WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.320 Okay, so for this morning we're going to continue looking at the theme of ordinary Christians. 00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:13.519 We started last week and we're going to do it for the four Sundays in August, just a 00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:17.480 kind of mini series looking at this theme. 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:20.480 Last week we just looked at my life being ordinary. 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:22.719 This week my life is unfulfilled. 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:26.640 Then we're going to look at, I have no gifts and I'm a spiritual disappointment. 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:30.440 My life's a spiritual disappointment. 00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:34.399 Quite a number of people have said, you must have a really rotten holiday, Derek. 00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:37.320 Coming back with this depressing theme. 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:38.320 That's not really the case. 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:44.040 I hope it's not, although there have been many times in my life where I can resonate 00:00:44.040 --> 00:00:47.480 with these particular statements. 00:00:47.480 --> 00:00:51.840 But it is something that I am aware of both in my own heart and life and also in the lives 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:58.720 of many of the Christians that I will pastor or speak to and or hear from. 00:00:58.720 --> 00:01:03.640 It's the testimony of many of us. 00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:08.320 Maybe the complaints, shall we say, of us as ordinary Christians. 00:01:08.320 --> 00:01:12.920 And today we're going to look at this theme, my life is unfulfilled as a Christian. 00:01:12.920 --> 00:01:15.640 It's disappointing. 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:20.520 It may be that I sense a bitterness against God because of that. 00:01:20.519 --> 00:01:31.319 I don't know answered prayers, lots of unanswered personal prayers that we suspect in our lives. 00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:39.120 Maybe the rottenness of our job, our intimate relationships are poor. 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:40.120 We have broken dreams. 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:44.120 We've had lots of dreams as we were younger and they seem to have been broken either our 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:50.920 health or our children or our family life or our lack of family life, our singleness or 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:53.840 a marriage or a failed marriage. 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:59.680 It may be lots of different things that make us feel this great sense of unfulfilled, lack 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:04.439 of fulfillment spiritually in our lives. 00:02:04.439 --> 00:02:09.960 Maybe not a typical theme for a congregation whose average age is much younger than mine. 00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:15.280 It may be that already in your lives as young people and maybe some of us as older people 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:21.480 sense that lack of fulfillment and that might come out in your Christian life itself. 00:02:21.480 --> 00:02:28.400 As you've come to God with lots of hopes and with lots of desires for fulfillment and with 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:33.520 the promises of His Word and you feel far from God in your life. 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:37.360 You don't sense His presence in your day to day living. 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:42.600 He glimpses of it now and then but you don't really, you're cynical about the spiritual 00:02:42.600 --> 00:02:50.000 claims of spiritual giants in your eyes or people that are professionals or preach. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:54.080 You come to church and you hear preachers speaking about fulfillment and love and grace 00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:58.360 and joy and hope in the Spirit and you say, what do they know? 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:00.120 What do they know about real life? 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:02.520 What do they know about my life? 00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:09.719 You go from God's house drained and emptied because you don't really believe in your heart 00:03:09.719 --> 00:03:11.439 that God loves you. 00:03:11.439 --> 00:03:19.080 How could your life, how can my life possibly be so full of sadness and a lack of fulfillment 00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:20.640 if He loves me? 00:03:20.640 --> 00:03:27.640 His claims to love me are and redeem me are hollow and I sense an emptiness there and 00:03:27.640 --> 00:03:32.240 at best as a Christian I'm going through the motions for the sake of others or even for 00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:41.400 my own sake until maybe sometime in the future things will change. 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:48.520 Are these trivial considerations you have in your life or that I might have in my life? 00:03:48.520 --> 00:03:49.520 No, absolutely not. 