Living with Integrity?

[0:00] Father, we confess before you that we often deceive ourselves. We confess before you that we can deceive ourselves so often it can become such a habit that we no longer are aware of our self-deception.

[0:19] We confess before you that often we have many motives, even for a single action, that we're blind to and that some of those motives aren't very good.

[0:31] And Father, we confess before you that given how we are inside, that sometimes we think you're like this, that we sort of make you in our own image.

[0:44] Father, we need your help. We need you to speak into the center of who we are, speak to our heart. We need, Father, your Holy Spirit to open the eyes of our heart, open the eyes of our heart to who we are in light of your word, in light of your love and grace and mercy.

[1:03] So, Father, we ask that you would do this wonderful work of your Holy Spirit and your word in our lives this morning and for the rest of our lives. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior.

[1:14] Amen. Please be seated. Amen. So, for... I do other things outside of what I do on Sunday morning.

[1:25] I don't just sort of work Sunday morning. And sometimes I've been involved in different leadership teams and organizing events. And for quite a few years, I was part of this team, leadership team that was doing a wide range of events all across the country.

[1:40] And one of the problems I had with being on that leadership team was a particular group of people. I mean, you know, I think it was Bill Hybels who said that whenever two or more people are together, there is friction.

[1:52] And that's always true. When there are two more together, there is friction. But in this particular case, there was a group of people on the leadership team that had several agendas, other than just really trying to do a good job, to work together to produce really effective events that would further the kingdom, that would bless people, that would bring God glory.

[2:18] They had a whole pile, or at least several other very powerful agendas. And most of the agendas were all around themselves looking good and themselves getting more and more power.

[2:32] And one of the hard parts, it's not only hard to deal with people who have that as their motive, especially when they won't acknowledge it, but the other thing which was really hard is that it was such a deep part of who they were that they had these motives of, you know, we're going to be on top, we're going to be the ones who are most important, we're going to be the ones who look good.

[2:56] It was so deeply ingrained in them, those motives, that they had a hard time believing that everybody else on the team didn't have the same motives. So they were always quite combative because it just never, it was, those motives of seeking power were so powerful in them, they just couldn't imagine that some other people, they didn't have that motive.

[3:19] That, no, actually, I don't care, I don't have to be up on front. No, I don't care, my logo doesn't have to be on that. Like, I just want to have something. It was really hard for them to understand that. A few, quite a few years ago now, I had a person who I thought was a friend, I thought was like a person who had the same type of desires as I did to be able to preach and understand the Bible and they offered to come alongside me to give me some advice so that I could preach better.

[3:46] And every time I met with them, I was depressed afterwards. I was really depressed. And then after I had been doing this for four or five or six weeks because I'm a slow learner, it started to dawn on me that they actually were trying to hurt me.

[4:04] Like, it wasn't just that they were speaking truth into my life and I was having a hard time facing the truth. They were actually trying to hurt me and they were actually trying to undermine my confidence in the Bible and they were actually trying to turn me in a very, very, very different direction.

[4:21] They had a motive in terms of their action which was in fact very hurtful to me and I ended up having to have a bit of a confrontation with them. I mean, we could multiply these examples.

[4:33] Many of you probably at school or at work. How many of you, if you're at school or university and you're doing a group project and how many of you have had to deal with a person doing a group project where they basically have two motives or three motives?

[4:47] One, do no work. Two, take all the credit for the work. Three, get a good mark from your work. And it's really hard to deal with somebody like that, right?

[4:58] Many of us have been in workplace situations where you can tell that the person involved that you have to work with, all they want is to take credit and all they want is promotion.

[5:09] That's all they want. And they'll do whatever they have to to get that promotion, to get credit for good work and to make sure that the bad work falls and is seen somewhere else. We're always having to deal with people who have, in many cases, bad motives and often unconscious motives.

[5:27] There's many of us, one of the things that happens as you grow older, if God is kind to you and you have some growth, is you realize maybe how there's things, maybe from your past, how you're raised as a child or something that happened in the early days of your marriage that affect all of your motives and everything that you do and you've been blind and unconscious to it.

[5:48] So does the Bible have anything to say about this? Does the Bible have anything to say that's helpful and insightful about the role of motives in our lives?

