so that you can follow along with us or you can pull us up on the U version app by searching live event. Someone 19 starting in verse nine. How can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to your word? With all my heart, I have sought you. Don't let me wander from your commandments. Verse 11, your word, I have treasured in my heart that I might not sin against you. And then look down at verse 18. Really the theme verse for our series. Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from your law. A great chapter of the scripture is in a great section within that chapter. Here's the question I want us to wrestle to the ground this morning. The big question, how do I experience more of God in my personal life? I mean, what does it look like for you and for me this year to experience more of him on a personal level? And that's a great question. And here's why that's a great question. Because a revived church consists of revived individuals. You see, before we're gonna see spiritual awakening corporately, we must first experience spiritual awakening personally. You can call it spiritual renewal. You can call it personal revival. You can call it spiritual awakening. But what we really want to talk about today is what it looks like for you and for me to walk in a vibrant, intimate love fellowship with the God of heaven. One theologian said it this way. Revival awakens in our heart an increased awareness of the presence of God. A new love for God, a hatred for sin and a hunger for his word. Today we want to ask the question how? What does that look like? So the way I want to unpack this text is I want to give you two components of spiritual awakening. And they come right out of this text. Now obviously there are way more than just two. When I started this past week, I actually listed 26. But for your benefit, I narrowed it down to two. You can thank me later. Thanks for that, Teddy. But here's what I know. The two we're gonna talk about today, they're pretty heavy. But in any place throughout history that you would read about or hear about spiritual awakening, these two components were there and they served as a catalyst for all the rest. So if you're taking notes, here's the first component that I want us to talk about today as it relates to spiritual awakening, the first component. A genuine brokenness over my sin. Three times in three verses here in Psalm 119, we hear the psalmist make reference to his desire to pursue righteousness over sin. In verse nine, he talks about purity. In verse 10, he talks about not wandering from God's commandments. In verse 11, he talks about not sinning against God. Now you know this, but when something is mentioned once in the scriptures, it's a big deal. But when something is repeated multiple times, we need to stop what we're doing and process it. And what's being repeated here multiple times is the reality of sin and our tendency as humans to engage in it. I want you to think about something real quick. How do you view sin? What's your perspective? When someone asks you about sin, what do you say? How do you view sin? Everyone has some perspective. Unfortunately, for most people, it's not a biblical perspective. You see, our natural tendency is to play down the severity of sin. I mean, for crying out loud, it's in the tagline for our city. I mean, if everybody's talking about it and it's on the billboards and it's on the commercials and it's in the shows, can it really be that big of a deal? Well, according to scripture, yeah. And it's not just a big deal. But according to the Bible, how we perceive sin is a matter of spiritual life and spiritual death. So I wanna give you a couple of statements really quickly to clarify why sin's a big deal and why you and I should take it very, very serious. And listen, I know this is heavy, but I want this month to be special. And if this month is gonna be significant for me and significant for you, the bottom line is we gotta start here. We have to start here. So one of the reasons we should take sin so serious is because sin causes spiritual death. You see, when God made the world, it was not in its current condition. Now that's hard for you and I to understand because the way the world is now is all we really know. But when God made the world, it was perfect, meaning it was a world without pain or disease or storms or fear or anger or stress or aging. God made a world that was whole and a world that was complete. But not only that, as humans in the world that God made, our relationship with him was everything that he designed it to be. Humanity walked in a right relationship with God and we were spiritually free and we were alive. The perfect loving relationship between God and humanity was his desire from creation forward. But a lot of you know what happened. As humans, we chose sin over God's design and when that happened, we became spiritually dead because of sin and we were separated from a relationship with God. A wedge was put between us and spiritual life. Life. And that wasn't just a little disagreement. When we rebelled against the living God, it was ugly and it was passionate and it was in essence us saying, God, I know you have a plan, but I think I know what I need better than you know what I need and I can do better. The Bible says it this way in Isaiah 59, but your iniquities or your sin have made a separation between you and your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. In one choice, our choice to sin, we went from being in God's perfect design and freedom to being under his wrath and his judgment. And since that point, spiritual death has rained over humanity because sin causes spiritual death. Here's another reason we should take sin serious. Sin hinders my fellowship with God. You see, despite our choice to sin, God and his grace made a way for us through the person of Jesus Christ to experience forgiveness and be given eternal life. And what the Bible says is that now, even though we're sinful people, if we put our faith in Jesus, his finished work on the cross and his life that was brought back on the third day, that we can experience forgiveness of sin and have an eternal relationship with God. But while our relationship with God is eternal, our daily fellowship with God can be affected by our choice to knowingly engage in sin. Clyde Cranford said it this way in his book because we love him. Our relationship with God is not in question. Through the blood of Jesus, we were released from all our sins past, present and future and thus unable to have a relationship with God. Our fellowship is nevertheless hindered by unconfessed sins, which must be dealt with all along the way. Christ's shed blood continues to cleanse us from the sins that hinder our fellowship with him on a daily basis. You see, a lot of people under the impression that once I receive salvation from God, I can live or do whatever I want and I'm gonna be fine. That's wrong. Our choice to knowingly sin as believers hinders our fellowship with our heavenly Father. You see, we gotta get past thinking about sin and saying, well, that's bad or I should probably stop that or I hope nobody knows about it. Sin hinders the most important relationship in your life, that being your relationship with God. Henry Blackaby said this challenging statement. You cannot continue to practice sin and simultaneously experience spiritual renewal. That should grip us inside. That should just be a quote that we put out on Facebook or we put on Twitter, no, that should affect our heart. You see, a genuine brokenness over my sin is one component of me experiencing spiritual awakening. Sin separates us from God. It hinders the fellowship we have with him on a daily basis, but lastly, sin grieves at the heart of God. You see, in most cases, when we talk about sin, here's what we talk about. We talk about the way it affects us. We talk about what it does to us. We talk about the way it separated us from God, the way it causes so many things in our world. First and foremost, sin is a rebellion against a holy God. It starts there and our sin, even today, grieves his heart. Charles Ryrie said this, "When we contemplate sins of unbelievers, "it does not seem so difficult to comprehend "the enormity of sin. "For we know the punishment will be eternal separation "from God," but listen to this. But somehow, when we consider sins in believers, we lighten their seriousness, but make no mistake about it. All sin grieves God. I don't know what that does in your heart this morning, but I hope it saddens you. You see, one of the things we have to come to this month, is being broken over the reality of known sin in our lives. Sin causes spiritual death. It hinders our fellowship and it grieves the heart of God, and I say all that to say this. If we truly believe what the Bible says about sin, if we really believe it's true, what this book articulates about sin, we will not continue to be insensitive to the known sin in our lives. That's the bottom line. If it's really true that sin causes spiritual death, it hinders our daily fellowship with him and breaks his heart, we will not continue to disregard the known sin in our lives. The Bible uses a great word to describe a right response to the sin in our lives as believers. Here's the word, it's the word repentance. Repentance. And a lot of people define repentance a lot of different ways, but there's really two ideas in the word. The first idea is to turn around. The second idea is to change behavior. You see, when I repent, I acknowledge before God that what's going on is wrong and a rebellion against him, and I turn away from it, and I change my behavior so I'm not back in the same boat a week later. That's what the word repentance means. What we need to do as a church is acknowledge is that before God, some of the stuff we have going on is wrong, and we need to turn from it, and we need to change our behavior. Repentance involves returning to God. It involves forsaking sin, and a fresh surrender to his lordship. So what does that look like? I wanna read you a text of scripture from another place in Psalms that I think communicates the frame of mind and the heart attitude that we have to get to at some point during this month if we're gonna see a spiritual awakening in our church. And it's from Psalm chapter 51. We're gonna put it on the screen, but here's what David said. After he really engaged in some sin, and it was a big deal. Here's what he said. He said, "Create in me a clean heart, God." He said, "A renew a steadfast spirit within me. "Do not cast me away from your presence, "and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. "Restore to me the joy of your salvation, "and sustain me with a willing spirit." Let's leave that up there for just a moment. When David said this, it wasn't a pretty prayer. It wasn't just him sitting on his couch and folding his hands and just doing something clean. No, this was a prayer that was full of passion and weeping and anguish, because David recognized that the sin he'd committed broke his fellowship with God and grieved the heart of God. And so we found himself as a place crying out to God for a clean heart for renewal inside of him. Listen, if we wanna experience spiritual awakening personally, we've gotta get to a point where we are broken over our own sin. Amen. The only right response to the known sin in our lives is repentance and to agree with God that is wrong. And the hard part for us is that we waste so much time trying to hide our sin, that somehow we begin to justify in our minds that it's not as evil as people say it is. Listen, I don't care how good you are at hiding what you have going on. God knows anyway. He knows our thoughts. He knows