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:55.480 They are very real for us and in preaching this sermon and in preaching this theme I'm 00:03:55.479 --> 00:04:04.120 making no judgments on what you are experiencing or in any way belittling them and all of us 00:04:04.120 --> 00:04:11.079 as Christians when we come across others who complain bitterly in this way, our response 00:04:11.079 --> 00:04:18.839 should always be one of love and empathy and care and prayer rather than judgment and dismissal 00:04:18.839 --> 00:04:21.279 and disinterest in them. 00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:22.279 Is it trivial? 00:04:22.279 --> 00:04:23.279 No, absolutely not. 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:25.919 Is it hopeless? 00:04:25.919 --> 00:04:27.799 Your bitterness and disappointment? 00:04:27.799 --> 00:04:31.799 Is it so deep that there is no way back for you? 00:04:31.799 --> 00:04:33.119 Absolutely not. 00:04:33.119 --> 00:04:42.119 Absolutely not as we look at our own experiences and God's word this morning. 00:04:42.119 --> 00:04:43.679 So this is a theme, okay? 00:04:43.679 --> 00:04:45.519 We're not going through a book. 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:51.519 We're not taking a deep look at one small section of Scripture, one verse. 00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:56.240 It's a theme and I think it's important for us sometimes to look at themes because themes 00:04:56.240 --> 00:04:58.759 in the Bible are not restricted to one verse. 00:04:58.759 --> 00:05:06.839 You'll not find all there is about disappointment in one verse in the Bible and yet the reality 00:05:06.839 --> 00:05:10.680 of that comes through so many different passages of Scripture. 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:15.839 But I am going to focus primarily on the chapter we read about Naomi. 00:05:15.839 --> 00:05:19.919 Now it was not that long since we studied and went through the book of Ruth in that 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:24.800 remarkable story of redemption and personal relationship with God. 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:32.200 I just want to look briefly to kind of set the scene in the life of a believer in the 00:05:32.200 --> 00:05:37.480 life of Naomi because Naomi is recorded in Scripture. 00:05:37.480 --> 00:05:42.400 I do think sometimes this book should have been called Naomi, not Ruth, because Naomi 00:05:42.400 --> 00:05:44.319 is the theme of the book from beginning to end. 00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:46.319 It ends with Naomi and it starts with Naomi. 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:50.599 Or of course it could have been called God, but then all the books would have been God 00:05:50.599 --> 00:05:52.959 and you wouldn't be able to choose which one to go to. 00:05:52.959 --> 00:05:57.959 So they're differentiated and this one's called Ruth and we know the story many of us have 00:05:57.959 --> 00:05:58.959 Ruth. 00:05:58.959 --> 00:06:04.800 But Naomi in this chapter where we come to in this chapter knows deep and dreadful sadness 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:10.839 and disappointment in her life and in her faith. 00:06:10.839 --> 00:06:15.319 For her it was worse than her dreams not being fulfilled. 00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:20.599 It was her dreams were fulfilled and then taken from her. 00:06:20.599 --> 00:06:25.599 So it was that she had what she was looking for in her life and it was taken from her. 00:06:25.599 --> 00:06:26.959 She was in love. 00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:28.199 She was married. 00:06:28.199 --> 00:06:30.040 She had two beautiful sons. 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:32.759 She was living in her home country. 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:37.959 All that someone in that day and generation as a believer under God as part of God's covenant 00:06:37.959 --> 00:06:41.800 people could have wanted and would have wanted in her life. 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:47.680 And then the country to which she belonged was struck with famine. 00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:53.920 Now we're not told anything about this famine, but often biblically for the people of God 00:06:53.920 --> 00:07:00.360 a famine was related to God's intervention and judgment for them because he had taken 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:04.480 them into a land flowing with milk and honey, a great place of provision. 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:08.439 And he said as they followed him they would know blessing and as they turned from him 00:07:08.439 --> 00:07:15.879 they would know discipline and judgment and famine often at least pointed to their lives 00:07:15.879 --> 00:07:20.319 spiritually as to what they should do. 00:07:20.319 --> 00:07:25.959 She was her and her family with poverty and with famine and this desperate decision to 00:07:25.959 --> 00:07:31.920 leave the promised land. 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:33.879 Was that done prayerfully and spiritually? 00:07:33.879 --> 00:07:38.639 We're not told, but it doesn't seem so. 