[6:00] Well, we're going to look at a passage in the Bible that actually has an awful lot to say about motives. In fact, very, very important and wise things. So it would be a great help to me if you would turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 1.

[6:13] 2 Corinthians chapter 1. And I know it sounded, when Amanda was reading the text, you were probably thinking, good grief, you know, he went there, didn't go here. What does this have to do with my life?

[6:24] But, you know, it's like a lot of things in the Bible that maybe at first glance it doesn't jump out at us, but as you look at it more closely, you'll see that, in fact, the Bible has very profound and powerful things to say about motives.

[6:37] What motives should be and how they should be grounded. What are the right type of motives that we should have? So we're going to look at that. We're going to begin three verses before where Amanda read. We're going to begin at 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 12.

[6:51] And, you know, one of the things to remember when you're looking at this, you know, the text, is that it's a letter. Paul began at verse 1. He ended at whatever the last verse is in chapter 13. And when scholars study this, they say that verse 12, in particular, is sort of a bit of an introduction to what he's going to be talking about right through till the end of chapter 7.

[7:14] Sort of gives you a bit of a big picture overview of some of the themes that he's going to be talking about. And so listen to verse 12. For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity.

[7:32] And some of your versions of the Bible have a different word there. We'll talk about that in a moment. I'll say it again. For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom or fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God and supremely so toward you.

[7:55] Very short, powerful, packed verse. And Paul is going to be unfolding this, especially in the next few verses that come after. Some of that part that Amanda read that we found confusing.

[8:06] But in fact, all the way through, it's going to be a continuing theme that he's going to keep trying to explain and unpack. And so obviously, I can only give you a bit of an introduction. But the first thing is, if you could put up the first point, that would be great.

[8:20] In Jesus, God's grace will lead me towards good, honest, humble, simple, transparent motives for each thing that I do.

[8:31] That's the thing that Paul is trying to communicate here, that the Bible, the Word of God is trying to communicate. That in fact, we don't have to listen to the Dalai Lama to learn about how good motives, although maybe we can learn from him.

[8:44] We don't have to listen to Jacques Derrida. We don't have to listen to Rousseau. We don't have to listen to the columnist and the citizen. That in fact, the Bible itself has profound teaching about what it means to become more like Jesus.

[8:58] Like what it is that God's plan and intention is for your life and mine. And so what the Bible is saying, I'll just read, I'll look at, I'll say the point again out loud, but I'll just read the text again.

[9:08] For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity. And that can also mean like a type of a singular, pure motive.

[9:21] In other words, that what he's saying is he doesn't have 53 motives, 18 of which he's unconscious of. and 15 that he wants to hide and the rest he's sort of willing to make public.

[9:36] That he's not having a whole pile of motives. That there's a type of purity and singularity and simplicity to his motives. A type of coherence to them.

[9:47] In other words, motives that fit. Like one of the things that's going to be developed here that to bring glory to God and to do good for people, in fact, at a deepest level, never contradict each other.

[10:01] Like to bring glory to God and to do good for people don't contradict. It can sound for us as human beings as if it's two motives but properly understood they're, in a sense, it's a type of singularity.

[10:13] It's a motive, it's a group of motives that they fit together. They're not rubbing each other the wrong way. You know, it's not like when, you know, maybe, you know, somebody comes, you know, I don't know, you know, you come home late, your teenager comes home late and like way, way late and they have several motives when they talk to you.

[10:37] Their fundamental motive is they want you to go away. They want to try to make you quiet before you dig too deeply into what exactly went on and why you're so late and they want to make themselves look good and they want to make you look bad and there's a whole pile of different motives that are going on there and they don't want to tell the truth.

[10:54] Get the picture, okay? That's not what this is talking about. So, for our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, we behaved in the world with simplicity and it has this cluster of ideas of purity, of coherence, consistency and godly sincerity, a sincerity that comes from God.

[11:15] Not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God and supremely so towards you. So, you see this? It's what the text is saying is that as God's grace has a deeper and deeper role and hold in our lives, as God's grace forms my mind and forms my heart and forms my will and forms how I see the world and how I hear the world and how I understand the world as God's grace, which only, of course, means that you're getting closer to Jesus and thinking about what he did for us on the cross and who he is and his love for us, is that as Jesus comes closer to us and we get closer to Jesus, one of the byproducts of that will be that our motives become good motives, that they're honest, that there's a humility to our motives because there should be a greater concern for the other and a greater concern for God and that they're simple, you know, more like a dog's motives, you know, dogs just want to be fed, padded, you know, they're not like cats trying to plot how to take over your home and the rest of the universe.

