Crosspoint Church
20-21 July 2024 | Guest Speaker | John Lynch
The following teaching is brought to you by Cross Point Church. For sermon notes and other resources, visit go-to-crosspoint.com. I'm so grateful to get to have the honor and privilege to be with you guys. I hope you like me. Oh man, because I want to come back because it's, you think it's hot here. It's so hot when I'm fine. So hot. This message, I wrote a number of years ago because I was trying to say, "How do I give a picture of something that is pretty mystical-sounding? I'm a new creature in Christ. What does that mean? What does that look like?" And I'm so excited that you guys, just to finish Romans 8, because this will tie right in with that. Hopefully this will bring language to you that you'll be able to refer back to. So it's different every time because I forget things every time and make things up every time. So here we go. The Two Roads Talk. In Genesis 3, in an event that happened on our planet in our oxygen, you read these words. When the woman saw chapter 3, verse 6, that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate. And then the eyes of them were both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. Isn't that interesting? Up until this right here, the use of the word naked just means without clothing. From here on in, it will carry this nefarious idea, a isolation of that there's something wrong with me. Naked will have a whole new idea. And so they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And in all this is to get to this statement for me, then the Lord God called to the man and said knowing full well where he was, "Where are you?" And he said, "See, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, I knew I had messed up, I knew I had failed, I knew who you were before, but I didn't know who you would be now." I was afraid because I realized I'm naked. And so I hid myself. I didn't know what else to do. There it is. I was afraid because I was naked so I hid myself. And on that day Adam initiates a really horrible legacy. Everything changes and for the first time someone's eyes dark, for the first time someone looks over their shoulder, there's no more innocence. And on that day a stone drops into a giant pool, a pool of DNA whose concentric circles will now move out and out and out and down through history. Until they finally get all the way to me. And now when I get embarrassed, when I get exposed or I do something or something's done to me that convinces me that I'm not enough or that I don't match up, I hide. As early as I can remember, that's what we do, we perform for acceptance, if I'm talented and handsome or beautiful or together or competent or right enough, I'll be loved and accepted and happy and if not I'll be pitied and patronized and rejected and live a second-class life. You know what it reminds me of? The Santa Claus is coming to town theology, Santa Claus. We created Santa Claus because we couldn't handle God. Truth is we can't handle Santa Claus. We made him all jolly and chubby and sassy, but in reality the guys are controlling legalists with almost unlimited power. Oh, you better watch out. Oh, you had better watch out. You better not cry. You'd better not pout. Let me tell you why because the big man's coming to town, Santa Claus, that's right. You better when I pout, you better not cry, you better not shout out, I'm telling you why because he's coming to town. He's making a list. That's right. He's checking it twice. He'll find out who's naughty and nice. And this controlling omniscient legalist, he's coming to town. He sees you when you're sleeping, which in my book is wrong, okay? I don't care who you are. I do not care who you are. I do not want you watching me while I'm in bed sleeping. Huh, Santa Claus, what are you doing? Get out of here. I'm sleeping. He knows when you're awake, he knows when you've been bad or good. Good for it, here it is. So be good for goodness sake and this controlling omniscient legalist, he's coming to town. So you better watch out, you better fear this guy, you better stop sniveling, you better be better than who you happen to actually be because you're constantly on trial. And if you want good things to happen to your life, you better figure out how to make this guy happy. Isn't that interesting, it's genetically wired into us. We learn early on how to perform because the highest value is being accepted and the means of acceptance is right appearance. And see, there's the problem, because I fail. Another result of the fall, nobody seems to fail like me, mine feels weirder and more shameful than anybody else's. And so I live with this secret awareness of just how poorly I'm doing, how little I've grown, I feel unfit, unworthy, unlovable, naked. So no one must know, I've got to mask myself with enough reasons to be loved, like a brag, put others down, idealize them myself, posture, bluff, keep a smile on, avoid correction, justify rationalize, hide the real me. And