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:44.560 She went into a foreign country and there she knew a period of joy and happiness. 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:53.959 Her sons got married and a new celebration and blessing as her family was broadened, 00:07:53.959 --> 00:07:57.759 but then her sons died. 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:00.159 Worse than disappointing, isn't it? 00:08:00.159 --> 00:08:02.800 Her sons died. 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:05.840 She's let her husband die. 00:08:05.840 --> 00:08:13.240 She's left alone with her two daughters in law in a country that she can't call home. 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:22.280 Now we might sometimes say, it's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved 00:08:22.280 --> 00:08:24.280 at all. 00:08:24.280 --> 00:08:27.040 But it didn't seem so for her, did it? 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:28.439 Did it seem so? 00:08:28.439 --> 00:08:32.080 That it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:36.600 Sure, but it certainly seemed bleak for her. 00:08:36.600 --> 00:08:42.240 But what is the turning point in the whole of the story of Ruth is that she heard that 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:47.560 the Lord had been gracious to her people and that the famine had ended and she decided 00:08:47.560 --> 00:08:51.240 to return to the Lord. 00:08:51.240 --> 00:08:56.840 She saw that and recognized that. 00:08:56.840 --> 00:09:02.200 She says, I will go back to the land that the Lord has given me. 00:09:02.200 --> 00:09:10.040 She recognized and saw that and she returned home. 00:09:10.040 --> 00:09:16.440 But she returned home a very different believer, a very different person, and her life at this 00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:19.840 point is bereft. 00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:22.840 That's all we can say. 00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:28.240 She is shattered in her life and she is alone except for her daughter-in-law Ruth who is 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:29.240 with her. 00:09:29.240 --> 00:09:30.480 Her dreams have been destroyed. 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:31.480 She's empty. 00:09:31.480 --> 00:09:33.240 She is hugely unfulfilled. 00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:37.680 She says, don't call me Naomi, call me Mara. 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:40.840 Call me, just means bitter. 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:42.160 Call me bitter. 00:09:42.160 --> 00:09:44.040 I went away full. 00:09:44.040 --> 00:09:47.840 The Lord has brought me back empty. 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:50.400 Why call me Naomi when the Lord is testifying against me? 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:53.079 Almighty has brought this calamity upon me. 00:09:53.079 --> 00:09:58.959 She had known physical famine as she left the land and she returns knowing a spiritual 00:09:58.959 --> 00:10:03.840 famine in her life, a lack of fulfillment and a distance from God. 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:06.959 She can't feel that God is close to her. 00:10:06.959 --> 00:10:12.639 Now, I'm not sure, very poetically and powerfully phrased, I'm not sure if you would phrase your 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:17.639 own experiences and this lack of fulfillment similarly if that is the case. 00:10:17.639 --> 00:10:21.120 And I sincerely hope that's not the case. 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:25.879 But many people will say, if God loves me, why is my life the way it is? 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:28.879 Why do I sense such letdown and disappointment? 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:32.240 It isn't what it says on the tin. 00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:34.399 It's different. 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:36.319 What can we, how can we respond to that? 00:10:36.319 --> 00:10:45.039 How does God and His Word speak into a lack of fulfillment and a lack of a sense of God's 00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:46.399 love and grace in our lives? 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:52.360 Now, speaking primarily here to you, if you're a Christian and to myself as a Christian, if 00:10:52.360 --> 00:10:57.639 you're not a Christian this morning, if you're not someone who would acknowledge Jesus Christ 00:10:57.639 --> 00:11:07.439 as your Savior and Lord, there is a more fundamental and a deeper reason that may be behind your 00:11:07.439 --> 00:11:09.159 lack of fulfillment. 00:11:09.159 --> 00:11:13.679 And even if you don't sense that, there is a real separation from God and from hope and 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:25.039 forgiveness and from grace that is crucial to consider in your life as a person made 00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:34.079 by God and made in His image, that I hope you would do even as you listen onwards in 00:11:34.079 --> 00:11:39.240 this sermon and do take time if that's how you feel to speak to me or someone else before 00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:43.399 you leave the building this morning and the claims of Jesus. 