MCC Podcasts
Expectant
- Expected because this is the beginning. This is sort of the, it feels this month, doesn't it like the beginning of the year? It's sort of a beginning whenever we hit the fall season. September, it kind of feels that way. It's been that way since we were in kindergarten and our year sort of doesn't feel like January, December. It feels like, you know, September to June and then summer. And so we're talking about expected because we're talking about what's this gonna look like for us this year, being God's people in this church at this time with God's plan, what's our year gonna be about? And how do we live into this idea of being expectant? And my part of it this morning is to remind us that when we talk about expectant, expectant isn't just sort of some sort of a pie in the sky out there always a way. There's also sort of a past component, a looking back component to being expectant. And this is my little phrase today, my little theme today that I want you to see because we've seen the work of God yesterday. We expect the work of God tomorrow. You get that? I mean, isn't that true? Because of what we've seen, because of what we have seen God be about, we then because we know that he has done something and can do something, we believe, we can believe that he can do something in the future. And we live in that reality, looking back, expecting God as we look forward. I told you a couple, or last week I think when I preached that I had just preached at a church in the East Bay's fall kickoff. And they did it on a Saturday and it was a big festival and everybody was there and that put their pastors in a dunking booth and had food and worship and I got to bring the message. And it was super fun to be a part of their big kickoff for the fall, right? But one of the things that happened is when we were at the beginning, we were standing in a circle praying together with all the people that had planned and worked on this event for a year. And they were fired up because they really wanted it to be a sweet kickoff for their year together. And some big plans. But when we got into the circle, one of the women who was like the detail woman, she said, I'm really worried because I don't think we have enough food for everybody here. Now listen, she started saying, I mean, there is like 350 people showing up. I didn't think that many people were gonna show up. I don't know how much food that we have. And she said, I'm gonna pray for that. I confess I'm worried about it. And as she started praying, listen to her prayer, she started praying, God, is there any way? Is there any way you could multiply this food so that the little bit of food that we have could be multiplied so that all of the people could have something, do you hear where this is going? And she's like, is there any way, God, that you could multiply the food so that even though we only have a few, and I'm thinking to my head, baskets of fish and loaves of bread, that maybe the multitude could eat and she's praying and it took everything within me, not to just blur it out while she was praying, but at the end of the prayer, I just thought, when she said, guys, there are any way you can multiply the food, I thought, he's done that miracle, sister, that is something he can do. One thing I know about God is he has done the miracle of multiplying food so everybody had enough, right? We expect God to work because we look back and we've seen how he's worked in the past. And this works out in our life in so many ways, this works out in spiritual ways, works out in non-sp-- I mean, we just know that, like, you guys are saying, wow, you've mentioned, Jeff, like three times that you just dropped off Ann at college in San Diego. Like, that must be hard for you. Why are you sharing this so much, you know? And it's just, we had a lot of fun. But I go, no, I dropped off Ann at college. It wasn't that hard. I mean, you drop off the kid at college and, I mean, there's tears and there's like, ugh, is she gonna find friends and she thinks, am I gonna be okay here? Am I gonna be home secure? Am I succeed academically? Am I gonna be lonely? Am I gonna fall off the face of the earth? Am I gonna, you know, do trial, I mean, it's scary time, right? But I'm actually okay, do you know why I'm okay? It's baby three. Baby one went away, we did that whole deal, she flourished. Baby two went away, we did the whole deal, she flourished. By the time I got to baby three, I'm like, what are we having for dinner on the way home? I mean, I'm all good. We've seen the work of God yesterday. So we expect the work of God tomorrow. And that is in the scriptures as well. When you, I want you to see this passage in Psalm 77, look at the word, will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? This is the psalmist going, I'm looking ahead and I'm not sure if God's gonna come through. Hello, anybody ever think that? Is his unfailing love vanished? Has his promise failed? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has his anger, has he in anger withheld his compassion? And then look at the linchpin. Then I thought, no, to this I will appeal. There were years when the most high stretched out his right hand. I've seen it when God has shown up. And I got all these questions about whether God's gonna meet me in my walk, in my family, in this church, in this county. I got all these questions. But I will appeal knowing that there have been years when God has showed up. And so then the rest of the text is, so I'm gonna remember his deeds, remember his miracles, consider his works, meditate on his holy deeds. God, your ways are holy for what? God is greater than our God. And the answer is no God is greater than our God and I know because I've looked back and seen God at work. Because we've seen the work of God yesterday. We expect the work of God tomorrow. Friends, how do we do that? How do we look back? We look back in the Word and we see the story of the mighty deeds of God. That's why we steep ourselves in the Word 'cause we go, oh, that's a God who's powerful. That's a God who's at work. We look back at the Word. We look back at our story. We look back at others stories. We look back at our story. I had a sister say to me yesterday. No, never once, never once. I have nothing, no piece of evidence that God will not come through for me in the future 'cause he's come through for me every single time in the past. We look back and see the work of God in the Word, in our story, in other people's stories. And that gives us an expectation that God will work in the future. One more story and then we'll move on and continue to respond. We're gonna preach and respond and sing and all that. Listen, I was with a brother the other night at my house at a little ministry event and I'll just keep his story anonymous, but I mean, keep his name anonymous, but in his story, he was sharing, it was kind of, we were getting to know one another's stories a little bit and he was sharing. And he started talking about his two older kids who have not yet settled the issue that Jesus is their Lord. And he started talking about this heart for his daughters that they would come to know Christ. And as he talked about it, we could all feel and read the emotion in him saying, man, my longing is that God would capture their hearts and they would give their lives to him and find life in Christ. And I realized that as he was sharing his story, his emotion was not out of despair and out of utter fear that maybe God's not gonna show up. The emotion as he shared his story was because he knew that God has captured his heart. That's his story. God had captured his heart out of nowhere as a 19 year old from a connection to a connection to a connection to Marin Covenant Church all those years ago. God had captured his heart so much so, so surprisingly so that he said the night he settled the issue and gave his life to Christ, he said he backed out of the home that they had been meeting in because he knew that something holy had gone on in that place. God had come and rescued him. And then God led his mother to Christ and then God led his father to Christ. And in that, friends, having seen that story, that work of God in his story yesterday, he is convinced that he can expect God to come and get the heart of his girls and work in their lives in the future. And that's where our body's going this year. We look in the Word together, we look in our stories together, we look in other people's stories when we're together and we say, oh God, what are you gonna do? But I know you can do it because looking at the work of God yesterday leads us to expect the work of God in the future and that's us this year, praise be to God. They let stand and respond to the Lord in music. - You may not know this about me, but there was a time in my life when I was a great romantic. It's true. When Kay and I were first dating, I would doodle little pictures for her and mail them off to her. I once sang into a tape recording. You know, you get a little boombox and hit record and I sang our song and I sent it off to her. I used to plan these great elaborate dates and I just would woo the socks off her. And that's still in me, but life and kids and stuff happens. I mean, it's still in me, right? I feel it's still in there, sort of. But now what happens is like, hey, I got 40 bucks and let's pay someone to put our kids to bed and then they will go out on a date. And because we're like so excited to have someone put our kids to bed and pay 40 bucks for that to happen, we go, well, what can we do? Dinner in a movie, cliche. But it's in me, but it's a romantic date out with my wife, but I'm such the romantic still in me that I'm willing to give up seeing the expendables or some other great action flick. And I'm gonna say, what is the best romantic movie out right now? That's the movie that we're gonna go see. And so we would go out and we'll go see these romantic movies because I'm romantic and I want my wife to know how much I love her. And how do I do that? By taking her to a movie where some guy 10,000 times more handsome than me is, and then with some great music, and all of a sudden by the end of the movie, without fail, she's sitting next to me weeping. Like, this is so great. And then she looks over at me and, but I noticed this feeling that happening inside of me of like, uh oh, like I