Galatians | Week 3 | Bill Bush | Full Service

I remember this something that happened to me back when I was, you know, a kid, like nine years old. It was one of the only times my my mom and my sister went away for couple days, so it was just me and my dad. And so my mom had never left us like that before, and I think she feared

for my life in a sense that she made premade food for us, made all the meals because I don't think she trusted my dad. Well, my dad would have fed me, but it would have been like, here, son. Here's a World War two MRE. Just eat that. You'll be fine.

And so she made all these pre and even said, this is lunch. This is dinner for this day. And then she said, hey, we'll be back tomorrow and we'll be back right around dinner. We'll just stop and bring food. So just don't worry about dinner. We'll bring something when we get there. So we went through all the food, and

the time came to have dinner the next day. My dad's old, so was like 2PM. We're gonna have dinner. No. Just kidding.

It was, you know, like gets to the evening dinner time about the time we normally eat, and she's not there. And the problem is there weren't cell phones back then. There wasn't, you know, you maybe a smoke signal. I don't know. But there was no satellite imagery. No none of that. So you just had to wait.

And so she was running late, and about a half an hour past when we normally eat, I'm like, yeah, I'm getting hungry. My buddy goes, yeah, I am too. He's like, that's it. We're not waiting. We're gonna figure this out on ourself. We're men.

So he went into the refrigerator and we started digging around looking for anything to eat, and he pulled out a container and he goes, well, look, leftover Sloppy Joes.

So we heated up, started eating it, and and, you know, it was good. So we ate a one, and, you know, and we did the, you know, the manwich, man. It was big, you know. And then we're we're still hungry, so we had another one. And so we're, you know, we're eating our second sandwich, and then my mom gets there with food. And she shows up with this great spread, awesome food, comes in. She's like, I brought food. And he's like, we're already eating. My dad says, like, well, what are you eating? I didn't make you guys anything. There was nothing left.

And we're like, we got the leftover Sloppy Joes. And she stops and just, you know, it's funny when someone says something so obvious that you didn't realize it. She goes, when did we have Sloppy Joes the first time?

Dad and I are trying to do the math in our head. She goes, how can you have leftovers if you never had the overs to begin with? And and and and so she's like, what did you eat? It's not Sloppy Joes. She goes over and looks at the container that it was in, and she's like, Bill, my dad, that was the dog food.

I told you we're on our second sandwich. Right? So we got impatient. We found our own way. We're enjoying it, and then we found out we've been eating dog food.

We've been eating out. Now someone said they don't believe it before because they how would you not taste the difference? My dad threw it in a thing to reheat it, put like a half a thing of ketchup, and threw cheese on top of it. So, yeah, it kinda decept

deceived us for a little while. But as we're eating it, I'm like, all of a sudden, I immediately go I throw down what's left in my sandwich. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we ate dog food. And then my mom's like, well, here, I got this food. I go, I don't think I can eat anything.

And then I look over at my dad, he's still holding almost a half a sandwich, and he just goes, and crams the whole thing in his mouth and eats it. Then I ran to the bathroom and then I was like, dad, how could you do that? And he's like, have you seen some of the stuff I eat in a foxhole? This is gourmet.

And and I realized like that was so disgusting and we were missing out. We ate dog food because we didn't wait for the promise my mom had given us.

Well, that's kinda what we're gonna look at today in Galatians. We'll be in Galatians chapter four today,

and what we're gonna see that when it comes to this repeated theme over and over again of of the the law and the gospel, it seems very repetitive. You're like, how are we gonna keep talking about this? We're gonna look at an angle of it today. That what we're gonna see and what we look at is this big idea.

When we choose the possible, we miss the impossible.

When we choose the possible, we miss the when we go after the thing that seems like we can make this happen, it seems possible, it meets the goal, it meets the need I have, like I'm hungry, there's food, I'll eat this. But you find out it's dog food, so you miss the the impossible, the awesome meal, what God really has, and that's really a part of what the law versus the gospel is about. The reason this can seem very repetitive to us, when we talk about law, if you haven't been here, law was the idea of the rituals

and the acting and doing these things before God so you would be made right before God. It's I I I do it for his love. I do this, then he loves me. The problem with that is it doesn't work. The second thing is it makes you if you are doing the things you think you should be doing, you now think God owes you something.

And it's it's it's it's it's a lot of times we go after the ritual of law because it seems possible. When the law was not meant, the law was to show us that it's impossible to be perfect. It's impossible to make life work on our own. It's impossible to do this, but it we we human beings like a checklist.

