Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] So for several years, I've done vacation Bible camp with the teenagers, and we usually have, like, a different thing that we talk about with the teenagers than the elementary school kid. They have like, a different, like, kind of lesson thing that they do on there. One thing that I heard you guys talk about at vacation Bible camp with the elementary school kids is God siding.
[00:00:20] Have you guys heard the phrase godsiding?
[00:00:25] I'm old. I think I must. Sometimes when you grow up in the church, there's, like, certain things. I think there's, like, a trend of a way of describing things that I just missed. Like, I wasn't with a certain age group when that thing came up. So, like, what is a God sighting? What is. What is. What do you mean when you say God sighting for those that. Yeah.
[00:00:44] So whenever God reveals himself to you, do you talk about, like, how you know that God's revealing himself to you?
[00:00:50] A peace comes over you? Yeah. Anyone else? Like, how would you. How do you know that what you're experiencing is a God sighting? I have a little bit of a problem with this idea, kind of going back from when I was younger because I grew up in church, and people would say, like, God revealed this to me, or God told this to me. And sometimes I'd be like, oh, that's cool. And sometimes I'd be like, yeah, I don't. Probably not. Like, I remember when I went to seminary, it was very common for people to be like, you know, God told me this or God told me that. And I'm like, man, God talks to you a lot. And my favorite one. So at seminary, there were a lot more guys than girls at seminary.
[00:01:29] And so especially, like, there were a lot more single dudes. And one of the. One of the most interesting comments I'd hear, I'd hear, like, a girl would say, oh, yeah, I was talking to so and so. And they said God told them that they would be married, they would get married.
[00:01:48] And like, she was like, I don't know what to do with that. I was like, well, did God tell you that you were gonna get married? You know, And I remember just thinking, like, that's such a wuss. Like, man, if you're too. If you're too chicken to just ask a girl out and you gotta put it on God. Like, just don't tell her that, man. Like, now she's not just saying no to you, she's saying no to God. You know, I'm like, there's so many ways to do this wrong. You know, the whole, like, God told me this, but at the same time, I'm totally convinced that God does tell us stuff that he does reveal to us. And I have, you know, I have experienced that. And so I have these experiences where I know that God has revealed things to me. And the other hand, I'm very much like, yeah, I don't want to say that, because then I sound like one of those dudes that is always like, using God as an excuse for stuff that I want to have happen. So I got this thing going on. Like, how do I know that this is, like a God sighting and not a Clay wannabe sighting? How do I know that what I'm experiencing is of God instead of Clay's wishes? You know, I want to look at that over these next few weeks. What does it actually mean to sight yourself on God, to experience God as he's at work in the world, to be able to notice around you that God is working, God is moving, and to be able to identify that activity as an activity of God and not to place yourself and your will out there and call it God.
[00:03:14] So I want to first start off by grounding this in our last sermon series. We just got through the sermon series looking at Matthew, chapter one.
[00:03:22] Jesus said, come to me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I'll give you rest. And we unpack that a little bit week by week.
[00:03:29] But I just want to focus on how important it is that we can cite, that we can see God to come to him. We looked at all this.
[00:03:39] I'm not going to go through that whole sermon series again. But in order to come to God, we have to be able to identify that it is God that we're coming to.
[00:03:49] What does it mean?
[00:03:50] So I say, like, yes, I am prepared to submit my will to God and to make him Lord.
[00:03:56] I agree that in my heart, I. I understand that what I used to believe about sin and death isn't true, that God is. Jesus has resurrected, has been resurrected, and that we have been chosen to be a part of that resurrection, and that we don't have to fear sin and death the way we did before, and that we had the opportunity to participate in the world differently than we did when we saw the world before the resurrection. I believe all that. I know all that. And yet how can I know? Like, I'm prepared. Yes, Lord, I want to be a part of your kingdom. I want to be a part of what you're doing. How do I do that?
[00:04:31] I've got. There's four different ways that I want to talk about. And before. I do not believe that there are actually four categories of ways that God reveals himself. Like, you look in the Bible, and it's like everything from a donkey to, like. Like, there's like. It's not. It's simply not true that there's like, four ways that God reveals himself. But I'm going to, like, kind of box things into these things that I think are really important. And this first thing I think is of preeminent importance.