know, like she would never say that loud, but I know in her mind she's thinking, why can't you love me like that? (audience laughing) And I'm like, I mean, she would never say that loud 'cause she's a nice woman, but I know. She's weeps and she looks over at me and she just, and I think, oh, but I do love you like that, but we have kids in life too hard, but I don't even like this movie. But she's just weeping in it. And the deal is, I think this idea of being expectant is actually kind of hard because there were moments when Kay would just weep and go, you are such a great husband, you're so great. But in the rhythm of life, in the down and dirty, daily grind of life, all of a sudden this movie we think is what love looks like, but that's the highlight reel of life, right? And then we judge our marriage, our relationship based on this thing. Well, maybe Kay doesn't, but I do 'cause she's weeping for this handsome guy, not me. But I do the exact same thing when I read scripture, I'll read through scripture, and scripture is the highlight reel of God doing amazing and awesome things. I mean, it is amazing what God has done in the past. God rescued Moses. Moses should have been killed by Pharaoh for being a male, and God rescued him, didn't just rescue him, but then got to live in the palace as one of Pharaoh's sons. And then God, you know, that used Moses, he saw the burning bush, he rescued God's people. You know, it was like never ending stuff where God was doing this great stuff in and around Moses's life. And I read scripture, I'm like, my life is so boring. My faith is so boring. God, you did that in Moses's life, you showed up like that, but are you gonna show up like that for me? And the deal is when we think of being expectant, we have to realize that this highlight reel of scripture is a highlight reel. There were 40 years in between these things. You know, there's something happens long stretches of time. Something happens long stretches of time, hundreds of years sometimes before God does other big things. And this idea of being expectant living in the present is this idea that my phrase for today is living in the present with an eternity-sized perspective. Because the deal is how we live in this moment, in the grind of this life right now, actually matters. We have to reflect on the past. We have to know where we're going, but how we live right now matters for eternity. In the passage of scripture I'd like to look at this morning is Hebrews chapter 12. And it says this, "Therefore, since we are surrounded "by such a great cloud of witnesses, "let us throw off everything that hinders "in the sin that so easily entangles, "and let us run with perseverance, "the race marked out for us. "Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, "and the perfecter of our faith. "For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, "scoring its shame, and sat down at the right hand "of the throne of God." And I love this passage of scripture because this passage of scripture kind of has it all. It lets us know that right here, right now, in this moment, in the total normal part of life where we have homework and bills and we have a soccer game, right? We have stuff going on today. There's all sorts of stuff happening today, but in this moment, we realize that it's not just this moment. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. For thousands of years, all the faithful saints who have come before us, who have lived faithfully, who have passed on the faith, who have passed on life in Christ from generation to generation, are now in the gigantic stadium, looking down at us, cheering us on, going, "This is your time right now." We are surrounded by this cloud of witnesses that in this moment, in this dailyness, in the daily grind of life, this is our moment. And I love how the author of Hebrews says that we run this way raised with perseverance. It's not this sprint, it's not a hundred meter dash and then we're done. It is a marathon that lasts our entire lives. Every step, it is a grind. And if you ever run a marathon or ridden a hundred miles or done something that takes a long, long time, in the middle of it, it is a grind. But the cool thing is when you prepare for it, something happens inside of your heart. You get all excited and expectant that God is gonna do it. And then at the end, you look back and you celebrate. That was awesome. But in the moment, you have to be faithful to persevere. And I think if we are gonna be this church, if we are gonna be expectant, we need to realize we can't just rely on what God did in the past. We can't just look for the future and say, "God, whatever you're gonna do, that's great." But we need to realize that it is in this moment and this time that matters. We often think that it is one big decision. God, if you tell me to go to Africa, I'm in. God, if you tell me to sell all my stuff and do this, I'm in. Anyone can do one event. That's what the movies are for, right? The movies are one event. No one shows up, now I'm in Africa. Now what? Oh, I sold all my stuff. Now what? Right, it is the daily act of serving and faith in God one at a time. My friend Ben Cochran, who's a dear