We are innately do not trust anything that's free. Have you ever noticed that? I got something free for you. This is a scam. Unless it's food, which is weird enough. Isn't it funny? We had free hot hamburgers and hot dogs last night. You should have seen the line.

And it's like, it's free. Did you free. Free food. Free food. Anything else free? Oh, what do you want? This is a rip off. So when you hear grace and how we're saved by the love of Christ, by his grace, not anything we do for it, I think we innately go for the possible list, which really is impossible.

We go for that checklist and it's impossible, and then we start to kinda get impatient and we start to go after the dog food of life and we miss. Because here's here's what I'm trying to say before we could jump into this passage. It's simply this, it seems repetitive

and how does that apply to my life today to say that this whole book of Galatians is really defending against a false teaching that says we are not saved through law, through ritual.

We have a relationship with God, an eternal relationship with God that's based on his grace and his love. His impossible love and his possible grace. We didn't earn it. We don't deserve it, and he did it. And basically what he's saying now though is it's not just about that. When we hear that, all you think is law versus grace is all about a moment. It's all about how to be saved.

How to how to be in a relationship. And when we if we make the mistake of thinking law and and gospel and grace is only about how we get to heaven, how we have eternal life, it's only about that you're gonna miss out because it's not just about how to have eternal life, the gospel is about how life should be lived

right now. And it's a power to do it, and you'll see that. So what does it have to do with me today that's any different? Well, like I said, we often make the mistake of we choose the possible and we miss the impossible, and here's the the the the the crazy thing about that. The thing that seems possible promises

to fulfill what you really are longing for and going after. It never pays off. The possible route we take in life is actually impossible to ever get you what you wanted. The impossible route

of God, of faith, of trusting him, of trusting his plan in your life, Even that may seem impossible in service, like you wanted me to trust you with this? You want me to trust that way? You want me to see life this way? You want that seems like I can't do that.

But that impossible route is the only way that'll actually result in what we really built and longed for, and God shows up in the most impossible ways. But we have to trust it, and we do that a lot. And so here we are. We're gonna go into into Galatians chapter

four. So I was in two last week. We're gonna combine three and four because what happens is Paul has been talking about this and landing it. Well, these next two chapters, he gets really theological,

and he lays out six points that are very theological about covenants and this and that, trying to make a logical case to say this is why it'd be stupid to say, I am only made right with God by his grace through Jesus Christ, and then immediately say, but everything else I do is gonna be through law.

It's not like Jesus was you know, got me in the club, but I still gotta go buy the two drink minimum and all that. I gotta do this stuff on my own. Don't ask me why I know that. And and I'm saved by grace. And so we we we gotta see. So that's what he's been

talking to. And now he gets very theological. I tell you, go read it. Go study it. I wanna jump to the last point. It's an illustration. The very end of chapter four, he brings a note that I think puts an exclamation point on everything he's been saying so far. And it puts it in a practical understandable

kind of story because there's a real story. This illustration really happened. We know the story from the old testament, so we have a real live experience of how does gospel, how does grace

and love work versus law, and what does that do in our life when we mess up and we live through the life of the possible, which is usually the way of of law. It's usually the way of I'll make this work. I'll figure this out. And what does it do versus the impossible promise of God and his grace and power?

And so here we go. Starting in verse 21, it says, tell me you who want to live under the law, do you know what the law actually says? That's kind of a throw punch right there. He just says, do you read your bible?

And I can relate. Some people say the dumbest I think God would be the right thing. You don't have to think about it. He already said it. I can show you exactly what he thinks about that. It's right here. Anyways, don't get distracted, Bill. Don't get distracted. It's the 11:00 service. You're getting loopy.

The scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his free born wife. The son of the slave wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise, but the son of the free born wife was born as God's fulfillment of his promise.

These two women serve as an illustration, so he's taken this actual story as an allegory of God's two covenants.

The first woman, Hagar, represents Mount Sinai where people received the law that enslaved them. The law was good, but how it enslaved them is it says, it was supposed to show you that you can never be made right with God and life will never work if you make it about this.

He says, and now Jerusalem is less like Mount Sinai in Arabia because she and her children live in slavery to the law. But the other woman, Sarah, represents the heavenly Jerusalem. She is the free woman and she is our mother as Isaiah said. Rejoice, childless woman, you have never

have never given birth. Break into a joyful shout, you who have never been in labor. For the desolate woman now has more children than the woman who lives with her husband. So that's a prophecy that was talking about how this child is gonna come, the nation's gonna be born. That was the promise. God says, I'm gonna bring a child from a woman that has never been able to have kids.