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:46.120 How does God and His Word speak into such an unfulfilled life? 00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:47.120 Unfulfilled life. 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:48.959 Well, God doesn't trivialize it. 00:11:48.959 --> 00:11:59.840 We recognize that God doesn't treat us as weaker or hopeless or rubbish Christians if 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:03.519 these are the experiences and the testimony we have. 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:08.919 There's huge sections of Scripture devoted to these issues and we mustn't forget that. 00:12:08.919 --> 00:12:10.720 There are huge sections of Scripture. 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:15.560 There's a whole book devoted to it, the book of Job, one of the greatest books of the Bible 00:12:15.560 --> 00:12:19.279 that we took time to look at ourselves not that long ago. 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:23.399 It's the theme of many of the Psalms, one of which we sung today. 00:12:23.399 --> 00:12:27.399 It's the recorded experience of so many believers. 00:12:27.399 --> 00:12:35.519 We don't have in Scripture the testimony of lots of supersonic Christians, supersonic 00:12:35.519 --> 00:12:42.879 believers who know no lack of fulfillment and who only know blessing and success and 00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:47.120 glorious living in their lives. 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:48.840 It's the theme of so much of the Bible. 00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:52.480 God doesn't trivialize it, nor should we. 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:57.960 Remember if you remember anything about the book of Job, remember the way God spoke to 00:12:57.960 --> 00:13:03.199 the Job's comforters, the people that were supposed to be channeling Him back towards 00:13:03.199 --> 00:13:04.199 God. 00:13:04.200 --> 00:13:06.120 He thrashed them. 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:12.040 He thrashed them for their lack of compassion and their lack of grace and their lack of understanding. 00:13:12.040 --> 00:13:18.320 He reminded them that Job was innocent and he said, he placed God as the one who would 00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:20.520 intercede on their behalf. 00:13:20.520 --> 00:13:27.000 And there's just a stinging rebuke for the kind of casual, careless, shrugging off of 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:29.480 Job's complaints by his comforters. 00:13:29.480 --> 00:13:36.480 Oh, you just lack faith, you don't understand, and throwing kind of Bible truisms at him 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:37.480 thoughtlessly. 00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:42.960 And you know for you and for I, if that's what we're going to do, God will thrash us 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:47.840 in the sense that he'll not really use us in comforting or counseling or helping others 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:49.360 who are struggling. 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:57.039 Throwing aimless Bible verses at people will not really be the answer and shrugging off 00:13:57.039 --> 00:14:04.799 their complaints, exposing their weakness and priding ourselves in our faith and strength 00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:10.399 is not really how God deals with it. 00:14:10.399 --> 00:14:17.599 How do we deal with this lack of, the struggle that maybe you're having, I am having, we 00:14:17.599 --> 00:14:22.719 have, have had, will have in the future at some point in this Christian life which is 00:14:22.719 --> 00:14:25.039 a battle for us. 00:14:25.039 --> 00:14:33.439 Well, the key I believe from God's word for us is to face home. 00:14:33.439 --> 00:14:35.159 That's what we need to do. 00:14:35.159 --> 00:14:39.559 That's the mentality, that's the attitude we always have to have. 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:41.159 We need to face home. 00:14:41.159 --> 00:14:48.039 We need to face back towards our spiritual home and our relationship with the living 00:14:48.039 --> 00:14:50.000 God through Christ. 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:52.919 That's the key to this book of Ruth is Naomi. 00:14:52.919 --> 00:14:56.279 When she heard what was happening back in her home and that God had been gracious to 00:14:56.279 --> 00:14:59.759 them and provided them, she went back. 00:14:59.759 --> 00:15:01.259 She went back empty. 00:15:01.259 --> 00:15:04.240 She went back with lots of complaints. 00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:12.159 She went back not knowing what lay ahead for her, but she returned to the one place that 00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:14.199 she could go. 00:15:14.199 --> 00:15:20.799 Now, I'm not suggesting here, and please be aware of this, I'm not suggesting that the 00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:26.479 lack of fulfillment you may experience or the great disappointment is always going to 00:15:26.479 --> 00:15:30.120 be as a result of rebellion or sin in your life. 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:31.759 That's clearly not the case. 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:36.319 Jesus taught against that when he was speaking about the Tower of Siloam and the fact that 00:15:36.319 --> 00:15:40.839 many people had been killed and his disciples asked him, what had they done wrong? 