[12:27] Like, you know, did I just say that? Yeah, become more like a dog, less like a cat. Sorry, there's no comment here about you cat lovers. You have your own reasons to love cats. Anyway, simple, transparent motives for each thing that I do.

[12:38] That's what the Bible is saying here. It's a very, very simple thing, a very, very powerful thing. And it helps to explain, once you understand this as a bit of a key, it helps you to understand some of the confusing things that are going on in the letter, right from the beginning of the letter and on and on and on, is that Paul is trying to demonstrate to his hearers what his motives actually are.

[13:08] He's saying, one moment, you've misunderstood me. I'm acting in a way which is for your good. I'm acting in a way which brings glory to God. I'm acting in a very consistent way and I'm keeping my word. If you understand it, like I'm letting you know what I'm doing, I'm only doing things to love you and I'm only doing things that magnify the grace of God and try to make the grace of God more operative amongst you.

[13:28] So, like jump ahead to chapter 2, verses 1 to 11. And if you sort of understand verse 12, you can start to tease out a little bit about what's going on in some of these confusing texts in the Bible.

[13:39] See, that's the thing about the Bible. There's often, you don't have to sort of think, oh, I need to read this quote from somebody else to try to understand the Bible. God himself usually provides the way to understand it within the text itself.

[13:52] But look at verses 1 to 11. For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. Because he'd had a previous visit that had been very painful. It had been painful because he loved them.

[14:06] He had to confront them. He'd had to confront them about some things that they were doing that were just deeply wrong. Like, a man was sleeping with his mother and he had to confront them about that.

[14:24] People were using the law courts to rip each other off and he had to confront them about that. Not because he wasn't honest, not because he wasn't humble, not because he wasn't good or loved them, but because those things are just wrong.

[14:43] Okay? I'll go back. For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained? In other words, he wants to be with them.

[14:56] And I wrote, as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice. For I felt sure of all of you that my joy would be the joy of you all. For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

[15:14] And then he goes on to another issue like that some of the people that he had to deal with there had in fact been repentance and amendment of life. And he's revealing here that his goal had always been restoration of relationships.

[15:27] His goal had always been that grace is extended. Not judge, not that, you know, you messed up once and it's one strike and you're out of my life for the rest of your life.

[15:39] That that's not the way, no, no, there's going to be grace. There's got to be grace. The goal with grace is to restore relationships, to restore people, to get people back on the right path, to build relationships.

[15:51] So in verse 5, now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me but in some measure, not to put it too severely, but to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough.

[16:04] So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.

[16:15] For this is why I wrote, that I might test you, not in terms of like test, like a laboratory. It's testing, it's as if you're trying to walk across a pot, you know, some water that's frozen, you're testing the ice.

[16:31] So it's not like a malicious superior type of testing. It's just making sure that it's nice and solid. You're going to go across it first so that the people behind you can go across it and they won't get their feet wet.

[16:43] So that's the type of testing that's meant. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ so that we would not be outwitted by Satan for we are not ignorant of his designs.

[17:05] Why? Because the devil, he's the accuser, he's the slanderer, he's the destroyer, he's the ruiner of relationships and that's what he does.

[17:22] He blasphemes. He makes us doubt God. He blasphemes and makes us want to take the place of God. And Paul is saying, I understand that the devil never misses church and never misses a time you get together for your Bible study or your prayer meetings.

[17:39] I'm aware of that. And that's why we need to be rooted here in grace and in the gospel. That's what's going on. And so we see it's a deep teaching in the Bible.

[17:51] It's a very, very important teaching in the Bible. Now, actually, it's not just that Christians, of course, have problems with mixed motives.

[18:03] and one of the things is that the text is going to, as we go on in weeks and weeks, is going to try to confront us of motives that we didn't realize that we have. But the text has also hinted at something that touches on a great Canadian fear.