[00:04:59] It is the primary way that God has revealed himself and continues to reveal himself.
[00:05:06] First, Colossians, chapter one, verse nine and ten says, this is Paul writing to disciples who are intently.
[00:05:15] Like, these are people who are just.
[00:05:18] You can see. You can see how hungry they are to participate in God's kingdom, to see God at work, and to be a part of God and his work. And he says, we ask God, like, he's praying over them. He's asking a blessing on them for what they already wish for themselves.
[00:05:31] We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.
[00:05:39] Then the way you live, like, literally, your way of life, like the way in which you conduct yourself through life, will always honor and please the Lord. And your lives will produce every good kind, every kind of good fruit.
[00:05:53] All the while you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
[00:05:59] So there is this process of coming to know.
[00:06:02] Coming to see God's kingdom. It's not like.
[00:06:08] It's not that he's hidden or whatever, but I think that.
[00:06:16] I think like anything else, any other relationship, I wouldn't say that I love Alison more today than I loved her when I first married her, when I first started dating her, because I don't. Like, I loved her.
[00:06:30] And what I know of her has changed a lot. You know, the details of who she is has grown.
[00:06:41] I guess my capacity to know more parts of her than I knew before has grown. And so our capacity to be aware of God, where God's at work, is relationally going to grow the more that we get to know him. And so it's not like if you're a new Christian or a young Christian, it's not like you have any less.
[00:07:01] Like, literally, you open your eyes and you see where he's at around you, and you notice where God's at work. And that is powerful and good. But it's not like what you saw yesterday is all you're gonna see.
[00:07:14] There's a lifetime process of coming to see him more and more. And that's good if you're new, understand that this really is, like Paul kind of describes it as a race, that you're going to be running it the rest of your life, getting to know him more and more.
[00:07:29] So there's this process of coming to see God, to sight him and to be knowledgeable of where he's at work. But he says this in verse 15, right afterward. He says Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
[00:07:44] If I intend to see God, the thing that's most important for me to realize is that Jesus Christ is the visible, tangible action of God at work. The spiritual God showed up incarnate in the flesh. And if you are ever going to see God at work, you will first see him in Christ.
[00:08:07] That all there was to know, all there is to know about God revealed has been most fully revealed in Jesus. There's not been. There's not been a revelation of God since before or since.
[00:08:21] That'll give you a clearer picture of God at work. And so if we intend to see God, then we must intend to see Jesus. We must look first to Jesus.
[00:08:32] He is literally the visible expression of God.
[00:08:38] When we go back and we read the stories and we see the way. When I see the way Jesus interacts with the Pharisees over the Sabbath, which we're going to look at in a minute, or I see what he has to say about. About marriages or what he has to say, my thought isn't like, well, I have to take that into account with this other thing. Like, no, whatever I might have thought about the Sabbath, reading the law in the Old Testament, Jesus clears that up in himself. He has a more clear understanding about what Sabbath is. Whatever I thought about what it meant to be married, whatever Jesus had to say about marriage is a more clear understanding of where God's at work in marriage. Every aspect of life that Jesus lived out or talked about is going to give me the most clear understanding of how God works in the various aspects of my life. So if I intend to see God at work, the first thing that I would want to do is to be most aware of how God was at work tangibly in the flesh, in the incarnation, in Jesus life.
[00:09:38] So there's this example that I love where Jesus.
[00:09:43] Jesus is interacting with the Pharisees. And they don't have that idea. They simply don't trust Him. Clearly they don't have that thought when they're interacting with Jesus.
[00:09:51] In John chapter 5, he's just healed this person. I want you to. There's this guy that's been hurting for a long time. Everybody knows him. They're very aware of who he is. They see him all the time. Jesus literally heals this guy that had been ailing his whole life.
[00:10:07] But Jesus made a mistake. He did it on the Sabbath, and you're not supposed to work on the Sabbath. And the Pharisees were quick to say, what are you doing now? I love the fact that like first of all, that he has the power to heal.