then comes the gospel. For some of us the first time, for some of us the 5,829th time, 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He, God, created Jesus. He, God, made Him who knew no sin to actually become my sin so that I would become the righteousness of God in Him. Are you kidding me? He, God, made Him Jesus who never known any sin to actually become my sin, so that I would become the righteousness of God in Him. Do you hear that? We are clothed in righteousness by the willingness of God to become naked and suffer our penalty. Wow. And so the pattern gets broken, new wiring fills my circuits. I dare to begin to believe that I'm lovable just because He chooses to love me. I'm delighted in, we're delighted, and we're actually holy and righteous. We begin to believe that He created us lovable. He made us exactly who He wanted us to be. He wanted there to be a you, a me on this planet from before the world began. And when I put my hope in what He did on the cross, it actually makes me, makes me a brand new creature. And then, I don't know, you tell me something happens. Like maybe you go through a season where you don't experience love as much or you feel dry or maybe you've failed God in some way that you said that you would never do again suddenly, gradually, like smoke, it slips back under the door and the lie reawakens. You begin to presume that a sense of His absence or bad circumstances must be due to His displeasure with you. So the cycle starts back up, you'll shore things up, you'll straighten the magazines, you'll set some standards, you'll get serious about your behavior, I got this, I got this, I got this, I got this, He's going to be okay, we're going to be fine, I got this. That way the river is going to flow again, I got this, come on, come on, come on. And then one day, because He loves you more than 10,000 yet unnamed galaxies, He will call you out. You'll be walking along, just doing your normal thing, just doing the Christian life, just walking along single path, there you go, until one more, you slam into this giant pole at an intersection where one path suddenly becomes two. And if I look way, way up at the very, very top of this giant, giant pole, I see two arrows pointing down two different paths. One says, trusting God, the other says, pleasing God, I don't get it, those are both great, I don't want to have to choose between those two, but there they are and they're not going away, and whichever one you pick will be the primary motivation of your heart for the rest of the journey. Trusting God, I don't know, I mean like it doesn't give me anything to do. All right, stay there, pleasing God, okay now see, hold on now, this has got to be hit. I mean, after all you've done for me, the least I can do is to please him, right? So I start going down this path, the pleasing God path, and for a while I'm just walking and then gradually there's bushes and brambles and then shrubs and then trees and then it gets dark, totally dark, and then I go for a while and gradually it, I can see off in the distance some light, and I keep walking and soon there is this clearing and this meadow, it's beautiful, and I see off in the distance there's a giant, the only way I can describe it is like an arena, huge, and as I get closer it's gleaming in the sun and I see words written across it, it says, striving hard to be old God wants me to be, yeah, I mean it sounds like the army, be old you can be, I'm coming, I am so excited striving hard to be old God wants me to be, yeah, and so I keep going and I keep walking and as I get closer I see that there's a door, a door on this building and the door has a door knob, now I'm close enough to see that there's two words written on this door knob, they're the words self-effort, and I think well for sure thank you, finally somebody, finally somebody can say it, self-effort, I mean that's exactly right, I mean God does His part but I've got to do my part right, I mean God helps those who help themselves, that's in the Bible, somewhere, like behind Malachi maybe if you read it with a black light underwater, anyways I'm so excited, I open the door and I walk in, you guys thousands of people, thousands cacophony of sound, oh my gosh this is it, this must be the sold-out people of God and I am just stunned and I don't notice that there is in this room a hostess and she looks at me and says in a voice that upon further reflection sounds a little slick, a little oily, she says hi, welcome to the room of good intentions, I don't even hear, I just go hey thank you, I'm just so excited to be here, thanks, how's everybody doing, and nobody says anything, you guys come on, how's everybody doing? And finally this, I can't tell if everybody steps back or if he steps forward but one guy finally says like he's reading from a cue card, we're doing fine, that's right, we're doing fine, fine is fine can be, that's right, kids are doing good, yeah I mean my guys business liquidity, oh my gosh resurgence, oh