00:15:40.839 --> 00:15:42.879 Whose sin was it that caused this? 00:15:42.879 --> 00:15:49.559 And Jesus said, no, they're no more guilty than anyone else unless you two repent. 00:15:49.559 --> 00:15:52.239 That was the significance. 00:15:52.239 --> 00:15:59.559 These things happen and it needn't be deliberately as a result of us turning away from God. 00:15:59.559 --> 00:16:05.719 However, there may be a direct link between the lack of fulfillment in your life, your 00:16:05.719 --> 00:16:13.279 distance from God and your life in rebellion and disobedience to Him. 00:16:13.279 --> 00:16:17.399 That may have been the case with Naomi as they left the Promised Land when they were 00:16:17.399 --> 00:16:23.879 never commanded to leave the Promised Land to look for their help in another country 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:25.799 rather from the living God. 00:16:25.799 --> 00:16:28.879 But it's certainly the case with the prodigal, isn't it? 00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:34.399 The prodigal who left his father's home and wanted just to sow his wild oats and live 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:40.559 exactly as he wanted until he was brought to that place where he faced his father and 00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:45.639 faced home and the love of home and the acceptance of home. 00:16:45.639 --> 00:16:51.919 So it may be in this great disappointment of your Christian life that you need to look 00:16:51.919 --> 00:16:56.799 for the living God to search your heart and to, I need to search my heart and be open 00:16:56.799 --> 00:17:03.000 to being convicted of wrongdoing in a lifestyle or in a way of thinking. 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.519 It may be, we've been unconscious of it up to this point. 00:17:06.519 --> 00:17:12.200 It may be that we are deliberately choosing to live in a way that is in contradiction 00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:17.759 to our relationship with the living God and in a sinful way. 00:17:17.759 --> 00:17:20.840 It's a great thing to own our own failures. 00:17:20.840 --> 00:17:23.039 That's a great thing for a Christian to do. 00:17:23.039 --> 00:17:25.039 We can just own our own mistakes. 00:17:25.039 --> 00:17:26.039 We don't need to be afraid of them. 00:17:26.039 --> 00:17:27.039 We don't need to hide them. 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:28.039 We can't hide them. 00:17:28.039 --> 00:17:32.640 We need to just own them and confess them before the living God and turn to Him because 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:35.400 He's our Father and He loves you. 00:17:35.400 --> 00:17:36.480 And He loves us. 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:38.600 He has given Himself for us on the cross. 00:17:38.600 --> 00:17:40.360 He has died for our sins. 00:17:40.359 --> 00:17:43.439 And He's looking for that return. 00:17:43.439 --> 00:17:48.519 He's looking simply for us to own our failures and give them to Him and be forgiven and to 00:17:48.519 --> 00:17:50.519 be cleansed. 00:17:50.519 --> 00:17:56.599 But even where there isn't a deliberate and conscious awareness of living out of fellowship 00:17:56.599 --> 00:18:04.639 with Him, as we face home, as we come into His presence in prayer and in fellowship, as 00:18:04.639 --> 00:18:07.919 we come into the Father's presence, it always changes our perspective. 00:18:07.920 --> 00:18:13.200 You know, Job is declared as innocent in the book of Job yet he comes to God as Father 00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:19.440 and says, I repent in dust and ashes because the closer he was to the great light of the 00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:24.440 world, as we've said often here, the darker we recognize our own hearts to be, even if 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:26.640 we are an inverted commas innocent. 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:29.800 That is that we aren't deliberately walking against the Lord. 00:18:29.800 --> 00:18:31.600 We're covered in the righteousness of Christ. 00:18:31.600 --> 00:18:37.360 We still recognize as we face home that daily walk of repentance. 00:18:37.359 --> 00:18:38.679 That's what we do, isn't it? 00:18:38.679 --> 00:18:41.959 Are you living your life as a Christian in a daily walk of repentance? 00:18:41.959 --> 00:18:44.319 You should be and I should be. 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:48.919 Not because, you know, we're deliberately necessarily rebelling against God, but in His 00:18:48.919 --> 00:18:56.399 presence we recognize that there is so much that we require from His hand in terms of 00:18:56.399 --> 00:18:57.399 forgiveness. 00:18:57.399 --> 00:19:02.359 And that will, for me, and biblical is always, it's always the key. 00:19:02.359 --> 00:19:08.319 Your circumstances might not change one iota. 00:19:08.319 --> 00:19:14.059 The experiences that have caused you disappointment might not dissolve away, they probably won't. 00:19:14.059 --> 00:19:19.839 But take your disappointment and your emptiness to the living God and complain to Him as the 00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:26.399 Samus does and as Job did and as we're given a license to do biblically. 