[18:18] It's a great Canadian and American fear that affects Christians. You know, a few years ago, the Da Vinci Code was really popular and it's like 30 million books or something like that. I read the book after it sold 20 million copies.

[18:32] I took it out of the library. It was really a poorly written book. I'm not just saying that to diss it, but it wasn't really a very well-written book, but it sold so many copies. And part of the reason I think it sold so many copies is it touched on a deep fear that people have about the Christian faith, that the Christian faith is based on lies and a desire for power, that it's not honest, that it's inauthentic, and they've hurt people and the Christian faith, I mean, there are all those priests and the pedophiles and it's all those guys, you know, who head up, you know, they're all against gays while they're having sex with male bodybuilders and, you know, like that.

[19:15] I'm not making stories up. Those are things that have happened over the last few years, right? Ted Haggard. And so many people in our culture, they have this sense that you can't trust the Bible, you can't trust the Christian faith, that there's been lying that's going on, there's been hiding that's going on and you can't trust it and I think people like the Da Vinci Code partially because it expressed a lot of that and so here there's a bit of a full disclosure.

[19:42] What we call 2 Corinthians could really be called 4 Corinthians because Paul wrote at least four letters to the church to the church in Corinth and only two of them are in the Bible.

[19:59] So is this evidence of something really bad? Well first let me just show it to you. If you turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9 1 Corinthians 5 verse 9 it says this I wrote to you in my letter whoa I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people and we won't go on about what it is I just want to bring that out to you.

[20:28] So in 1 Corinthians he mentions that he wrote an earlier letter and if you just now turn back to the text that we're looking at 2 Corinthians chapter 2 I sort of combined several letters in my explanation of the text but if you look again at verses 1 to 3 chapter 2 verses 1 to 3 for I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you for if I cause you pain who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained and I wrote as I did so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice.

[21:05] Now here's the point you know all that stuff which is a bit confusing I went to Troas I went to Macedonia like really careful Bible scholars when they look at all of that stuff they can piece together things and the letter here you just have to trust me on this one that the letter here that it's referring to can't just be 1 Corinthians so in a sense you could say there's Corinthians A then 1 Corinthians Corinthians A that's Canadian eh?

[21:31] I'm sorry Corinthians A 1 Corinthians Corinthians B and then 2 Corinthians so what's going on here? Are Christians like what's the Christian claim here?

[21:46] Should we be worried? When I was preaching a class teaching a class on Monday I began one of the things I began with was this if they found one of those other letters should it be in the Bible? For instance well here's the thing if you could put that up on the screen it would be very helpful Paul's writings are not in the Bible because they are Paul's you just have to understand what Christians are claiming it's a very transparent honest simple understanding okay but sometimes people don't understand what Christians claim Christians aren't claiming that there's something inherently special about Paul we aren't claiming that Christians aren't claiming that like our poets our philosophers our mystics our hymn writers our philosophers they're better than Muslim and Buddhist ones you know because we have ones who are more inspired and are being able to think about God better and are able to reach higher into God and to understand

[22:57] God better than all those that is not a Christian claim no well instructed Christian who's read the Bible who's listened to Jesus should ever believe that Christians don't believe that somehow our poets and our philosophers and theologians are somehow better at reaching up to God no we believe that we cannot possibly know anything true about the infinite God and unless the infinite God speaks to us we could not know anything true about him so what Christians claim is that at the end of the day when you read the New Testament what you're really listening to is the teaching of Jesus because you're listening to Jesus who spent many many years three years and then some other time after the resurrection three years teaching the apostles and then the New Testament basically goes back to the apostolic witness the test that it ultimately comes from Jesus but it's making a deeper type of claim with this because it's claiming that Jesus just isn't the best of the prophets the best of the mystics the best of the philosophers the best of the theologians the best at trying to figure things out

[24:15] Christians believe that Jesus himself came from heaven outside of earth and time and space and the entire created order and that God does a miracle in the womb of Mary and by an act of creation God the son of God the second person of the Trinity one of the that God who's responsible for creating and sustaining the entire universe that God the son of God in the form of that a fertilized egg created in the womb of Mary that God enters his creation he comes from outside into this created order so Paul's writings are not in the Bible because they are Paul's some of Paul's writings are in the Bible only because they are some of the words that God wanted in his word written see at the end of the day