And he says, and you dear brothers and sisters are children of the promise, just like Isaac. For you are now being persecuted by those who want you to keep the law, just as Ishmael, the child born by human effort, persecuted Isaac, the child born by the power of the spirit.

But what do the scriptures say about that? Get rid of the slave and her son for the son of the slave woman will not share the inheritance with the free woman's son. So dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, we are children of the free woman.

He's saying, why would you accept God's love and grace at the cross and then go back to living a law, a life of law, of ritual, of I do this, God gives me that. I do this, I get that. I do this, and I'm made right, And and then and really

live a life that then we tend to look at if it's on us, we look for the possible way. We try to make it work. Even if we're trying to follow God. This isn't about just ignoring God. We can often try to do the way of the law. The way that I'm gonna make it happen and the way I have to make it happen is the way that seems possible.

So I grab the possible route trying to help God out. Trying to it's usually just like the dog food story. I get impatient waiting for God's promise, so I'll go this way. And that's really what this story is about, that he's an example. Abraham and Sarah and they had two sons. Many of you have been in church very long, know it. If you've coming to this church very long, we've talked about Hagar

and Ishmael just not too long ago. We've talked about Abraham several times. But the illustration he's using is he's taking this story and saying it was always a picture of what I'm doing. But they still had to live out this life.

So what happened was God came to Abraham and Sarah when he was when they were 75 years old. She'd been barren, they never had any kids. And he says, I'm gonna I'm gonna do something. He was the first person he called out to start his journey of grace and love and redemption for the world.

And what he wanna do is he's gonna take a person, create a people that are set apart, Israel, and then through that, bless the world with the Messiah. And so Abraham's the guy who gets called out, and he says, I'm gonna give you a child. It's weird. One part says there's gonna be a child.

That's a prophecy of Christ. But he says, you're gonna have a child and you're gonna birth this nation, a great nation. And it's very he even says, you're gonna have more descendants than the the stars in the sky, and not like our sky, not city sky where you're like 27,

more like Wyoming night sky or something like that. And and so they laugh at them because they're 75. That doesn't seem possible.

But you know, Abraham's trying to believe God. He's trying to believe. Well, then you go a little while later, nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. They're figuring they're sitting there going, well, nothing's happening. So guess what? Impatient. What's in the refrigerator?

And they look and they go, okay. Maybe God let's help God out. Let's go the culturally acceptable route, which is Abraham, his wife, Sarah comes and goes, you sleep with my servant Hagar, the the the slave woman, and produce an heir, and then we'll have the heir. Now that was actually culturally,

socially, absolutely an acceptable way to get an heir. So they went for it. Problem solved. Right? They got what they're supposed to have. They're even trying to serve God, follow God, and they did it that way. What they didn't factor is how many problems that was gonna create.

See, they they didn't factor because they tried to do it themselves. And and and the problem, even if you try to serve God in your own way, You only see your plans and they get distorted and they don't work because it promises so much and pays off so little.

So what happens in this process is let's do it that way. Well, Hagar gets pregnant. In that culture, if that happens, she's now a wife, not a slave. She's a wife, and now she's the more highly prized wife because everyone's going give her more

street cred. You produce this male child. You produce the heir. You're the most important. And that's why in the story it says she started to treat Sarah, her former mistress, with contempt.

She started acting all highfalutin, the tables have turned. I'm the important one now, and and and and that made her angry, upset, and I think she's a little bit jealous, I and think she's even a little bit mad because she's like, hey, up front, I'm just gonna get air. It's gonna be great. She didn't think that the feelings would happen if you see another woman sleeping with her husband, and then that they produce a child, and that culture is so important to get the child. She's more important. She's probably thinking, my husband probably loves her more now and cares about more, and who am I? And now I'm jealous and I'm frustrated, so she goes and yells so now it affects her relation with her husband. She goes and yells at him about it.

She's being mean. Why don't you do something about this? Like, it wasn't even his idea. And so he's like, do what you want. It wasn't my idea, so now they got problems.

So trying to make it happen themselves, even trying to make something God said needed to happen, but in their strength, their power, and in their way. Like it's God if you ever read God's word, he says, here's what you need to do. Here's how you need to use your money. Here's how you need to use your gifts. Here's what sexuality is. Here's what marriage is. And you go, I feel even if you try to do it God's way, you want you go, I'm gonna believe with God with what to do with my time, but then I can't really go all in and trust him completely, so I gotta manipulate. I can only do this. I can only do that. I show up to services and worship God with the people of Christ that I'm supposed to worship with every now and again when I'm busy. I'm trying to do the right thing,

but on my timetable. That's what it's talking about. It's the same exact attitude. And the problem is even if you try to do the God thing in the law with your plan and your way, you'll never see the impossible.

