MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - God of the Exuberant Yes
I've entitled this message "The God of the Exuberant Yes," a God of yeses and you'll see why in a second. We're in 1 Timothy, chapter 4, continuing in our study of that book. The God of the exuberant yes, the God of the extravagant yes, the God of the emphatic yes. In January of 1975, I decided to become a Christian. I've told our church this story so many times you could tell it, but the short version is I had a 10-wheeler dump truck business and we were at the yard and I was working on my truck and for months the Holy Spirit had been working on me and sort of assaulting me intellectually and spiritually around the theme, "Is there a difference between what you believe and the way you're living?" I was on the quest as a, you know, barely a post-at-a-lesson. I was on the quest at 20 years old to be a man, to be recognized by my uncles and my dad as a man, no longer the kid. And so I was doing all kinds of silly things, trying to figure that out. And the Lord was working on my heart and I came to the conclusion that, you know, a man is someone who does away with the difference between what he believes and what he lives. And when you do that, maybe you've taken the first step through the doorway of manhood and I realized, oh boy, there's a big difference between what I actually really believe in my heart of hearts about God and about life and about the world and what I'm living. I kind of want to have it both ways. So duplicity was my favorite subject, I think, back in those days. And I was working on my truck one day and decided I'm going to do away with the difference. I believe in Jesus. I believe all the stuff about him dying for us and I believe I have sin and he takes it away. All the classic Christian beliefs, I believe them, but I'm not living that stuff. Okay, so I prayed and I said, Lord, right now this moment, January of 1975, here by myself in this truck yard, are you ready for this? I commit my life to you. Come into my heart and forgive my sins. I only knew the classic language. This things are different from now on, I'm yours. And that meant a lot of change. Not an hour after I had prayed that and I prayed it was since serious could be, there were violence, playing, there were angels singing, everything was happening over by university of Santa Clara in the lean twos, which are now part of the campus. And I made a phone call to a friend who had been telling me about Jesus and I had been resisting her. I called her up and I said, hey, I just became a Christian. She says, oh, wonderful, wonderful. Good. Now what do we talk about? I told her all about it. I felt I had to tell somebody, right? And so then not an hour after that, my little brother, Lenny, comes driving up in his 66 Mustang, wanting me to help him do some work over there. Lenny is four and a half years younger. Could brothers be any closer than we are, Greg? I don't think so. We're closer than brothers. I mean, any day I get to spend with Lenny is a good day. Digging ditches with Lenny is a good day. Putting on a roof on a house with Lenny is a good day. Getting a rut canal with Lenny in the chair next to me, that's a good day. That's how close we are. He comes driving up and what I want to do, I want to tell Lenny this good news. I say, "Lenny, I just became a Christian." Now we kind of had connections with the church, so we sort of knew what all that meant. And I said, "Why don't I just pray right over there this prayer?" "Lenny, let's do it together. Why don't you give your heart to Christ too?" And I fully expected my brother, my little brother, to look up with big, batting eyes to his hero, big brother, and say, "I would like to receive Christ too if my big brother received Christ." But my brother's response wasn't like that at all. Sixteen and a half years old, he says, "No stinking way." Right, you're 20 years old, almost 21. You've done this and this and this and this and this and still stayed out of jail. You've had mom and dad staying up at night worrying about you. You've had all your partying and all your craziness and all your wildness. And you get that out of your system and then how convenient? You come up saying, "I think I'll become a Christian now." He said, "I haven't done anything yet. I'm just 16 and a half. I just got my license. I just got my first card." Then he said, "I want to do some stuff first and then I'll become a Christian." Now he didn't last but another month, you know, and he, one of his friends shared Christ with him and he was done. My brother is a fantastic follower of Christ living up in Portland now. But here was, here was a dilemma that day. Here was his problem that day. It was a problem that I had also shared for a long time. In fact, it might have been one of the reasons I was so slow to fully give in to following Jesus. In other words, you know, you hear these terms in church but you don't quite know what they mean. I mean, following Jesus. I mean, looking at him and figuring out his values, his decisions, his way of thinking, his teachings, and patterning my life and practices after his life and practices, including but not limited to his teaching about how we were reconciled to God, our Father, which involves the forgiveness of sin and grace and what he offers us as a free gift. Following Jesus, not only finding new life in him but patterning my life after him, finding a new purpose for life in him. Our problem was this. We had grown up with the idea that following Christ or Christianity was defined and measured by what you weren't allowed to do. It was measured and practiced by what you did not do. So Christians don't do that and