[25:18] Christians believe that God used all sorts of different human means in the sense there's always a dual authorship of the Bible and that God used human means but at the end of the day Paul who who knows maybe Paul wrote a hundred letters maybe he wrote three hundred letters maybe he wrote four hundred letters if Paul was somehow the greatest philosopher and poet and theologian and we were making a claim that he's better at reaching God than somebody else then every one of his writings should be in the Bible but we're not making that claim we're making a claim that in a sense Paul is no different than Balaam's ass who braid and braid and braid but God was able to make that ass speak and that out of all of the writings of Paul some of them are the actual writings that God wanted to have in this book which is how he speaks to us as human beings so there's nothing evil or anything going on there that it was just all part of God's providence of working through the church and working through early Christians to make sure that the words that he wanted spoken and recorded for our good would be there so 2 Corinthians is in the Bible not because Paul wrote it at the most fundamental level but because we believe that it was the words that God himself wanted to speak to us now some of you might say well George that's sort of you know that is a little bit interesting but so here's the thing you're making this claim

[27:01] George that if you get closer to Jesus you're going to end up having pure motives George how pure are your motives like George just be honest with us for a second when you get up front and preach like do you want people to like you do you preach George so maybe in the hope that there'd be a bigger congregation like do you want a bigger congregation because it helps your ego George when you preach do you want to make it look like you're smart George when you preach do you want to make it look like you're nice George when you preach and lead the service are you actually doing it for our good and for God's glory or some of these other things working how's it going with you George in other words George are you just trying to pull a religious fast one on us without people noticing because George

[28:11] I'm going to really be honest with you yeah you know I know I need to have better motives and yeah you know I know that people with bad motives have messed my life up and I know that I've actually maybe messed some other people up because I've had mixed motives George but you know what if you're just giving me a whole pile of religious advice and that's all it is and I don't know George you know my profs give me advice my mom gives me advice my friends give me advice I'm getting beaten up with advice George I don't need to leave here with more advice I mean George if you have to have all these pure motives and all that to get close to Jesus then I don't understand how anybody could ever become a Christian I don't even know why you'd want to become a Christian I mean trying to articulate things like that are not bad things but good things and it really gets at something which is really really can be easily missed you know because the fact of the matter is

[29:17] I didn't have pure motives when I called out to Jesus to be my savior and my lord and if you're here thinking that you have to have pure motives before you can call out to Jesus to be your savior and lord I'm going to tell you right now stop waiting for pure motives because actually that's just the devil trying to confuse you and twist you you see what the text is talking about is something that comes after grace that constantly needs grace but is still dependent upon grace that the text is all talking about grace not more rules and not more advice that in fact all of this advice and everything is all trying to help us to understand something that God does for us not something that we need to do for God look at the text again go back to 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 15 because I was sure of this

[30:19] I wanted to come to you first so that you might have a second experience of grace it's a funny expression I'm not going to talk about it it's caused lots of mischief in the church throughout the years but it's sort of neat verse 16 I wanted to visit you on your way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea I know that's all this back and forward stuff here's the thing was I vacillating when I wanted to do this do I make my plans according to the flesh ready to say yes yes and no no you know at the same time in other words is he actually you know is he a guy that's yeah yeah I want to do this but really I'm trying to do this I'm trying to do that actually before I read these next three verses could you put them up on the screen please could you all say this with me because this is the heart of the passage this is the heart of the passage these are good verses to memorize and we're going to say them out loud several times together

[31:38] I was going to try to give you points but I have no points better than this why can I how can I adorn God's word better than God's own word has to be read slowly to try to get it in the different steps but this is an explanation of God's grace and who you are and how you become a Christian and how you grow as a Christian that's dynamite you should memorize this and I've only changed two words in it in the original language it keeps saying him and you can lose who the him have taken out and it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who has also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee it's a very very powerful text so what's the text saying remember I was saying at the beginning that as you get closer to