You'll never really experience the power of God and his majesty. So then you don't see the awe of him showing up. You never experience that and that gets frustrating because you're like, hey, I've been doing this God, thank God I've been serving him and and I've been doing my best to do it and it's like nothing's working.

And then you end up mad at God over it.

You see, when when we try to do it this way, even follow God, what we end up doing is we will do anything to make our version of his will happen. We try to do anything to make our version, and what we've done is last week I talked about the world's gospel, which is extremely legalistic.

It says it's inclusive, but it's not. It's it's it's it's a lie and it's controlled. The whole philosophy of the world, anything not of Christ is driven by what the bible says the prince of this world, Satan. And Satan is not just anti God. He actually wants God's job.

He wants to be God. That's why he tricked Adam, don't trust God, trust me. Do what I say. Why when he tempted Jesus, fall down and worship me. And so what he does is he always offers the possible way. He always offers a reasonable

replacement for what God actually says that seems to be pretty close to what God said. It seems to be something that will accomplish what God said. It seems to give you what God promised to give you, only he'll do it quicker. You can have it right now and you're in control.

And that's exactly what happens all the time. And so if we fall for that, even as we come to church,

we often let that world gospel seep into the real gospel of our Christian walk and we pray we praise it. I'm so glad Jesus died on the cross for me, but then everything else is a manipulative game of looking for what's the most expedient convenient way I wanna go. And we mask that with a statement of, well, I love the Lord and I'm just gonna follow my heart.

And I asked you guys that a few sermons ago, go, how many people think following your heart's good advice? And almost everybody raised their hand. And you realize what the bible says? That's terrible advice. Because the bible says our hearts are the most deceitful thing we have.

When we just go with our feelings and go with our heart, it's deceptive. You know what we should do? Follow the heart of God because that's what he built us for. That's what he saved us for. That's what he died for us. When we follow our heart, we go after the darkness, we try to manipulate,

we're going after the old sin nature, and the bible says if you know Christ, you're a new creation. And and and so it's it's we need to follow God, but from his love, because if he died to rescue us from all of that, why would we say that grace now and love is because I'm under the grace of Christ, I can go back living

in the same ways

that Jesus went to die on the cross for? So you think the grace of God is he saved me from that sin so I can keep living that way. That makes absolutely no sense. That would be like your kid goes to run-in the street, you run out, shove him out of the way, and you get hit by the car.

You're in the hospital. You were dead for a minute. They brought you back to life. Clear. And you go there and your kid says,

I'm going to run into the street again. Why? I already did you see what happened to me? I was dead. I came back to life. I died rescuing you. I know. And I know that you'll keep doing that. So I'm just going to keep running into the street. You know what you do with that kid? You put him up for adoption.

That's what you do. That just just doesn't make any sense, does it? So these two sons of birth, they're basically trying to trying to emphasize two things here. And Ishmael represents slavery. Isaac represents freedom. And here's how that gospel of the world and even the sin in our heart twists us as we come to church,

is when you hear God's word say something like, this is how I want you to honor me, and it seems hard, we fall for this way because this way seems possible, but in the end, enslaves you. God's way, waiting for the promise, trusting him seems harder and impossible, but it actually leads to freedom.

See, the world doesn't see that. So when the world says, oh, you Christians say that this is wrong, that's not wrong, this is right, you're a bunch of jerks that don't love, you don't care, you're so trapped by your dogmatic beliefs when the fact is the gospel of the world is so trapped by its dogmatic beliefs.

And its dogmatic beliefs don't even get anything actually done. They just enslave us. Amen. Unless they're watching a game over there. My team scored. Oh, I'm in church. They shouldn't know that.

And so we need to trust God for the right reason. You know why? Because he knows better and he's got the power and he brings the impossibility. He's the one that can do that.

Because look at this. I wanna I wanna read a psalm to you. It's Psalms one fourteen,

and this is what we need to remember about God, because when I get caught in this grace, I I Jesus died by grace, but everything else is law, and I get caught going after the possible in my life. And even as a Christian, I grab the most convenient thing, I look for it, it's and then when nothing happens or it gets frustrating, we look back and wanna complain to God about that, kinda like when you tell your kid, don't touch the hot stove, don't touch the hot stove, and then they touch it, and then they're screaming and crying, they're mad at you, why did you turn the stove on?

Because we're cooking food and you wanna eat, don't you? And so the same thing is is what we need to realize is God is the God that even if he asks you to do something, like when his word says, honor me with your money, why can't? I'm broke. I mean, me use your gifts. I don't have enough time.