[00:10:19] Okay, he did it on the Sabbath and broke the Sabbath. That's the problem.
[00:10:24] It's so funny how sometimes we can miss the activity of God because we're, we're confident, we are confident that we have a pre existing view of how the world ought to be instead of how the world is revealed to be in Christ.
[00:10:43] Whatever my ought is, whenever it comes face to face with the revelation of Jesus, my ought is wrong.
[00:10:51] And so here's what happens when we don't approach things that way. John chapter 5. Starting with verse 16, the Jewish leaders, after Jesus heals this guy, begin harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. But Jesus replied, look, my Father is always working and so am I.
[00:11:10] He explains that as the Father is working is not Sabbathing. I am also not Sabbathing. When the Father is Sabbathing, I am. I'm simply participating with God in the rhythms of life.
[00:11:23] You intend for me to participate in rhythms that are not fit to what God is doing. But. But I see things differently.
[00:11:32] Their response is just perfect.
[00:11:34] So the Jewish leaders try all the harder to find a way to kill him because he was messing up the system that they had created. They were confident in what they knew the way things ought to be. And he didn't fit. He was a danger to all the people around him. They viewed him as a danger. They didn't just try to kill him because they were like, oh, we're the bad guys twirling our mustache and like we're going to kill this guy. Like, they were confident that he was a danger because he was going against what they had always taught about the Sabbath. They thought they knew better about what God had revealed about the Sabbath than Jesus did because they didn't sight God through the lens of Christ.
[00:12:26] Jesus was a danger. And I want to say this.
[00:12:30] Jesus can never be simply a good idea. A good.
[00:12:38] So much of what Jesus has to say doesn't fit all different cultures that have existed throughout time about the way things ought to be.
[00:12:47] He is always a danger to the systems of the world because we are always working out ways to deal with Sin and death. We are prepared to make choices. We call them hard choices. And they usually mean choices to corrupt our soul, to deal with bad things in the world.
[00:13:08] Jesus said, I have overcome the world. I see things the way God sees. Said them, the way you are protecting yourself from the world is actually destroying you, and you need to repent of that. He is always going to conflict with every system that's not the system of God.
[00:13:25] And so it makes sense that they wanted to kill him, for he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal to God. Yeah, but Jesus explains this. I tell you the truth.
[00:13:38] The Son of man can do nothing by himself.
[00:13:41] He only does what he sees. The Father doing whatever the Father does, the Son also does.
[00:13:48] For the Father, loves the Son and shows him everything he's doing.
[00:13:54] For Jesus, a God siding was the time he woke up to the time he went to bed every day.
[00:14:03] The Father is constantly showing him what he's doing. He was. He was aware literally in every interaction that he was having with you when it was something fit to the kingdom of God and it was something not fit to the kingdom of God. And by the way, let me say this, when we talk about a God siding, that you can just call that the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is where God's will is done. We've talked about that, right? And so when we talk about God being active, that's literally him doing what he wants.
[00:14:32] And so anytime God is doing what he wants and we see that, whether or not we see it, that is the kingdom of God at work. And so when we cite God, we are citing the kingdom of God.
[00:14:44] Jesus says, look, the kingdom of God isn't out here. Isn't out here. The kingdom of God is inside you. Like, as you experience the activity, he's working and it's changing you. You are a part of. You're participating in those sightings. You're being changed as a result of your awareness of where God is at work.
[00:15:02] And so Jesus, who was constantly more at home in the kingdom of God than whatever other system he was living in, wakes up every day and he sees what God is doing and he participates in what God is doing. Now, I want you to think about what it means then to follow Jesus as a Christian. All that means is that we're followers of Christ. It doesn't mean that we're like on Team Jesus or something. Like, it doesn't mean that you were, like, born into a family where my parents believed in Jesus.
[00:15:37] The word Christian Literally means I have surrendered my will to God's will. I have brought my kingdom into God's kingdom. I've brought my will under his will, and I'm prepared to live my life as if he was me.