my, we got a bumper sticker tell you about the kids, we're doing fine, aren't we Debbie, Bob, Jerry, Carlos, we're fine, we're just, we're fine, how about you, Tiger? And the hostess says yeah, how are you doing? And I say oh my gosh thank you, thank you for asking, now that I'm in this room I think things are doing better but I have been struggling with so many things like for example and she does this and then she reaches back and pulls out a mask and she nods for me to put it on, I don't want to wear a mask, I never want to mask in my life but but I still want to make it in this room and I find myself saying to her, thank you, I'm doing fine, you're in the room of good intentions and there's a banner on the back wall, I don't notice it when I first walk in but but eventually I see it, it says this, working hard on my sin to achieve an intimate relationship with God, working hard on my sin to achieve an intimate relationship with God, see that's right, that's exactly right because I mean because I remember when I first came to know him it was like we were so close, it was like I could touch him and then gradually I don't know, over time the things I said I was going to do, I didn't do, the things I said I would do, I didn't do and over time it's like it's like he walked away from being up here and he walked way over here beyond on the other side of my stuff, of my failures, of my junk, of my mess and it kept growing every single day, it was so gross, this mound began to build of my sin, my failure, this pussy heap of my garbage, it was like, if you can imagine, wet cat food mixed with mayonnaise after three weeks, just I, I, it's my mound, okay, and I am, I imagine, because it's steamy I couldn't see, I can't see God anymore and I, I can't see anymore, and I imagine him now with his arms folded, looking at me now saying, gosh I had so much hope for that kid, he has let me down so many times, you know what, I don't, I hear you, I just don't want to hear about anymore, okay, and I, and I, I want to call out and I want to say, hey, I know it doesn't look good, but now that I'm in this room with these people, things are going to get better, you watch, you, you watch, I'm, I'm, I'm going to sin less, I'm going to fix this mound and, and gradually you and I are going to be closer, but what nobody tells me in this room is that there's not a thing I can do to fix that mound of sin, any of it, and what they also don't tell me is that there's truckloads more of that being brought in every week, and what they also don't tell me is that when I wear a mask, only my mask gets loved. But you guys, I, I, I, I got to tell you this, this, this um, gosh this room, it is, I don't even know how to describe it, it has sincerity, perseverance, diligence, full-hearted fervency, sold out determination, I think this is it, this is it, I'm going to make them so happy, now one day we're going to be close, I know it, we're going to be so close, but weeks turned into months and the conversations, if you listen carefully, if you walk down amongst them, they seem superficially guarded and they sound cynical and they look so tired, and if you catch them when they think nobody's looking, there's, there's deep lonely pain in their faces, and now I'm starting, I'm, I'm starting to think differently too, I'm no longer relaxed, I've got this nagging anxiety, if I don't control my sin enough, I'm going to be on the outs with everybody in this room and probably with God too, so, so um, I do, I invest more effort into trying to sin less, and honestly I, I, I kind of feel better for a while, but despite all my striving and sincerity, I keep sinning, some days I get fixated on trying not to sin, I can't seem to do enough, I never feel like I've ever done enough, it feels like I make it, every effort to please a God who never seems pleased enough. And gradually this path of pleasing God's turning into what in the world must I do to keep him pleased with me. When we embrace this, we reduce godliness to a really ridiculous formula, more right behavior plus less wrong behavior equals godliness, more right behavior less wrong behavior equals godliness. There's only one problem with such a formula, disregards the godliness and righteousness that god has already placed in us. If we tie godliness to enough right behavior, we're set up to live in hiddenness. We, we can't resolve our sin by working on it when we strive to sin less, we don't, and it causes us to lose hope, and it keeps us immature, and even though this theology has been breaking our hearts and let us down over thousands of times, we keep desperately hoping maybe this, maybe this time we'll be able to control and stop our compulsions and obsessions through enough sincerity and willpower. And I can no longer breathe in this room. I, I want to call out, I want to say, hey, somebody talk to me, what's wrong with me? Like, it seems like everybody's doing fire, it's against, but it's the one thing nobody wants to talk