Treat your spouse with respect. Look at what the scripture says a marriage is. Look at what your identity is really from. When God says your identity is not found in your sexuality, but you believe the lie because you have these feelings, you're drawn to a sexuality

that God says that's not how I intended it to be. I intended life to be worked where sexuality is a cool thing. Marriage is a cool thing. You know, sex is a good thing, but it's all meant to be an illustration

from our relationship with you and it's supposed to make you more like me. So I have declared there is man and woman. There's two genders. That's it. You may feel drawn to something. You may think that that's out there. You may have bought into this lie and the feelings are genuine and there's real and there's a lot of reasons why they're created. And part of it is because we live in a broken world so things get twisted and they don't come out right and that happens. Just like I grew up with asthma my whole life. I wish I didn't. I was an athlete. There's nothing I can do about it. I was born with it. It's in a broken world.

And we're in a broken world where things come out broken and they don't seem to work right. And don't call that good because if God says it isn't good, he's like you're gonna miss the boat of what he really has. That's why scripture says there's a way that seems right to man, but the end that leads to death.

And so what he's trying to do by love saying, hey, this is what it is. I had one man, one woman, four life, that's a marriage, that's what sexuality is all about, but that's not who you are anyways. So we buy the lie, the convenient possible lie that Satan says, no. No. No. Ignore God. If you really wanna be happy, what's possible is you can believe in Jesus,

but you can also follow your heart. You can run after these things because you feel it, you feel it strongly, and you're when you do when you run after the possible, you are missing the impossible.

And I am telling you, God is clear over and over again. He's saying those ways of living will never produce what you hope they would because it's not who you are. And so I share about it and then people get mad at me. And I can understand if you struggle with this, why you'd wanna get mad at me. You gotta know.

The problem is we live in a culture that says if you challenge anyone to say, I think you're going the wrong way, and and and I wanna show you truth that can lead to true contentment, peace, happiness, somehow that's unloving. And that's because the lie that says sexuality equals identity. That's not true. See if that's true,

then it is unloving. And if that's true, then you can never be truly happy in this life unless you pursue that. But what if those are both lies?

Then me saying this to you from God's word is the most loving thing you're ever gonna hear. But here's the thing about my point I'm saying when we chase the possible where the outside gospels reached in. I've said this several times.

And the only flack I've gotten from was people that don't have confusion about their sexuality and they're mad that I would even say that and they say they're Christians. And they go, where do you get off to even say that? And then I'll show them all the scriptures.

And they go, I don't care about that. That's unloving. You know what they're telling me? The world defines love now.

The world is defining what what what what acceptance is. The world is defining what's right. The world and I don't care what Jesus says. I'm glad he died for me. You're trying to live in both worlds. I want the grace of Christ, but then I'm gonna follow the gospel of the world.

You know what that is? That's the enemy saying, okay, you you've put your faith in Christ. Great. Now I'm gonna make your life totally not what God wanted it to be. Because if I can't totally destroy you, I'll stop you.

And you're missing out because when you go after the possible, you miss the impossible. Look what Psalms one fourteen says, this is the God of the impossible.

If you think I can't do what God's calling me to, I just can't, you're missing out. You don't understand the power of God, and what he'll do to enable us to go where he wants us to go. It says this, when the Israelites escaped from Egypt,

when the family of Jacob left that foreign land, the land of Judah became God's sanctuary, and Israel became his kingdom.

I love how in poetry it just like brings to life inanimate objects. It says, the Red Sea saw them coming and hurried out of their way. Israelites, they had to leave, they're trying to go there, there's a sea in the way and an army behind them. That seems pretty impossible,

and that seems like God, and there was people that says, why did you bring us out here to die? We should go back and be slaves where at least we had leaks.

We get so desperate sometimes that we'd say, I was a slave, now I think God's led me to such an impossible situation, I'd rather go back and be a slave because at least they gave me onions. Think about that, especially if you're the person that doesn't like onions on your tacos.

He's like at least and they're saying the Red Sea, it says, saw them coming, got out of their way, the water of the Jordan River turned away, it divided so they could get into the promised land. The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. And I love this, what's wrong Red Sea that made you hurry out of the way?

What happened Jordan River that you turned away? Why mountains did you skip like rams? Why hills like lambs? And here's why. Tremble o earth at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.

He turned the rock into a pool of water. Yes, a spring of water flowed from solid rock. He's saying the reason you're confused by this, and the reason is like we have a God that actually speaks things into existence. He can change anything. He can change space and time if he wants to. He made a sea part. He made a river dry up. He he he he made mountains move. He even when they were in the middle of the desert, they now we're out here, there's no water, we're gonna die, and they started to complain. He made a rock start spitting some water out.