friend of mine, and he actually became a Christian at this church and we're in covenant when he was in high school group. Gary Goudini somehow sat him down, got him his office, worked as Gary Goudini Magic, and Ben Cochran said, "Yep, I'm going to be a Christ follower." And Ben Cochran is a total disaster. He was a total disaster high school kid. You imagine all the crazy stuff in high school and all the potential death and destruction? And that was Ben. And somehow Gary said, "Do you want to give your life to Christ?" And Ben said, "Yes." Now for Gary, that's a highlight reel. There was this troubled kid he came to my office. He became a Christian. It was an awesome praise God. But for Ben Cochran, why he's one of my heroes is because every day, day in and day out, he is fostering a relationship with Christ. He is teachable. He is humble. He is allowing God to redeem him, to transform him, so that his marriage is a marriage that sets a new path, a new family line for his family, that his daughters will never experience the kind of abandonment that he experienced, that his walk with God will be a brand new, fresh start. And it is a grind. I know, I know as kids, I know his wife, I know his job, my life is hard. And we're going to walk through all that together. And what's so cool is just knowing him seven years or so, I can look back and go, "Oh my goodness God, you have been changing and transforming." And how much more are you going to change and transform as he daily works out his walk with Christ, his marriage to his wife, his being a father to his daughters. And for us as a church, that is my heart and my prayer for us, that we be people who are expecting for God to move, that we remember and we write down the great things that God has done in the past. And we have a great view and a great vision of what God has for us in the future. But we cannot get there without the small, faithful choices day in and day out. So may that be our church, may that be our prayer. Amen. - This is not just a history lesson, where he was faithful back in the day and might just be faithful tomorrow. You look around today and there's some fantastic things happening in everybody's life, whether you're aware of them or not. And actually when you think about him, you're aware of him. There's little mandarings with you and his faithfulness today. He's doing pretty well now. And so we wait for the next time that he's going to show his glory. But we also look to the future. And because of what we've experienced in the past, excited about that future. Because of what we see today. Not everything we see today is very encouraging, except, but the one who holds the world in his hand, still has that world in his hand and that's encouraging. We look for a great future as well. We're expectant. We're not just waiting for the future. We're waiting expectantly for the future. That one day what we're waiting for will be born. One day who will hold it and listen to it, cry and watch it run. And something great will come from that waiting. Brendan and I recently were at a wedding in Washington, D.C. And one of the last days we were there, we were sort of walking through Georgetown looking for a restaurant. We're going to eat in the restaurant. And we did what many of you do, I'm sure. We go to a restaurant, we don't know the restaurant from Adam and so what we do is we ask before we go in to be seated, before they give you the bread and the water and then you're stuck. We ask, may we see a menu, yes. We're outside in the sidewalk, but we see a menu. Brendan's looking at the menu to see if there's anything in there that might be worth me eating. So she's looking, here you lay have trout and they have a salad, art there's a salad. We have this and this and this. I'm, my eyes slide right over to the right-hand call. She's asking, is there anything worth eating? I'm asking, can we afford to eat anything that's worth eating in this restaurant? Don't you do that, do some of you do that too? Sometimes restaurants have the menu in the window and you go check before you go in, you want to see if it's worth going in. But imagine this, imagine that you were invited to a meal and you found out that that meal was being sponsored by, well, not by McDonald's or anybody else. Say you found out that meal was being sponsored by the French Laundry. You don't know what the French Laundry is? Oh yeah. And Thomas Keller, a French laundry thing, was the one in charge of planning it, procuring everything that went into it, overseeing the cooking and the presentation of the meal. How many of you, knowing that, would need to say, well, may I see a menu please so I can decide whether, now you may want to see a menu just to the slide to the right-hand side to see if you're going to afford to go with it. Nobody's expecting you to ask for a menu to see if there's anything there that would be worthy of eating because when he's in charge, there's such a reputation, there's such a competency there that you slide right to expectancy. You're anticipating every single course that comes out from the kitchen. And when you finish one, you just can't wait to the next one. And you don't know what's coming