Christians can't do that and Christians would never do that. Christians would never say that. Christians would never vote for that. Christians would never read that or go to that. In other words, you're surrounded by all these don'ts and can'ts. That was Christianity. My brother was saying, I'm not going to say yes to that, to this world of don'ts. I want to do some don'ts before I don't do some don'ts or something like that. We had heard of and been taught about a God who was the God of no. Not the God of the exuberant, yes. And the mentality we grew up with was one that was suspicious of freedom, at least in the Christian context. Freedom is something that can trip you up. Freedom of choice is something that can scar your faith. So what you did in our world was you removed yourself as far as you could from what I call the cliff of truth. Stay way far away from anything daring, anything that smacks of freedom, and as safe as possible so you wouldn't screw up. It's in sports terminology, football season is about to start. They talk about quarterbacks who simply manage the game, they play not to lose, want to just make sure you minimize mistakes, nothing spectacular happens from the hand of that quarterback, but you don't mess up too badly either. We had grown up with a mentality that was one that was suspicious of freedom. Today, I want to reintroduce us to the God that Paul the Apostle knew, the God that he wanted to make sure Timothy, the pastor of the Church of Ephesus and probably the leader of the churches in that region, knew. Today I want to invite us to experience, or in some cases, re-experience, what one of my friends calls the God of the exuberant, yes. It's not a term that was original with me. My friend Doug Stevens was sharing with a guy on an airplane one time and he came up with this term in the moment there. This is the God that Christians worship, the God of the exuberant, yes. The God of the extraordinary, yes. It's the God who invented the term we use and the concept we practice, try to practice freedom in Christ and brought it to his people. Before we move on, because I'll be less careful with this definition, with this phrase later in the message than I am right now, but let's get a clear definition of what is meant when I mention freedom of Christ. At least here's what I mean by freedom in Christ. Freedom in Christ is the freedom, it's a God-granted freedom to choose to experience everything God gives us for the purpose for which he gives it. So we're free to choose to experience everything that God gives us for the purpose for which he gives it, context is important. We also then have the freedom, this isn't really freedom in Christ, but we certainly have the freedom from God, to choose to experience good thing God gives us for a twisted purpose, to misuse them and misapply them. But that doesn't mean the thing that he gives isn't good. But with freedom in Christ, the positive statement, it's the freedom to choose to experience everything God gives us for the purpose for which he gives it. That's the God of the exuberant, yes. God, do I have the freedom to choose, yes. Do I have the option to choose, yes. Do I have the option to make a good choice, yes. Are you with me whether I make a good choice or a bad choice, yes. Do you love me unconditionally? Yes. God's all about yes. When we see God as the God of the exuberant, yes. Some things start to take place. Some perspectives start to change in our understanding of our faith. Now here's a concern I have for this message and had for it all week long. It's not super concrete, I'm going to introduce a couple of concepts. They're not really, really concrete, hitable issues, topics. It's a little bit philosophical, but I hope you catch it now and just completely miss the point. But get ready for these now because here they come. Some things that we see when we see God as the God of the exuberant, yes. As opposed to the God of, no, don't you dare, okay. First of all, and this shows up in what Timothy is dealing with in his church and what Paul is addressing in 1 Timothy chapter 4. Before I go on, let's just read the whole text. These are six, seven verses here that we're going to be dealing with. Then we'll come back and get more specific with them. Would you stand for the reading of God's word? No, it's not up on the screen. But if you want to follow along in your text in the Bible that's underneath the seat in front of you, it's 1 Timothy chapter 4 beginning at verse 1, just a few verses and I'll read them for us. The spirit clearly says that in latter times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciousness, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry, order them to abstain from certain foods, things which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the Word of God and by prayer. If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. May God add His blessing to His holy word, His fully inspired message to us. Amen. Go ahead and take your seats. When we start seeing God as the God of the exuberant, yes, we start seeing some other things differently. First, in verse three, first part of it and in verse six, Christian spirituality begins to be measured by our enjoyment of freedom, not our fear of freedom, which is the way Christian spirituality was always to be measured. Does that make any sense at all? When we see God as the God of the exuberant, yes, we begin to see depth differently. We begin to measure Christian maturity differently, Christian spirituality differently. And it's not measured so much by our ability to say no to things, our ability to abstain from things. It's measured not by an increased caution with freedom but an