It's probably that nice bubbly water, really nice and fresh and with little orange slices in it. The

point that it's trying to make is why don't you tremble and respect and see God. This is what it means to fear God. It's not fear that he's out to get you, it's fear that he's out to get you because he loves you and he's gonna guide you and he wants to take you to the better place and you need to trust him. But guess what? You don't get to see water come out of a rock unless you're willing to walk into that desert with him. You don't get to see a c part unless you walk away from the slavery.

You don't get to walk across the Jordan River into the promise land unless you lived all those years out there and did that. And you know what? A lot of the stuff he walks us through sounds terrible. It looks terrible and it's difficult and it's hard, but in the end, the sea parts. The water comes with a rock and you live and you survive. And you got to see do God do something in you and around you that was never possible

unless you trusted him. See, law says, why do I have to trust this? Why can't I live this way? Why can't? Because you keep thinking what you want is the goal,

and you keep thinking that that's what he needs to give you, and he's trying to give you something better. He's not mad at you if you don't. Law says, you failed. You didn't do it. I love you. No. Grace says because he already loves you, because he's the God that moves mountains, because he's the Christ that went to the cross and died for you, shouldn't you want to go where he goes?

Don't you wanna discover the life he wanted you to live that was so important to him for you that he died for you to have it? But no. If we embrace the two gospels, you try to mix that legalistic gospel of the world with your faith, with the real gospel of grace,

it's not about just going to heaven, it's about how to live life. So when you mix those two, you say, the grace gets me heaven when I die. The world's gospel is how I live here. And it'll never work because God loves us. He loves us. And what he's saying here is if he asks you in his word to do something,

do you do the impossible? Just take him at his word and do exactly what he asked you to do? Or do you try to listen to him but through your way? Okay, God, I'll start giving but I'm only going to give this.

I'm going to give after I make sure I've got all my stuff in paid. I'll give Most people say I can't give because you think giving comes from your extra. God says the act of faith with money is a first fruit thing. When you give before you've given to anything else, first of all, you learn how to live on the rest.

It's a gift God gave us. It forces you to actually think and budget. The second thing is it takes away the fear. Because even if you give at the back end, that's still on you. That's still on all your budgeting, that's still on all of you, that's on you. The reason he asked us to give and give first

is for the very reason why you're afraid to give in the first place. You don't really trust that God can get you through if you don't have that amount of money. We just read he parted a sea when his people needed it. He made water come out of a rock when his people needed it. You don't think he can't take care of you?

You're stressed out, you're freaked out, you're angry at God sometimes and you get mad at me when I say something like this because you've never seen the water out of the rock. You've never seen the c part

because you won't step into that desert. You won't walk away from the slavery. God's not being mean, God's being loving. And that's why he challenges us. That's why he calls to us. And we fall for it. Want God,

the gospel of world, I've seen it come into churches where people are like, why can't this just be right? Why can't that be right? We just try to say this should just be right. It feels right. And I get it because some of the things we deal with, we've fallen in love with some of these things.

That's what happened with Abraham. We're going to go to Genesis 17. I want to read two verses to you because now God shows back up when Ishmael is now 13 years old.

So he's walked this way, 13 years old. What do you think if if if you said that's gonna be your plan and you did that, now you've had the kid, you haven't heard from God, your wife never got pregnant, it's thirteen years, you're now 90, pretty much almost 90 years old, haven't had a kid yet. What do you think you've told Ishmael every day of his life that he was?

He's the heir. You've probably told him he's the promised one because you figure God must have accepted this. Nothing's happened. I'm just gonna keep going down my road.

So this kid's grown up. That's why he was mean and and and later on after Isaac was born cause he was like thought he was it, and and his parents probably told him that, and you you could see there's probably this stress going on, and he's walking around acting good, and how hard is it to realize you've led your child a certain way and then realize you were wrong,

And your kid says, this is who I am, and you have to say, no, that's not.

That's the painful part, but we create that. And so he he he shows up and he says, hey, she's pregnant. You're gonna have a kid now. It's been thirteen years later,

and and and here's what Abraham says, which I understand, and many of you are just like this, and you gotta understand, there's a heart in this. I'm not trying to punch us in the throat to be a jerk. I'm trying to help us. So is God. But look what he says, Abraham said to God, may Ishmael live under your special blessing.

You know what that means when he asked God? He's like, can't he just be the one? Can't this just be right? I love him. He's already here. He's born. He fell this way. It's like we love him. They don't even know Isaac. He's not born yet.