about. And so one night, when I feel like everybody's asleep and no one's watching, I slip to the back of the room and I walk out onto the path again. And now what do I do? What do I do? This was supposed to be at, this was supposed to be me with a sold out people to god. This was supposed to be the answer, and I couldn't do it. I don't know what to do. And I, I walk around for a long time, like maybe 45 minutes. I'm just aimlessly walking until finally, I slam back up into that pole again where one road became two. I look up at that arrow that says, um, trusting God. Are you kidding me? Hey, anybody? Does there happen to be a third path? And hearing nothing, I just start walking. I, I've so little hope, but I don't know what to do. So I just start walking. Same thing, I go for a few minutes and there's some bushes and brambles and then, then, then larger bushes, then trees and then dark forests, then, then it's pitch black. And eventually I walk for a while until off in the distance, I can see something that looks like light and I keep walking and bam, it opens up again into this beautiful bright meadows. And I see another, what looks like an arena to me, and there's words on this one too that the, the sun's hitting on and, and, and I keep walking because the words make no sense to me. It says, living out of who God says I am. Well, there's one word right after another. What does that mean? And I keep walking and eventually I can see too that, that there is a door in this arena and this time instead of, um, two words, it's one word. Right above the door now. Humility. And I, um, it washes over me and I'm undone. I don't, I don't, I don't know what to say. God, I've tried so hard. I've tried so hard to do this right and to make it happen and I can't do it. I can't, I can't, oh, if anything, good's going to come out of me. You're good. You're better. You're the only one. If anything, good's going to come out of me. You're going to have to do it. Help, help me, help me. Help me. And I walk in the door and it's the, um, same thing, thousands, thousands of people and I just, I, I, I don't know what to do. I don't notice that there's a hostess in this room too and she watches me for quite a while. And then in a voice, maybe the most beautiful voice I've ever heard in my life, she says, "Hey kid, welcome to the room of Grace." And now listen to how shrewd she is. She says, "So how are you doing?" Well, I've been here before, so I say, um, fine, kind of fine, sort of fine, who wants to know. And then I look at out here and it, this room seems no different to me than the other room. It's so quiet and I'm so frustrated and disgusted that I call out and go, "Hey!" I rip off my mess, say, "Hey!" Everybody, listen up. I'm doing not fine. I haven't been fine in a long time. Okay? I'm tired. I'm confused. I'm afraid I'm, I feel guilty. I'm lonely. I'm sad most of the time I can't make my life work. I'm so far behind and befuddled about what to do. Next, it leaves me frozen and if any of you people knew half my daily thoughts, you'd want me out of your little room. So, so there you go. I'm doing not fine. Thank you for asking. I think I'll leave now. And I'm just about to grab the doorknob when I hear this voice from way, way back in the far back of the room yells out, "That's it? That's all you got? I'll take your confusion and guilt and bad thoughts and I'll raise your compulsive sin and chronic lower back pain. Oh, and I'm in debt up to my ears and I wouldn't know classical music from a show tune if it jumped up and bit me. You get better get more than that little list if you want to play in my league, buddy." And the hostess leans over and says, "I think he means you're welcome here." "You're in the room of grace." "Grace." And you can't say it except for "Should I Irish?" "For this is the manner in which God speaks." "Grace!" 122 times in the New Testament. 122 times the New Testament. And I don't, it's like there's been this veil over our eyes that causes with man-made religion to no longer see scripture what it's saying. 2 Timothy 2, 1, "My son, you'll be strong in the," you expect him to say, "so disciplined and grind in the eyes." He says, "You'll be strong in the grace that's in Christ Jesus." Acts 20, 32, "I commend you to God in the word of His grace, which alone is able to build you up." Hebrews 4, 16, "Let us draw near with confidence of the throne of grace that we might receive mercy and find grace that will help us in our times of need, in those tight times, in those hard times, in those pandemic times, in those things don't make sense." He says, "In those times," Romans 5, 2, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we've obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand." Romans 6, 14. Sin will no longer be master over you because you're no longer under law. You're no longer under bluffing, you're no longer under moralism, you're no longer under striving, you're no longer under bluffing, you're no longer under