[00:15:55] So if Jesus is always constantly doing what he sees the Father doing and I am submitting to Jesus, then I am in this position to constantly participate in what the Father is doing.
[00:16:12] The incarnation of Christ is the way that I see God at work.
[00:16:20] As I see. As I see Jesus active. When I.
[00:16:25] I've said this before, but I am.
[00:16:29] I'm constantly noticing between you, things that I think are like, I'm like that I could totally see Jesus. I could totally see Jesus having that response to that situation.
[00:16:42] Like the way that.
[00:16:44] The way that you responded to this kid or the way you responded to that person that was hurting, the way you were attentive to that other person as they were, like, describing something that was hard in their life. The way that you thought about ways that you could help. Like all of the. All those small details that I see in you guys.
[00:17:04] And I'm like, I could totally see Jesus doing that.
[00:17:08] That is literally the incarnation of Christ playing out among his disciples. Because we are followers of Christ.
[00:17:17] That is, we are learning to live our life as if Christ were living it for us.
[00:17:23] As we interact with each other, we are revealing God is literally showing up that God sightings are happening as a result of you.
[00:17:34] I'll say this.
[00:17:37] I would say that the church and I want to bracket that. We'll describe church in a minute. But the church is the primary way that God reveals himself in the world.
[00:17:48] When I say I see God at work, I would say that the church is the primary way that I see God at work. When I see God, when I see the kingdom, when I am present to God at work, that is the church.
[00:18:03] Those are people for whom the kingdom of God kingdom is living inside of. As Jesus says in Luke, like when you are no longer spotting the kingdom out there, but it's inside of you, you are where I see God working his church.
[00:18:24] I think Jesus is describing this in Matthew chapter 16 also. He does this again in Matthew chapter 18, in a little bit at the end of Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. But the biggest time this comes up, or the thing that's most common is described in Matthew chapter 16. Jesus has just asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? And they have all kinds of different answers. You're this, you're this, you're this. And Simon answered Like Peter, who is like always the mouth. He says, you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. So to saying this is like you're throwing hard here. Like, you just don't say that about a human being. You want to say. If you think that you want to edge up to it. You want to be like, you're like the best teacher.
[00:19:12] You're like a prophet. You're like, you want to edge up to that. Because if you say this and you're wrong, that's straight heresy. You're like, you're a dog. Like, you can't say this is something you can say unless it's accurate, right?
[00:19:24] Peter was the kind of guy that was like, no, I'm just going to say it. So this is who you are. And Jesus response is great. He says, you're blessed, Simon, son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you.
[00:19:40] Peter, I can't tell you how many times you've said dumb stuff that's clearly not been from our Father. But you're not afraid to say things boldly. You throw a lot of balls. But this was a strike.
[00:19:54] It came from our heavenly Father, not from you.
[00:19:58] You did not learn this from any human being.
[00:20:00] Now I say to you that you are Peter, which means rock. This is where he gets his name, Peter. And upon this rock I will build my church. And all the powers of hell will not conquer it. Now what is it?
[00:20:12] Imagine like, what is it that cannot be conquered?
[00:20:18] It is the revelation of the kingdom at work all around us. It is the God siding. And he says, jesus is this God siding? And then Jesus goes on to say this about Peter and about everyone after Peter. And he says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
[00:20:39] Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. And whatever you let loose on earth will be let loose in heaven.
[00:20:47] Jesus also says this to all the disciples in chapter 18.
[00:20:50] And so what is it like?
[00:20:55] What is happening here?
[00:20:57] What is Jesus saying about Peter? First, the first one to acknowledge that Jesus is this incarnation, this unique revelation of the activity of God on earth.
[00:21:12] What is Peter acknowledging here? And then what are the rest of the disciples acknowledging later? And then what does the church continue to acknowledge forever, such that their activity binds and looses the kingdom of God on earth?
[00:21:28] I think Jesus is giving them the authority to the doors to the kingdom of heaven.
[00:21:36] And he's inviting the entire world to enter the doors to the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven? The kingdom of God, where God's will is done. Where we cite God that opens up to us, and we become aware of the kingdom of God when we view all of the activity of God through the incarnation of Christ, when we say that more than anyplace else, more than anyplace else in the world, this is what God at work looks like.