He's like looking at this kid that he's probably been told he's the heir. Now he's like, that's not what I told you to do. You didn't listen to me. And he's like, but can't he just be it? Why can't this be right?

And that's where some of you are, you have some Ishmaels in your life. And you just keep crying out to God, I want this to be right. I want this to be right. And that's what he's asking. And here's what God says, but God said no. No.

Have you been asking for God to make an Ishmael right or open a door that he doesn't wanna open and run through because you're following your heart? Like, in the power of Jesus, I'm naming it and claiming it. But it has nothing to do with how he wired. You're not serving him. You're not following him. You're not doing what he obviously said, but you're trying to use this mystical power of Jesus to summon forth something you really want, and you keep talking to him, it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen, and and and you sit there and you act like, god's not hearing my prayers.

You know, I've noticed when I look on social media, I don't think I've ever seen someone declare answered prayers and then just described how god said no. Have you ever seen answered prayers, he said no.

I've been praying for this for five years, ain't gonna happen, it is done. I was going down the wrong road, I gotta look for something else, I am so happy about that. No. You know what we act like? We act like our kids, little toddlers,

little kids when they want something and you know it's not healthy for them, even though in their mind it makes total sense. Why can't I just have donuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, And and and they don't understand. We don't wanna pay for the dentist bill. You're gonna have diabetes by the time you're 12. You don't see any of that. They just see that it tastes good. I love it.

I was built for donuts. So when you keep trying to talk to them, what do they say? When you say no, sweetie, and you try to explain the truth, no, no, no. What do they finally yell? At least my kids did. You're not listening to me.

I just explained why there's no no. Of course, I listened to you. I gave you all the truth in love and you're like, you're not listening to me. You know what they they mean when they say that? You didn't say yes. You didn't give me what you want. Some of you in here, I've been guilty of this too at points in my life, but some of us are full on in toddler mode with your prayers to God.

You don't think he's listening to you because you don't understand there's three answers. There's yes, there's no, and there's wait.

You only wanna hear yes. And when God says no, that's not right and it'll never be right. Some of us get really upset. He says, no, Sarah, your wife will give birth to a son for you and we know this is out of love because he knows this is the only way possible to be redeemed.

He says, you will name him Isaac and I will confirm my covenant with him and his descendants as everlasting covenant. You know that we know that God is not only loving, he has a great sense of humor

and irony, because you know in comedians, they'll do a callback. They'll say something and then way near the end of there, they'll call back to an original joke tied to close it out. Well, if you remember,

when he first told them all those years ago that they're gonna have a kid even though they're 75 years old, it's been almost twenty five years now, And they said they laughed. They laughed. It says, Seraphim laughed. So when he shows up now and says, now you're gonna have the kid. He says, you're gonna name him Isaac.

You know what Isaac means in Hebrew? Son of laughter. So remember when you went Guess what you're going to name your kid? Not

only do I love you, I care about you, I'm going to lead you the right way, I'm going say no when it needs to be no, yes when it could be yes, but you need to learn to trust me because you laughed, so now you're gonna name your kid laugh. Just as a reminder,

I think that's a cool sense of irony and humor, I think God was kinda funny, he's like watch this, name him. So every time you called his name, you're like, remember when you laughed? Come here. Get over here. Man, why did I laugh at God when he made a promise? Now I'm saying it all over the place.

You see, we gotta we we we have to understand that God loves us and if we don't understand it comes from love and grace, we won't go after what he has for us. We'll continue to say, I believe in his grace but I live by law. I live by my possible.

I'll live in that moment where, hey, I've been single for a long time or maybe I've been single again for a long time. I'm not getting any younger. I really, really, really want to be with somebody and

I know bible says I should find a strong Christian. I should be equally yoked, it says. But you know what? I can't find mister or missus right right now, so why can't I just be with mister or missus right here? They seem nice enough.

They seem good enough, and that's because you think it's all a game with God. Like he just made these arbitrary rules and you think he's making rules when the fact is he knows how relationships work. He knows what it means to be a Christian. He knows what he wants for you, and he knows that that's gonna have problems. Don't go down that road.

And there'll be one person in here like every now and again, God's grace, you missionary dated them, they became a Christian and now they're awesome. Great for you. You played Russian roulette and by the grace of God, you won. But that doesn't make it the right way to go.

He's saying this idea of we can't live that way. And that's why chapter five verse one as we close this down is the final

it's actually the final verse in this section. It goes into verse one. He says, so That's why he says so. So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free. Don't get tied up again in slavery to the law. Why would you go back to that?