maybe, but you know what, it's going to be good. Why is it going to be good? Because I know who's cooking it. I know who's planning it. I know who's serving it. And I don't know what it is, but I'm excited to get it. Go from checking the menu first to see if we should step through the door to keep the menu. I don't care what it is. Where is the door? Just show me the door so I can go in and sit down and receive what's about the company. And here's why that's true. Because in a restaurant, your level of excitement, your level of expectancy, your level of anticipation is directly connected to the competencies and the reputation of the chef. And in life, our level of expectancy, our level of excitement, our level of anticipation for what will be served up to us in life, is directly proportional to the reputation of and the competencies of the God who controls our future. We know who it is that's planning tomorrow. And because of that, even though we may be tempted sometimes they need to know what's on the menu before we commit, we expect it's going to be good. Is that not right? We expect that it's going to be good. That's the little phrase that I offer to you today. When God's the one planning your future, because we're talking about the past and we anticipate because of the past, there's expectancy because of the present. There's also expectancy with regard to the future. When God's the one planning your future, something great is always just about to happen. Think about that. Something great is always just about to happen. When he's the chef, the food's going to be good. Read with me, would you from Jeremiah 29? This is one of my favorite verses. It was early adopted for me as a life verse if you have a life verse, but in fairness to this text, the context is Israel in captivity. And they're starting to wonder, is there even a future for us? Should we plan on staying here a while or are we just about to get out of here? They're captive. They're not free. And the Lord, through the prophet, says this. And he's applying what's always true of him to their situation, just like he would apply that to our situation. For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future. And then you will call on me and you will come and pray to me and I will listen to you. And you will seek me. And you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart. That's God saying, there's a future. And you don't know everything that's attached to that future. But guess who's in the kitchen cooking something up? Our excitement, our level of anticipation, our view of the future is directly connected to the author of the future. And this text reminds us that God is the one who's the author of the future. I think of one of our sisters in Christ here, Gigi Bebo, who's been really open and public about her needs. She lets you pray for her. She's telling you about her journey. If you're at all on our website and involved in our prayer ministry, Gigi's been free to share what she's been walking through with you. And it hasn't been very easy for her. No matter what came at her, though, every time I read one of those prayer requests, I offer prayer. I find inspiration because there is a woman who, in spite of everything else that she's been facing, one thing has never left her, probably many things. But one thing is this. She expects God to do something great. No matter how tilted things get or what different roads she gets launched onto, she's living with the attitude. The future is great. The future is bright. Something good is always just about to happen. I love that in her. Wherever she is, I don't know if you're even here today, Gigi. But thank you for that. And learn from that, and that sister. Look, we don't know what God has in store for us with our expanding ministry to Hamilton School on that campus. That's a context for us for ministry. We've done good things. We plan, but we don't know what's coming. And we don't know what's coming. We're doing all this building addition. It's all driven by ministry. We don't know what God has in store. All that he has in store for expanded youth ministry and a different and better way to minister to children and how this building is going to serve us. But we believe it's something good. And we don't know where God's going to take us and our growing and deepening relationship with our missionaries, and specifically our missionary in Thailand, who's working with an HIV/AIDS community that is coming to Christ in by the hundreds, baptism, after baptism. And God's called us and given us a chance to connect with them. We don't know where that's going to go, but we know this. It's going to be good. It's going to taste good. It's going to be exciting. And there's no limit to what our God can do. We know what the song is used to say. He's got the whole world in his hand. We know that his eye is on the sparrow, and we know that he watches us. The cook in the kitchen of life is Jesus Himself, the one who said, and cause all things, even bad things, to work together for good, for my dream for earth. The one who said that is also said, and it's through my church, that I'm going to do all that causing. (gentle music) (gentle music)