[00:22:06] Jesus is the God siding.
[00:22:10] And every disciple after you, Peter, all of the church, everyone that you evangelize to, that agrees with you about me, will be a part of this church that opens the doors to the kingdom of God that is God siding. They will begin to see God at work inside of them. God will work inside of them, and they will act in the world to reveal God as they listen to what you had to say. As you have seen me, they will see me.
[00:22:43] And as a result of the way you see me in your relationship with me, you will become the revelation of God on earth. You will reveal God in your character because you follow me.
[00:22:59] I am the incarnation of God. I am the God siding.
[00:23:03] You follow me into the world. You have become the God siding.
[00:23:12] That sounds.
[00:23:15] That's a lot, you know, I'm just trying to, like, learn how to, like, be a good dad here. You know, Paul, who is always aware of the choices that he made that he was ashamed of before coming to Christ, where his head was, when he didn't understand who Jesus was, he stands up and he turns to the Corinthians and he says, be imitators of me as I imitate Christ.
[00:24:02] This is what has happened all throughout history.
[00:24:06] Paul imitated Jesus.
[00:24:10] Polycarp imitated John. Ignatius imitated Polycarp.
[00:24:17] This guy. Like, it goes on and on. And throughout history, you have these people imitating the people who have imitated Christ.
[00:24:25] And there's this unbroken chain of.
[00:24:29] This succession of people that come straight from the apostles, those who have been followers of Christ all the way to us.
[00:24:39] And it is our honor, it is our servant's heart, heart's desire to be the incarnation of Christ in the world.
[00:24:55] That we would say to the world, follow us as we follow Christ.
[00:25:02] Look at me.
[00:25:05] Look at the way I respond when a person's hurting.
[00:25:08] Look at me when I respond to a marriage falling apart. Look at me the way I respond to the beautiful things that happen in the world and the difficult things that happen in the world.
[00:25:20] Look to me and imitate me as I follow Christ.
[00:25:27] That is a.
[00:25:29] That is either an exceeding. That is a tremendously arrogant thing to say or. Or an incredibly humble thing to say. One or the other.
[00:25:38] That's nothing. You just throw out There, unless you're incredibly arrogant or incredibly humble, either your focus is on them following you, or the focus is on you continually submitting your life to Christ to the point that you could tell somebody else, you can follow me because I'm dead to myself and my life is submitted to him.
[00:26:05] I am a servant of Christ.
[00:26:07] Follow me in that.
[00:26:11] We're going to look at various ways that we build this.
[00:26:16] I don't know if it's the character.
[00:26:19] We build our spiritual life to the point that we can say that humbly.
[00:26:25] We're going to look at prayer. We'll look at Bible study, we'll look at circumstances. We'll look at various things that happen in our life that help us be able to say that humbly instead of arrogantly.
[00:26:38] But I'll say this.
[00:26:40] For those of us who call ourselves sons and daughters of God, that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that we follow him, it's really. I don't think it's an option.
[00:26:56] It is our obligation to say, follow us as we follow after Christ.
[00:27:03] And so, you know, we call this discipleship, spiritual formation, whatever you want to call it.
[00:27:14] It's very important for us to conform our spirit to the point that we can say that humbly, that we can agree with Paul.
[00:27:22] Follow us as we follow after Christ. This is how the world sees God.
[00:27:31] God, thank you so much for sending your son.
[00:27:34] The entire arc of your revelation to a fallen world is so beautiful. To be able to see your will unfold throughout time and to not be able to.
[00:27:45] To grasp it in its parts, but to see it in its whole. The elegance of the way that you have worked to bring us back to you without forcing us to you speaks to a particular type of love that we aspire to.
[00:27:59] But Lord, most importantly, we thank you so much for your revelation in Christ that you have, that you have made yourself so obviously known through Jesus, that we can, with confidence, give up our whole life for you and submit ourselves to you. Because we know that there is no other, no greater way to be more fully human, to be the people you've made us, to be.
[00:28:28] People in your image.
[00:28:30] We love you, Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