00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:33.960 Take them and experience His grace and experience His love and experience the beauty of His not 00:19:33.960 --> 00:19:38.000 rejecting you and not dismissing your complaints. 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:44.120 You have, we have to, on a daily basis, be going back to Him, whatever your feelings, 00:19:44.120 --> 00:19:49.880 your doubts, your misgivings about His love and His commitment and what He has done. 00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:52.560 Go back to the place where you first experienced His grace. 00:19:52.559 --> 00:19:59.279 Bow your knee at the foot of Calvary and go back there. 00:19:59.279 --> 00:20:05.359 Go back to the people who are Jesus' people. 00:20:05.359 --> 00:20:10.000 Go back to the Bible, go back to worship, go back to the secret place, go back to these 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:13.359 times of corporate worship and stay there. 00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:17.639 You know the great thing I can say today? 00:20:17.639 --> 00:20:19.720 I don't know the answers. 00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:26.160 I don't know what He'll say and I can't give you any hint of what that experience might 00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:33.360 be but it's the only place as a servant of the living God that I can turn you to because 00:20:33.360 --> 00:20:37.799 it's the only place of life and hope and because there is no alternative. 00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:38.799 That's the reality. 00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:43.079 There is no alternative for us, the author of life and the author of salvation. 00:20:43.079 --> 00:20:50.359 One of these online phone devotionals from the U version of the Bible that I'm doing 00:20:50.359 --> 00:20:57.559 with some others, there's a great little sentence this week when speaking about the secret place, 00:20:57.559 --> 00:20:58.720 that is the place of prayer. 00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:04.480 It said, success in the secret place is not getting an emotional feeling or sensing a new 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:08.439 righteousness, success is simply showing up. 00:21:08.439 --> 00:21:11.079 Isn't that great? 00:21:11.079 --> 00:21:12.079 And that's what I'm saying. 00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:14.159 Success is simply showing up. 00:21:14.159 --> 00:21:19.639 It's simply going into God's presence and leaving God to provide the answers and recognize 00:21:19.639 --> 00:21:21.759 Him in our life. 00:21:21.759 --> 00:21:27.480 The easiest thing for us to do is to say famine, run away from God. 00:21:27.480 --> 00:21:32.720 Now you owe me famine, run away from God, run away from the land that's supposed to flow 00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:35.119 with milk and honey, run away. 00:21:35.119 --> 00:21:38.519 And it's the easiest thing for us to do in our lives in disappointment, run out, turn 00:21:38.519 --> 00:21:39.839 our backs on God. 00:21:39.839 --> 00:21:41.039 God can't exist. 00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:42.279 God doesn't love me. 00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:46.319 God isn't fulfilling His promises and we turn our backs. 00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:50.839 That's the easiest thing for us to do. 00:21:50.839 --> 00:21:56.240 What Scripture and what Jesus pleads with us to do is to keep turning towards Him, keep 00:21:56.240 --> 00:22:01.399 looking to Him, keep relying on Him and allow Him to transform you to experience it. 00:22:01.399 --> 00:22:04.559 Because then we will see things differently. 00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:08.960 I don't know what you'll see, but you will see things differently as you keep coming 00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:15.799 and relying on the living God in a real dependent relationship. 00:22:15.799 --> 00:22:19.200 I believe that the Bible teaches that clearly. 00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:25.680 Naomi came to see that because you remember this is not the end of the book of Ruth. 00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:26.680 It's only the beginning. 00:22:26.680 --> 00:22:32.079 Naomi came to experience as she turned back to the Lord in ways she could never have expected 00:22:32.079 --> 00:22:39.519 or planned that God loved her and had a purpose for her in a little bit. 00:22:39.519 --> 00:22:40.519 We see things differently. 00:22:40.519 --> 00:22:44.039 We see what fulfillment looks like. 00:22:44.039 --> 00:22:49.439 1 Peter 2 verse 9. 00:22:49.439 --> 00:22:54.799 Fulfillment is recognizing by God's grace that we are chosen a royal priesthood, a holy 00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:59.439 nation, a people for his own possession that we may proclaim the excellencies of him who 00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:02.160 called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:03.759 So that's what we are. 00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:09.279 And that's fulfillment can look like that being God's own possession and being brought 00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:13.720 into the light of his love and of his grace in our experiences. 