increasing comfort with freedom, the ability to do well with freedom, not our fear of it. Ours is a faith that embraces freedom in Christ, not one that shies away from it. It's one that endorses and loves risk, not one that avoids it at all costs. It's seen not by what we don't do, Christian maturity, but by what we do do. The yeses we choose for ourselves, not the no that we choose for ourselves. Do you see, it's a subtle difference, but it actually is a major attitudinal difference, a major approach to life that's different than at least the one my brother and I grew up with. The god of the exuberant yes loves us so much that he grants us the liberty to make choices. Life is about choices. Our Christian journey then and spiritual maturity then is about choosing in such a way that we parallel God's healthy yeses with the yeses we choose. God has a yes, this is healthy, here you go, I've got a yes for you. I get to choose a yes over here or a yes over here or a yes over here because I'm free to make choices. Christian maturity is about increasingly aligning the yes I choose with the yes he prefers. Do you get that? That's a different thing than saying a life is all about no, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. Do you get the same thing in your home that I get, don't ever wipe up a mess on the counter with the towel, use the washcloth first, then the towel to dry it. I don't understand that rule but that's just neither here nor there. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, it's all, when our faith is all about don't, don't, don't, I didn't do this, I didn't do this, I didn't do that sin, I didn't do that sin. That's not a healthy faith. What is the God of the yes? It's about choices and aligning our yeses with his yes. Paul even warns against measuring spiritual health by the things from which we abstain. So in verse three here he's talking about all these, these teachings and identifies where they come from, right? They're people who have abandoned the faith. They're, they're come from hypocrisy, they come from liars, they come from people with seared consciences, there's a dying sensitivity to what's right and what's wrong. And then in verse three they forbid people to marry, so there's a don't and all the things associated with marriage, and they forbid people to eat certain food, so there's this emphasis in abstaining from certain foods that God created and he's saying this is actually not spiritual maturity, this is actually spiritual immaturity. This is a negative approach to faith. So he warns against measuring spiritual health by the things from which we abstain. They're all sorts of people who measure spiritual maturity and spiritual health by the things you don't do. You're spiritually together because you didn't do this and you didn't do that. God doesn't look at it that way and that's not the God that Paul's encouraging people to know. This is measured by what I choose to do and making good and healthy choices, this maturity. This yes, this freedom in Christ's perspective is even identified as sound doctrine and good for the church. In verse six, if you point these things out, what things? This idea that man, life is not about abstaining, life is about enjoying and making good decisions. If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, he says to Timothy, you will be a good minister so endorsed by the apostle of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and on the good teaching that you have followed. He talks earlier about people who have abandoned the faith, who are liars, who have a doctrine based on hypocrisy and a hard heart. And then in contrast to that, Timothy, if you teach the opposite of what they're teaching, which is, by the way, measuring spiritual maturity by what you abstain from, the things from which you abstain, you're teaching truth and good teaching. So Paul implies that to live with another perspective, a perspective that is not based on Christian freedom and the God of yes is actually heretical. Central to Christianity, as we understand it, is a recognition that we have this God who is nodding his head like this when he sees us and walks with us. Not necessarily agreeing with every choice we make, but endorsing our freedom and loving our freedom and walking with us in our freedom and strengthening us to align our yeses with his yeses. Does that make sense? When you see God as the God of the exuberant yes, as Paul does here, Christian spirituality then gets measured and experienced by our enjoyment of freedom, not our fear of freedom. Second and last point. When we see God as the God of the exuberant yes, we also change this. Our perspective goes from seeing everything as a potential threat to our faith or risk to our faith to seeing everything as a potential blessing to our faith. Everything. Listen, even our own failures and brokenness can be a blessing to our faith because God is so good. He brings good out of brokenness and ashes. The broken glass that we give him to work with, he turns into something great and he takes the scars that are there and the cavities we've created in life and he makes something beautiful out of them. So now we're scarred and walking well. Everything is seen as a potential blessing. Everything that comes from God is good. So the fact that it comes from God defines it as good or the fact that something is recognized as good, something actually is good at its core, it proves then that it comes from God. All good comes from God. No other source but God if it's good. To insulate ourselves from anything that he gives us is to potentially separate ourselves then from his blessing. That's what this text seems to be saying. That