Why wouldn't you just want to trust God? Don't you want to see the God of the impossible? Then trust him in what he says life should be like. I love this quote from CS Lewis

because we think it's hard to trust him because we have these such strong desires for something else, and they do feel strong. But he had an interesting this theologian, he had an interesting perspective on this. He says it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.

We are half hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. In other words, so many of us

are like my dad when it comes to walking out our life. So many of us see what God has to offer, sees the meal that he brings and the promise that even though he came later than you wanted it, even though you felt like you should have been there earlier, but as that meal shows up, we look at that

and we keep eating the dog food.

I don't know why we do that. All I know is every one of us in this room struggles with doing that from time to time.

And I think we need to see what the answer is. We're gonna see the next two weeks how do you walk out that life of go to the good food. It's funny. We're eating the dog food and in Psalms it says this, the Lord says this, taste of me and see that I am good. We need a taste of what the Lord has to offer.

We need to put our faith in him. We need to turn from our own desires, turn from our own plans to try to make it work our self, and we need a taste of him.

We need to walk away from the dog food. We need to commit to him, and the next two weeks you're gonna see that he gets real practical, and there's gonna be two things you're gonna see that you desperately need to do that. You need the power of the holy spirit in your life. We're gonna talk about how that works,

and you're gonna need the presence of God's people in your life. That's why we can't just sit in rows. That's why we talk about getting in community. That's why we talk about serving. That's why we talk about this. It's not just check off a list to make God happy with you. We desperately need one another. We eat the dog food when we're left alone. We eat the dog food when we get confused. We don't have other people to smack it. Read So why are you eating the dog food?

And the most important thing in all of that is we need to see a God of the impossible who loves us with an impossible love. A grace and a love we do not deserve. We need to see that.

And that's why you need to understand when he says, no, don't try to snake it right. Because otherwise, if you think all the things he says are wrong are actually okay once you have Jesus, that that that makes no sense. Why? Why would he die for you to go, okay, keep doing what I went to the cross for?

We need to look a different way. Don't look at an angry God who's mad at you, but a loving God who is trying to show us the way that is no is loving. His weight is loving. His yes is loving. But we just need to walk in that love. And you know what we really need to do?

The number one thing to do is look at what we just read in Psalms one fourteen. We need to look at the God of the impossible.

We need to see what he does. We need to worship him. We need to learn from the word and learn from our own lives as we step out. We have those moments. We need to see the God that'll move mountains if he needs to. We need to see the God that'll make water come from a rock. Matter of fact, one of the biggest things I hear from people in serving and trusting God is to serve. You say, I don't have enough time. Really? There's a story in the Bible where God called his people to go protect some people they made an alliance with even though they weren't supposed to, but God says, you're keeping your word. But to get to them in time, they weren't gonna get there while the sun was still up. They needed more time to get there. And you know what God did? He stopped

time itself so they could get there while it was still light. So if you're telling me you don't have enough time, I don't get it. Because God says if you really, really, really, really, really, really needed more time, I could stop time.

So when you say I don't have time, what you're saying is, I'm running after all these possibles in my life that my heart has led me to, and I am ignoring the path he's gave me. When all we do is

We're going to do going

the inflation rate is? That's not gonna end you. Who cares what the world is saying? Who cares who gets elected? Who cares? I'm not saying we don't participate. What I'm telling you is stop making that where life is found. Stop making that the goal.

Stop looking for your ups and your downs and your happiness and joy from anything other than the absolute

love of Jesus Christ who died for you. That's how much he loves you. Who's called you to look to him. Look to him. That's what worship is all about. That's why we come and sing. That's why we come and shout. That's why I'm losing my voice right now doing this for the fourth time. I am not angry. I am excited.

I am hopeful. And I wanna fire you guys up to see a God who is so awful and so awesome that you don't have to worry. You just look to him. You shout out to him and you say, God, you are the God that'll move mountains. You are the God that'll part seas. You are the God that'll bring water out of a rock, and you are the God that will see me through this moment, and I will see you through all of eternity.

So here's what we wanna do. Let's stand because I can't yell anymore.

Let's make that our closing prayer. Let's sing this song and let's shout it to the Lord about the God who can do anything because He wants you to know this. And you can do it through these three simple words.

Just remember that he wants to say these three things to you, and you need to really, really, really, really believe it. He says through all of this, I love you. Amen.

Amen, church. Anything is possible with our father. We'll be going to this week not chasing what seems possible for us, but being patient and waiting on the Lord's time and because he is possible what seems impossible to us. Amen? Amen.

Thanks for joining us this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpointe.io for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.