00:23:13.720 --> 00:23:15.799 Now, it's easy to say that. 00:23:15.799 --> 00:23:19.120 It's easy for me to repeat that verse, isn't it? 00:23:19.120 --> 00:23:22.240 And you can say it's easy for you to repeat that verse, but look at my life. 00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:24.200 I don't feel like a chosen person. 00:23:24.200 --> 00:23:28.039 I don't feel like I've been brought into the light of life. 00:23:28.039 --> 00:23:30.319 You're probably right. 00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:31.319 You're probably right. 00:23:31.319 --> 00:23:35.519 That's exactly how you feel or how you don't feel. 00:23:35.519 --> 00:23:41.639 But there was a reflection that I meant to put on the bulletin sheet this morning, but 00:23:41.639 --> 00:23:44.319 it didn't go on, but it's a good reflection and I'm going to mention it. 00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:46.920 And it's a quote from Tim Keller. 00:23:46.920 --> 00:23:48.000 Okay. 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:56.680 You don't know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. 00:23:56.680 --> 00:24:03.440 You don't know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:09.340 What fulfillment looks like can change as we come into his company. 00:24:09.340 --> 00:24:16.720 As we turn to him and as you cry out to him, he begins to change what we're looking for 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:18.320 in fulfillment. 00:24:18.320 --> 00:24:24.920 He begins to change our desires so that they look differently and fulfillment becomes something 00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:27.920 different. 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:32.840 And I think we see the future therefore differently as well. 00:24:32.840 --> 00:24:36.279 You know, you've come to church today, maybe you feel like this, maybe you feel like this, 00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:38.680 maybe you do feel specifically like this today. 00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:42.420 And I'm saying, well, it's not the end of your life story. 00:24:42.420 --> 00:24:44.640 It wasn't the end of Naomi's life story. 00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:46.560 It's only chapter one of this book. 00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:52.000 We stopped there, but she came to see the hand of God and the hand of God's love, even 00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:02.160 in the darkness of where she had to go, and came back to see fulfillment and love, a grandson, 00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:08.039 a place in the family, the blessing of God, the fulfillment of dreams, not the way, surely, 00:25:08.039 --> 00:25:12.440 she expected them to be fulfilled. 00:25:12.440 --> 00:25:19.440 But as we delight in him, our desires and what we look for in life change might not 00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:26.360 be when and where and how you expect Psalm 37 verse 4, one of the Psalms, which is not 00:25:26.360 --> 00:25:32.720 a Psalm of complaint and a Psalm of doubt, reminds us as we delight ourselves in the 00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:34.920 Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart. 00:25:34.920 --> 00:25:36.320 But what comes first? 00:25:36.320 --> 00:25:44.160 It's delighting in the Lord and seeing fulfillment and passions changed. 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:50.800 When it goes on to remind us of an unimaginably great future, I think, as we consider him. 00:25:50.800 --> 00:25:58.800 I think Naomi's experience is in an earthly way a picture, a heavenly blessing, and 1 Corinthians 00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:03.720 2, 9 reminds us, and we've said this again, you know, again, again, no eye has seen, no 00:26:03.720 --> 00:26:08.880 ear has heard, the heart of man has not imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. 00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:13.600 That's what we can look for in Jesus Christ. 00:26:13.599 --> 00:26:16.599 But I think not only does it change what the future looks like, I'm just about finished, 00:26:16.599 --> 00:26:17.599 nearly done. 00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:23.839 It reminds us what I think as we turn to him, it reminds us what faith can look like as 00:26:23.839 --> 00:26:24.839 well. 00:26:24.839 --> 00:26:31.719 Last week I was up in our broth at the Angus Bible Week and I was asked to preach two sermons 00:26:31.719 --> 00:26:38.799 on Daniel and that great, great verse in Daniel chapter 3 where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego 00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:41.519 are throwing out, are going to be throwing out in the fire because they've worshiped 00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:44.599 the living God and they're not willing to give up. 00:26:44.599 --> 00:26:50.480 It's a great picture of a great perspective for faith. 00:26:50.480 --> 00:26:55.359 You know, they say, you know, if that's what you're going to do, okay, our God whom we 00:26:55.359 --> 00:26:59.000 serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and He will deliver us out of 00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:05.720 your hand, okay, but if not, be it known to you, okay, we will not serve your gods or 00:27:05.720 --> 00:27:09.000 worship the old image that you set up. 