[32:47] Jesus there's going to be simple transparent what Paul is saying is that God is simple and transparent in fact the problem for human beings is that God is too simple for us to understand we are we are my mind is not just a singular mind my mind is 15 hummingbirds all overdosing on Red Bull and if my mind is 15 hummingbirds overdosing on Red Bull how can I understand the simplicity and faithfulness and consistency of God and the whole point about the Christian revelation is that it's a public open revelation God doesn't call the illuminati the special anointed ones who know the decoder key to interpret the Bible God's word is open it's transparent it's public it's a public revelation anyone who has ears to hear anyone who has eyes to read can hear and understand it's to be read and proclaimed openly in the church it's to be studied from cover to cover in our

[34:00] Bible studies and so what the Bible here is telling us is that God has made promises notice this is how Christianity is so different than Buddhism Buddhism is very popular on university campuses and in secular culture and part of it is because of our profound cultural despair and cynicism that anybody will ever keep their promise nobody believes their employers will keep their promises so many of us are either have had divorces and products of divorces and breakups and separations from family members and we don't think things hold together we don't think people keep their promises and there's a profound cynicism and so this message that Buddhism that what we have to do is to kill all desire is very powerful and speaks very differently but you know underneath this fear that no one keeps their promises is a desire that people will keep their promises there's a sense when you go out on a really really really beautiful day some of the beautiful days we've had this last few days

[35:02] I've kept going out outside and thinking gosh God you are so good this is such a beautiful day you are so kind to us and somewhere in all of our souls there is a sense or longing no matter if we're an atheist or an agnostic or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Muslim some sense that such a beautiful day such a glorious day a day when maybe our bodies are feeling really good and we've been properly caffeinated and properly fed and there's some sense that the world is a world of promise that promises are real that they're not just us projecting them on the created order but it's some hint that we are getting in our minds and our hearts and our souls that there is a creator there is one we can know that there is some type of promise of even greater and even more there are some hints in our longings and yearnings that there is something greater that our longings and yearnings fit with and the

[36:08] Bible is saying that whatever promises that we have this sense it's saying the Bible is not saying kill all desires for promises it's saying follow this desire for promises one of the things that can help you in evangelism and one of the things that's so scary about evangelism is the word evangelism get rid of the word evangelism just think bearing witness to Jesus and one of the things which is very interesting is every person has some sense that there's some promises some great hope some great longing and they might not be able to articulate it and they won't put it in Christian terms but at the end of the day all longings all yearnings are connected all true longings and yearnings all true hopes all true hopes find their yes in Jesus everyone say this with me again for all the promises of God find their yes in Jesus that is why it is through Jesus that we utter our amen to

[37:09] God for his glory and it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who has also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee so the Bible is saying that God he's transparent about what he's promising read Isaiah 52 and 53 you know he was bruised for our iniquities he was crushed for us the punishment that brought us peace was laid on him that's he kept his word and Jesus died upon the cross it's open and the promises that are that God makes they're they're open and he fulfills every single one of them to Jesus and what is the gospel the gospel is the promise that that you know the gospel is that God has made this promise he said the promise is I know that you cannot save yourself I know that you want to hide from me I know that your motives are impure I know that your motives are chaotic

[38:10] I know that your mind is really not a singular mind but 15 hummingbirds on Red Bull I know exactly who you are I know the dreams you have at night that when you wake up you don't remember them I know all of the different masks you have I know how you go from one mask to another I know how you keep people distant I know about those things in your past that you're deeply ashamed of I know those longings and yearnings you have that sometimes so overwhelm you that you don't even want to share them because you're going to burst I know how sometimes when you listen to a piece of music or see something in nature or see something really beautiful in human love that your heart feels like it wants to explode I know every single thing there is to know about you and I know that you cannot make yourself right with me and so I will cross that infinite distance to make you right with myself I will send a savior who will save I will be the one who gives you the Holy

[39:10] Spirit I will be the one who will establish you I will do everything that it takes I am not waiting for your hands to be so strong and so pure that they can hold on to me I know your hands are weak and I know that you don't want to give them to me and I know and I am completely and utterly shameless because I am completely and utterly committed to loving you that if you even with mixed motives put your hands up and say Jesus be my savior and maybe you're saying Jesus be my savior as a way to diss your parents maybe you're saying Jesus be my savior partially so you can be accepted by other people maybe you're saying Jesus be my savior so you can have some type of particular emotional experience maybe you're saying Jesus be my savior because you have this sense that God really exists and you need him to save you and I know that your motives are mixed and I'm not waiting for your motives to be pure your motives will never be pure but I can tell you that when you put your hands up I will be faithful to my promises and all of my promises find their yes in