the motives of our heart. He knows our actions. Your family may not know. Your friends may not know. Your coworkers may not know, but listen, he knows. He does. We can't fool him. We can't go anywhere that he doesn't see. We can't have a thought or a heart motive that he does not know about. Here's my challenge for you this morning to bring whatever the known sin is in your life into the light and agree with God that it's wrong and turn from it and ask him for the grace to change that behavior. And as a believer, listen, this is a continual process. Repentance that is not ongoing is not genuine. It's not like this morning you're going to confess something and all the urges or anything is going to go away. But listen, what you can do today is take a first step and bring it into the light and agree with God that it's wrong and beg him for the grace and mercy to help you turn from it and change your behavior. Without repentance, there will be no revival. The first component that is consistent, any time, there is spiritual awakening in a person's life is a genuine brokenness over our sin. The scariest place to be. It's when sin doesn't bother you anymore. And for some people, that's where you need to start today. It's just asking God to break your heart over the known sin in your life. That's the first component. And it's a significant one. Without repentance, there will be no revival. Here's a second component that in every instance when a person is awakened spiritually on a personal level, this component is present. Not only a genuine brokenness over my sin, but a genuine love for God's Word. The other major thread in our text here in Psalm 119 is not only the reality of sin, but the wonder and the power of God's Word. A lot of people have shared this illustration, but it's true for me as well. I remember early on when I got a Bible as a teenager, one of my mentors wrote in it, and here's what he wrote. Right on the first pages, he wrote, "Either this book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book." And that's as true today as it was then. You say, "Okay, today I'm ready to bring the sin into the light and agree with God that it's wrong and turn and change my behavior, but what do I run to? Well, you run to an intimate pursuit of God through loving and treasuring the Word of God." Once again, in this text, we see this thread. In verse 9, we see reference to God's law. In verse 10, we see reference to God's commandments. In verse 11 and 18, we see reference to God's Word. I love the word in verse 11, the word treasure. The Psalmist says, "Your Word I have treasured in my heart that I might not sin against you." The word treasure literally means to have a deep affection for someone or something. It means to care deeply about. According to dictionary.com, the word treasure means to regard or treat as precious, to cherish or value. So let's bring that thought into the context here in Psalm 119. As you think about your relationship to God's Word, can you say that when it comes to the Bible, it's something that you regard or treat as precious? Can you say it's something that you cherish and value and that you care deeply about? Because everywhere you find spiritual awakening on a personal level, you will see someone having an interaction with the truth and being changed because of it. You see, this is not just another book in print. This is the living and active Word of God. And what's inside of it can change our life. Spiritual awakening always includes an interaction with the truth. And for this component, I want to give you a couple of application statements that I think will just kind of help us process as we think about what it looks like to treasure the Bible, to cherish it, to value it, to care deeply about it. Here's the first life application statement. If, which is a big word, I treasure God's Word, it will deepen my relationship with Him. I want us to read that out loud together on three. One, two, three. If I treasure God's Word, it will deepen my relationship with Him. You see, one of the primary ways that we're to read this book is as a love letter from our Heavenly Father. Do you remember when you got your first love letter? Now, kids today send text messages all the time. But I think there's something special about a letter or a note. I can remember through elementary school, junior high and high school. You know, there being a certain female that I paid attention to and her giving me a love note or a love letter. And I can remember the very first one I got, I was in the third grade. And this young lady named Becky walked up in the hall and she gave me this note. And, of course, in the moment I'm playing cool, like it's not really that big of a deal. But I immediately went somewhere where it was just me and I ripped that thing open and I read it ten times over. Why? Because I was so anxious to see through that letter what her heart towards me really was. Here's what the Bible is. It's a love letter from God. And here's what it communicates, what his heart towards us really is. The overarching message of the Bible is that God loves the world and passionately desires a relationship with us for his glory. John Phillips said this, "The more we know the Word of God, the more we will love God." And he said, "In the more we love God, the more we will love the Word of God." That's the truth. You see, the more that I understand what it means to treasure this book, the more it deepens my love relationship with my Heavenly Father. It's that powerful, it's that significant. One of the primary ways I'm to read this book is as a love letter from my Heavenly Father. Last year we did a series out of Colossians chapter 1 called "I am praying for you." And I know that you guys remember everything that me, Tom and Vance talk about. But just in case you weren't here that Sunday, I want to share