putting your best for or lying or hiding. Sin will no longer be master over you because you're no longer under law but you're under grace. Well, by now you might be onto me. You know where I'm going. This is right out of Hebrews 11, isn't it? Hebrews 11, 6. Remember what it says? Without faith, the noun form is pistas. The verb form is trust. Without trust, it's impossible to please me. Wow, so all day long I can be trying so hard to be pleased in enough. He says, "You will never be able to please me and you'll never learn to trust me." But if over here on my worst day, if I dare to believe that who he says I am, that I'm that I'm Christ in me, that I'm Christ in me no matter what I have done, no matter what I'm going to do tomorrow or the next week or for the rest of my life, I'm Christ in me says, would you dare to believe that? Did you wear a robe of righteousness all the time? Would you dare to believe that? And when I find myself doing it, God says, "Kit, you're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. Oh, and by the way, you've never pleased me so much in your whole life." The very thing I want to do all along, he says, it just happened now by you trusting me of who I say I am in you and who you are. See guys, pleasing God is an incredibly good desire. It just can't be our primary motivation or it will imprison our hearts. For if we bring to God our moral striving to please him by solving our sin enough, we're back to the same square that put us in need of salvation. We're stuck with our talents, our desire, our longing, our hoods, but our diligence and resolve. Pleasing is not a means to our godliness. It's the fruit of our godliness because it's the fruit of trust. I love what Peterson says in the message, does the God who lavishly provide you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives that you could never do for yourself, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Well, there is a banner on the back wall of the room of grace too, it says this, standing with God with my sin in front of us, working on it together. What if the shed blood of Jesus was this powerful that for all of us who have put even a fragile, clumsy hope in Jesus Christ, he's never over there on the other side of my sin. Not on your worst day, he never is over there. Instead he walks around all the way and walks like and stands like maybe 12, 18 inches in front of my face and he puts his hands on my shoulders and he smiles a smile that no human can make. Then he says, "I know kid, I know, I'm not ashamed, I'm not disgusted, I'm not mad, I'm not angry, I'm crazy about you." And then like he'd pull me into a bear hug like so tight, I want to say no, no, no, you don't deserve this, you got the wrong thing, please stop, no, no, but he keeps holding me so tight and he keeps whispering into my ear, "I got you kid, I'm crazy about you, I'm crazy about you, I got this, I got this," and he keeps holding me so tight and he keeps whispering it to me and I'm trying so hard to make a sign and eventually I don't want him to stop. I have waited my whole lifetime for this to be held so tightly by the one who loves me the most and he keeps holding me so tight until he's absolutely, absolutely convinced that I believe him. And then and only then does he loosen his grip and then only so much so that he can put his arm around me and we can look at my sin together. Now I've done this before and every time, every time I do it I can't help it, I imagine this picture. There's Jesus, there's arm around me, you look at my sin together and I always imagine Jesus going, "Wow, my golly, whoo, like don't you ever sleep?" And then he'd say, "And we'll deal with this when you're ready kid, I got you, I'm so crazy about you, oh and by the way you are ready in five and four and three and two and one." Have we been changed? Listen, have we been changed? Yes, as day is from night we've been changed. We've received a brand new core identity, Christ in me. We've all, listen, we've already been changed. Now we get to mature into who we are. If I brought a caterpillar to a biologist and asked him to describe its DNA, he would say, "John, I know this looks like a caterpillar to you, but by every measurable scientific result this is fully and completely a butterfly." Wow, God is wired into a creature looking not much like a butterfly, a perfectly complete butterfly identity and because the caterpillar is a butterfly in essence, it will one day inevitably invariably display the behavior and attributes of a butterfly. The caterpillar matures into what's already true about it and so it is with us. God gives me the DNA of godliness or righteousness and he says, "John, would you dare to believe it's true because if you do, you will love more and sin less." Now I got some bad news as I wrapped this up. Not everybody who comes to the room of grace stays. See, not only must you believe that you were accepted, you've got to learn to accept the yokels who are already here and