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:11.680 They're not demanding of God the answer. 00:27:11.680 --> 00:27:13.319 They're not asking Him to do this great miracle. 00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:17.400 They're saying He can, He will, but if He doesn't, then we're still not going to bow 00:27:17.400 --> 00:27:23.160 down and it's a great perspective of faith that enables us to look at disappointments 00:27:23.160 --> 00:27:24.160 in a different way. 00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:27.519 You know, going in a fry furnace, it's pretty disappointing. 00:27:27.519 --> 00:27:34.000 It's not a great end to the day and yet they could take that and they could look at that 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:41.759 and they could swallow the reality of that because they knew who God was and they knew 00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:47.480 the kind of God that they served and we have far more experience than they have of the 00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:52.279 love and grace and commitment of the living God to us in Christ. 00:27:52.279 --> 00:27:56.799 And lastly also, it changes, I think, what's suffering and what we regard as a lack of 00:27:56.799 --> 00:28:00.559 fulfillment looks like, 2 Corinthians 4. 00:28:00.559 --> 00:28:06.679 For this light momentary affliction is preparing us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. 00:28:06.679 --> 00:28:16.599 It's a perspective and a reality that doesn't belittle or demean suffering as if it's insignificant. 00:28:16.599 --> 00:28:18.799 It remains unwelcome. 00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:24.079 It's a reminder of the brokenness in which we live. 00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:30.799 The opposition we face, the internal struggles and the reality of exile, but suffering does 00:28:30.799 --> 00:28:35.439 not disprove his love for us. 00:28:35.439 --> 00:28:44.199 And the lack of fulfillment that leads us to suffer spiritually is not an evidence that 00:28:44.199 --> 00:28:52.960 he doesn't love and care and save us from death and from eternal separation from it. 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:56.240 It's the truth of a thousand texts of Scripture. 00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:02.519 It's the reality of every believer in the Bible that God redeems even the darkest experiences 00:29:02.519 --> 00:29:09.360 of our lives for his good and for his glory and for our good in our experience. 00:29:09.360 --> 00:29:18.319 He suffered and died alone to enable us to know his company and his presence in our suffering 00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:22.759 until he returns and dispels it forever. 00:29:22.759 --> 00:29:27.000 This only intensifies the pain. 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:30.319 He alone gives us peace to see things differently. 00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:36.039 So there's nothing new in what we say, but the challenge for you and for me today is 00:29:36.039 --> 00:29:43.400 to be people who are turners, repenters, turning, but always going to, don't look for your spiritual 00:29:43.400 --> 00:29:50.720 dynamism and energy and wisdom in yourself or in your church or in the, per se, in the 00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:57.680 Bible intellectually, but beyond that, in the presence and the company of the living 00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:05.680 God who loves you and has died for you and who promises you and promises me life. 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:09.000 I mean, let's bow our heads as we pray. 00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:18.000 Father God, we pray and ask that we would be people who are strong in turning to you 00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:27.440 in our weakness, that we would find his strength and we pray that it would transform our lives 00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:30.640 to do so even in terms of our mentality. 00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:37.039 Keep us from being people who turn away from you in the seeming disappointments and in 00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:45.680 the real disappointments and in our questions about no answered prayer and a lack of evident 00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:50.400 blessing and grace and what's the advantage of being a Christian for me when I feel like 00:30:50.400 --> 00:30:51.400 this. 00:30:51.400 --> 00:31:01.080 These kind of things, maybe take them to you and maybe respond to your teaching and your 00:31:01.080 --> 00:31:06.360 word and your expression of yourself to us in our lives. 00:31:06.360 --> 00:31:12.120 Help us to understand you as God and remind ourselves of the emptiness and the loneliness 00:31:12.119 --> 00:31:24.639 of seeking to live without you in this impersonal and unloving world as it rejects you. 00:31:24.639 --> 00:31:30.759 So help us God, we pray and bless us in our worship as we conclude and respond and praise 00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:34.599 and in adoration to you for we ask it in Jesus' name. 00:31:34.599 --> 00:31:42.599 Amen.