with you a statement that we unpacked. We talked about the most important thing you can pray for another believer, the most important above everything else, above safety and blessing and all that stuff. Here was the statement we looked at during that series. The greatest thing I can pray for another Christian is that they will know the heart of God through the Word of God. Here's why. Because when I know his heart through his Word, I understand that he's a good God regardless of how I feel. When I know his heart through his Word, I understand there really can be victory over sin. When I know his heart through his Word, I understand that Jesus does not just want to be a part of my life, but he wants to be my very life. When you and I treasure the Word of God, it will deepen our relationship with him. Here's a second application statement I want us to talk about for a few minutes. If, which is a big word once again, if I treasure God's Word, I will spend unhurried time meditating on it. I want us to read that out loud together off the screen on three, one, two, three. If I treasure God's Word, I will spend unhurried time meditating on it. I don't know about you, but I feel like my schedule is always pulling me in a bunch of different directions. And if it's not my schedule, it's my thoughts. And if it's not my thoughts, it's something else. But if we honestly value this book, we will prioritize and carve out unhurried time to just sit with God in his Word. You see, treasuring God's Word does not mean putting the Bible in a prominent place in our home where people can see it. People do that. It does not mean just picking up this book on Sunday when I come to church, so that when I say, "Hey, open your Bibles, you have it ready." It does not mean saying in your heart, "Well, I'll get to it when I get to it." Listen, when I spend unhurried time focusing on the Word, the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and changes my life. Clyde also said this in his book because we love him. The primary instrument for renewing the mind is God's Word. Our part is to love, study, and obey His Word. His part is to illuminate that Word in our minds, endear it in our hearts, and apply it to our lives. You see, to meditate means to chew on it. It means to taste it. It means to sit down with the Word and not be worrying about what I have to do next. That 100% of my attention is focusing on meeting with God through His Word. It means to read it. It means to study it. It means to memorize it and hide it in my heart. You see, we need lives that are grounded in the truth. We need hearts that are fixed on the truth, and we need minds that are being transformed by the truth. But here's what I want you to know. This is so challenging. No one can feast on the Word for you and no one can grow spiritually for you. I wish I could. Not that I'm all that or perfect, but it's just not the case. No one can prioritize time for you to sit down and treasure this book. No one can grow spiritually for you. No one can give you a thriving relationship with God. You see, we have to treasure the Word. And my challenge to you today is to be honest about where you are. You see, some of us need to be honest in a few moments when we respond and just tell God, "Lord, out of my mouth, I say that I treasure the Bible and I love your Word, but according to my time and energy, I don't. I don't. Because if we treasure it, we will spend unhurried time meditating on it. We all need a plan to prioritize measuring the truth and meditating on it because the byproduct will be transformation." It will. History has proven you will be shaped the most by the books that you read, the places that you go, and the people you spend time with. Here's what I'm asking you today. As we approach a new year, what's your plan? What's your plan about what you're going to read in the truth that's going to change your life? What's your plan in terms of how you're going to engage in God's missions and go somewhere? And who are the people that you're intentionally going to seek out so that they can make a strategic investment in your life? Anywhere there has been spiritual awakening on a personal level, there has been a brokenness over known sin, and there has been a genuine love for God's Word. In Luke chapter 6, Jesus asked an extremely challenging question. He was talking about foundations, and the foundations that he desires his people to build their life on. And he said, "Some people are going to get it right, and their foundation is going to be solid. Some people are going to get it wrong, and when the difficult days come and the hard things come, they're going to be wiped away." But here's the question that he asked, his disciples that was so challenging. He said, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord? But you don't do what I say. Are you serious about pursuing Jesus this year and experiencing more of God like never before? Or are you just pretending? Because there are two clear challenges today. For the people who have known sin in your life, I want to challenge you to repent of that sin, to turn away from it and beg God for the grace to change your behavior. For those in the room who you know in your heart you're not treasuring the Bible, I want to ask you to take a step and to cry out to God today and beg him to give you the grace so that you would hunger and thirst for the truth of the Bible. If anything of significance is going to happen this month, we have to start with the known sin in our lives and our pursuit of the Word. So we've got to start. When I was 20 years old, it's really when this clicked for me. I began to look throughout awesome movements of God throughout history and I realized that two of the things that were always present when God was most at work was the repentance of sin and a passion to know God through His Word.