the ones who enter each week and they are goofy and odd and flawed and failed and weird and inappropriate. Oh, every now and then a presentable one slips in, but he or she usually soon discovers that he shtick is a mask. He too must learn to rest in the sufficiency of Christ or he'll soon have to go back to where appearances make the person. So now it's done to us. Maybe you listen to this and you go, "Man, that dog hunts, that really preached well, but you don't know me." And when you think you don't belong or you're too failed or unfit or unworthy to live amongst this band of rabble without a mask, someone in this sacred community, someone in this sacred community that by the way, I know about you, I've been hearing about you and listening to about you. This is a growing room of grace. And maybe, just maybe, when you one time finally say enough hiding, enough wearing the mask, you might find yourself walking up to one in this group and saying, "Hey, have you got a minute? I'm not ever shared this before. I'm struggling with some stuff." And you share with them and let it out. And when you finally get it all out, you expect that you are going to be mocked or told off or told that you're not enough. Instead, when you tell it to the person, they look over at you and lean real close and say, "That's it? That's all you got?" It'll be their way of saying to you, you have been, you are, and you will always be welcome in this place. My brothers and sisters, thank you so, so, so much. So, how are we doing? Yeah. You guys know what we talked about here, fine as the four letter F word for church. Yeah, place of grace here. And that's what we do here. We're going to sing now. We're not going to sing song, get y'all rather, go, "Yes, you can. You can do it. You can do it." You do that for a bit in church and you get all hyped up and you go, "I can't do it." But I don't have to because he did it for me. We're going to sing together some great songs about that. I'm going to remind you, John, several, about a year or so ago, somebody handed me this book called "On My Worst Day," written by John. I didn't know John was from Adam at that point. And being a pastor, these kind of things happen all the time. People hand you a book and go, "Yeah, sure, sure, whatever." And then you go on, whatever. This is one of, like, four or five books I've read that actually exceeded the hype that somebody told me how awesome this thing was. So I'd encourage you, called "On My Worst Day," he's got a table out there. Go pick it up. There's also a book called "The Cure That Has A Lot of The Foundational Stuff" that we talked about that he talked about here today. It's in the book called "The Cure and Encourage You to Pick Up Those Resources Today." Today we're going to buy you this thing to a God who's enough because you're not. You don't have to be. You can relax a little bit. God don't have to be. We come to tables of communion. And we always tell you this here, these tables of the communion, it's bread and juice, it symbolizes the body and blood of Jesus. And you don't come there with an offering. You don't come here to just say, "We don't tell you, get yourself all cleaned up." You come there dirty and filthy. You come then. All the reason you come there is because you're not enough because you don't have it. You can't possibly be good enough because Jesus was. You can come and stand there and go with a bunch of other people that will stand there with communion with you, go, "Is that all you got? Is that all you got? I love that." And then like John said, you may have some stuff in your life and you've been playing the game of pretending for far too long that usually doesn't play very well here at cross point because we just don't let you. But you may have got away with it because sometimes people can't even fake being authentic because it's the way to please God by fake authenticity. Maybe it's time to get really real about some stuff today. Our prayer team will be at the back of the house back there at those little half circle of chairs back there. I'll be sitting up here in the front row. If you've got stuff going on, you want somebody to pray with you about that and just to go, "I am not okay." And I just want to talk to somebody about that and pray about that. I encourage you to do that today as well. So come today. Come today, not being fine, but knowing that he's enough and he's more than enough. Come today to tables of communion to remember Jesus. Just sing to Jesus and come today and be honest. So Jesus today, I confess that it's the struggle for me that I bump into that pole probably four or five times a day. Thinking I can somehow please you because I can do it even though I'm... Yeah. Holy Spirit, would you take what John has just shared with us and drive that down deep into our hearts as we celebrate you? We remember you and we trust you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. For more resources, check out go2crosspoint.com. [BLANK_AUDIO]