[40:15] Jesus and Jesus will take your hand and his purity will become yours and your impurity has fallen on him and already been dealt with on the cross and your hand cannot establish a relationship with me but I can establish a relationship with you and I will never let go of your hand and you ask for small partial things not knowing all of the promises that I have made for you but I have promised in my word that there will be a time when the Holy Spirit will come and live within you I have promised that the Holy Spirit will come and Lord but I will tell you that when you reach that hand out with mixed motives I take that hand in yours not only are you made right with me not only are you established for all eternity and I will never let you go but

[41:15] I will put my Holy Spirit upon you I will put my Holy Spirit within you and that coming of the Holy Spirit within you is the first what you will have forever and that Holy Spirit will seal you will mark me you that you are mine forever no matter what you do in the future you are mine forever and the Holy Spirit will start to push you and nudge you to Jesus and all that other stuff the purity of motives as we're gripped by the gospel as we're gripped by the gospel as we're grounded in the gospel as we're shaped by the gospel well then it starts to become more sensitive motives should be good and honest and pure that Holy Spirit that the Lord has given us starts to not just convict us that you know what

[42:15] I shouldn't be treating that person with these mixed motives that's wrong it flows from grace it flows from being gripped by the gospel I'd like to put up the first of my final three points actually sorry before we do that let's read this text again sorry testing how fast you can move let's all say this again for all the promises of God find their yes in Jesus that is why through Jesus we utter our amen to God for his glory and it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee put up the final this is a conversion prayer if you don't know if you know it's not only a conversion prayer but it's a daily walk prayer it's how you enter the Christian faith it's how you live the Christian faith and

[43:16] I just encourage you to these will be online if you want to you God says in his word he hears it he'll make you Jesus and what better thing than we do every day is to ask the Lord to grip us by the gospel so it will change us and shape us and push us and pull us and draw us and you know when you have this security to know that it's God who establishes me it's not me who establishes myself with God as the gospel grips us we begin to have the ability to look into ourselves and face really uncomfortable truths about ourselves next prayer please actually why don't you read this out loud with me father in heaven please pour out your Holy spirit upon the gospel of self deception and grow in humble penitent self knowledge of my motives you see as we're gripped by the gospel you see when we think that we have to establish a relationship with

[44:37] God it is terrible to maybe confess you know why I sing so loud and so well in church I'm singing so loud and well in church to impress the people around me or I'm singing you know or I'm singing really loud because you know I sing loud for the praise choruses but I don't sing the hymns because I don't like hymns or I sing loud for the hymns I don't sing loud for the praise choruses because I hate praise choruses you know when we're trying to establish ourselves with God it's really hard to acknowledge those things about ourselves but when realize how many ways we deceive ourselves and we have to die to it we have to die to it and then grow in this other thing the humble penitent self knowledge of my motives the final prayer I'm going to ask you all to stand

[45:39] I mean the last prayer was that negative work in a sense it's the prayer for no right father I don't want to have mixed motives I don't want to have bad motives I don't want to have unconscious motives that drive me I don't want to have self deceptive motives I want to say no to all of those things right there's a sense that there's a good way to say no and there's a way to say yes I don't want to look to self deception and I can humbly look at them and I can be willing to repent of the motives I see in my life as bad but I don't want to say no to bad things I want to have good motives I want to put the brakes to those things in my life that are self deceiving and I want to step on the gas pedal to go for those things that will make my motives honest and simple and transparent and good for people and good for

[46:40] God's glory and so you see how this fundamental prayer being gripped by the gospel it's to be the wellspring the motive by which we live our lives I invite you to pray this prayer with me Father in heaven please pour out your Holy Spirit upon me and make me a disciple of Jesus gripped by the gospel and as I am gripped by the gospel please shape my motives and actions as I live for your glory Father pour out your Holy Spirit upon us make us disciples of Jesus gripped by the gospel who are living for your glory Father we ask that you would do this wonderful work in our lives as we're gripped by who Jesus is what he did for us on the cross and how you establish us and seal us when we put our hands in him Father thank you that you do not wait until we're perfect you do not weigh our merits but you give us Jesus all this we ask in Jesus name Amen