nothing God gave us is in and of itself forbidden because of its source. The source of it is good, even very good. If God created it or God initiated it or God distributed it, it's good. It's not in and of itself bad, it's not in and of itself dangerous or forbidden. The mature Christian sees life from that perspective. Our perspective goes from seeing everything or even most things as a potential risk to our faith to seeing everything as a potential blessing to our faith. In verse three, the second half of it, we're told that God creates everything in order that those who believe and know the truth might partake of it and enjoy it. It's a joy. It's a God created all these things to be receded. Now remember these things that are mentioned here, marriage and certain foods, but they're just an abbreviated list, Paul's giving examples of the kinds of restrictions some teachers are placing on Christians and the ways that they're defining faithful Christianity. He says these things God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. God created these things to be received, not to be rejected, not to be put off, not for us to be afraid of them. He gave them to us to receive, to be used and to be enjoyed. And God intends for us to enjoy what He has given to us with gratitude and prayer. I think this next statement is a statement of a reminder of, remember, these are good when used, they're good and they're to be used the way God intended them to be used. He says everything God created is good in verse four, nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving because it's consecrated by the word of God and prayer. And that last phrase, nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving because it's consecrated is sort of a reminder to get us back to understanding the original purpose of whatever God created and gave. For instance, if I am approaching a gift from God or part of God's creation, could you imagine praying something like this, I now receive with thanksgiving God this poison plant that I'm about to introduce to my body. No, it's not God's intention for you to eat that, you don't just eat it, you can't with thanksgiving receive it because it's going to result in harm. Or Lord, I receive this new friendship, I receive this new friend as a gift from you. This new friend that I'm about to betray, I thank you so much for bringing them into my life. No, if something is received, it's created by God, it's intended to be received with thanksgiving and consecrated with prayer. Whatever you created, whatever comes my way, whatever I encounter in life, oh God of the emphatic yes of the exuberant yes, I pray that you would take it and use it and set it apart for good, for alignment with your agenda in my life. And I'm not afraid of it. I receive it from your hand. This is kind of like the difference between having your parents give you the gift of a karma, my dad, when I got my first car, he handed me the keys and he said no, don't forget son, you were, he actually called me kid, still will call me kid if he was alive. Kid, you could tell a lot of people with this thing, that's what he said to me when he handed me the keys. You're driving like a big driving, a great big loaded gun here. Pay attention. I mean, I never wanted to drive this stupid thing. The difference between that and having your dad hand you the keys and say this is going to be the key to your freedom, you can drive yourself to school now, you can run some errands for us, you can pick up your friends, just be careful with it, but it's a great thing. Look at all the opportunity that's there for you just because you can drive now. The same difference except it's so magnified is it happens for us when we look at God as either the God of the yes or the God of the don't you dare, the God of adventure or the God of watch out, everything could trip you. You see the difference? I'd much rather live the God of yes and Paul would much rather have me live there as well. When we see God as the God of the exuberant yes, our perspective goes from seeing everything as a potential risk or threat to our faith to seeing everything as a potential blessing to our faith because of Christian freedom and Christ, the freedom to choose to experience everything, employ everything, use everything that comes from God's hand for the purpose for which He intended it, whether it's food or marriage or employment or friendships and relationships, everything. The Galatians 5, Paul's speaking to a different congregation about the same issue and he says in Galatians 5, 1, it is for freedom that Christ set us free. In other words, he's saying he didn't set us free so that we could choose bondage. He set us free so that we could choose freedom. It's for freedom in Christ that Christ set us free. He says to the Galatians, he were choosing to go back to a rule system. You understand this, right? Rules and rigidity are necessary for a child, but as we develop and our minds develop and our faith develops and we become more mature, we are more comfortable with freedom. You don't give the same freedom to a two-year-old that you would give to a thirty-two-year-old, but a thirty-two-year-old that is still wanting a nice clear set of rules like do not step in the street. Eat all your vegetables. I mean, there's something wrong with that. It's for freedom that Christ set us free. And the Galatians were wanting to go back to all the rules of the law. He says then, "Stand firm and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery." From a slavery to the yoke of an overly simplistic faith process, it's for freedom that Christ set us free. See God is the God of yes, everything changes. [BLANK_AUDIO]