Distorted | Week 6 | Message

God helps the humble, not the hustle.

God helps the humble, not the hustle. Now what does that look like? Because some of think, oh, so that means I don't have to do anything. I just trust God. I'm humble, and I no. We'll see that it it where there is action. There's some hustling we gotta do. We gotta get in the game, but it's just the order of it and how it works that matters.

So what I wanna do is show how powerful this is because if we miss this moment, many of us struggle even coming to church. Many of us are wrestling with these things all the time, and we don't even understand. That's why the New Testament talks about this concept so much, because we get sucked into it so subtly.

Because that's how the world operates. The world operates, you earn everything, you do this, and if you worked hard and you didn't get something, you have the right to be angry. So we're gonna be in the book of second Kings, which by the way is right after first Kings, if you're wondering,

and no, it's it's in the front part of the the Old Testament. The Old Testament, this is about kings, the books of kings is talking about, you know, the kings is really talking about history of Israel, of God's people, He called them out, and and the struggles they have,

and they always struggle with the same concept of of of getting arrogant, getting entitled. We're God's people. He loves us. We're better than everyone else. So they looked down on outsiders, they thought they were better all just because they showed up at the synagogue, they had the temple, you know, they they just did these things and and they thought it was better, but they were really missing out.

And and and and at this point in time, they weren't getting healed, you see, God wasn't help helping them. There wasn't healing going on. They're struggling. It's during time of a prophet named Elisha. It's about eight fifth hundred and fifty BC, and and the story we're gonna look at is in this time when his people,

they they believe in him, but they don't believe him. That's the real issue, and they don't humble themselves.

And so this is a story about a man who finds a healing, but the healing is not the ultimate goal of what God wanted for him. And here's the kicker of all this. The guy we're gonna read about isn't even an Israelite.

He's he's a Syrian from Aram, they called it back then, which was one of the prime enemies of of Israel. Matter of fact, they were kind of a bully of Israel then. They're a little bit more powerful. And and and and he's he's the one that finds this real help, this real healing with the Lord.

A genuine relationship with God, and and and and basically he seeks a healing, and he walks away knowing the healer. And and it's kind of powerful that it's it's an outsider, because that would kind of offend the Jews anyways. And when he God's trying through his prophet and through his word

to call us out of that, to go, hey, it's not about the hustle. I help the humble, not the hustle. And so here we go. I just wanna read these 15 verses and then talk about what that means and why this is a critical thing that that that we need in our lives and need to understand.

It says, the king of Aram had a great admiration for Naaman, the commander of his army, because through him the Lord had given Aram great victories. But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy.

At this time, the Aramean raiders had invaded the land of Israel, and among their captives was a young girl who had been given to Naaman's wife as a maid. One gay day, the girl said to her mistress, I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy.

So Naaman told the king what the young girl from Israel said. Now just set up. Here's what you learn a lot about this guy. He's the commander of the army that had all these victories, and a lot of those victories were over Israel, and all these things was he's wealthy, he's powerful, and and and and yet

he must be desperate when it comes to this this disease because he was willing to listen to this servant girl who was from a country they looked down on and beat up, and and and every of in this region, everybody had their gods,

and they had their gods in Syria, and back then they felt like if we are more powerful than you, our God is more powerful than you. So the fact that he's willing to take this serious tells you he's desperate. And so he goes to the king, and the king tells him, go and visit the prophet,

the king of Aram told him. I will send a letter of introduction for you to take the king of Israel. So Naaman started out. Now this lets you know a little bit about him as well. Carrying his gifts £750 of silver, a 150 of gold, and 10 sets of clothing. Now that last part's always weird to me. You got

hundreds of pounds of of precious metals, and then the bible says, oh, and he brought 10 outfits. So what is this? A Taylor Swift concert? What's going on here?

And I go, no. No. Seriously, 10 out, but that would have been a big deal to do travel and take 10 different sets of clothes because most people had one, two, maybe. If you're wealthy, you might have four or five, but so it says that this guy's been very successful,

very powerful, but he has this disease, and he he can't do nothing about it. He has this this this issue. So he goes, but it also says he took a lot of money to collect, and and so he's going to buy himself a cure basically.

It says, but get this, the letter the king is Israel said, like he says, I'll send a letter. This is all the letter said. With this letter I present my servant Naaman. I want you to heal him of his leprosy. Man, that's kind of a quick that's more of like, couldn't that have been a text? That was like

so fast and so demanding.

Matter of fact, verse seven. When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes in dismay and said, am I God that I can give life and take it away? Why is this man asking me to heal someone with leprosy? I can see that he's just trying to pick a fight with me. So you see, it shows you that Syria's more powerful, like he's like, he's giving me an impossible task just so he can come in and take something from us. That's what he's convinced of.

None of them are thinking about what the Lord might want in all this. It says, but when Elisha, the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes in dismay, he sent this message to him. Why are you so upset?

Send Naaman to me and he will learn that there is a true prophet here in Israel. What he meant by that wasn't bragging about him. A true prophet meant I represent the real Lord. He's gonna see the power of God. He's gonna come to know who God really is.

And so he said, send him here. So Naaman went with his horses and chariots. So now he has this this bling, like it's in the military. He brought his officers. So this is kind of like a military entourage of wealth and power riding through, and if imagine this, he rolls up to this prophet's house. Well, the prophets weren't wealthy. It's probably just some commoner little house. He comes rolling in and might have even changed in a second of his 10 outfits, I don't know, And it says, he comes rolling up, but it says he knocks at the door,

and he says he's waiting at the door.

But Elisha sent a messenger out to him with this message, go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River, then your skin will be restored, you'll be healed of your prophecy. So this important guy comes rolling in. He's made to wait, and then a servant just goes opens the door. Yeah. He said go wash yourself seven times in that river, and then you'll be alright. Shuts the door.

Well, now we really understand this guy's attitude, because look what he says. But Naaman became angry and stalked away. He was so many stalked. What's stalking?

I know it's that you're stalking someone, being creepy, but but to stalk away? I mean, what does that even look like? I don't even know. I mean, how do you stalk? Has anyone ever stalked? And did he walk like this? No. That's not it. That just looks like angry Charlie Chaplin.

I don't know. I don't know what his talking is, but he was gonna leave. He was angry, and he's I'm out of here. I'm out of here. Why? Pride. He's almost gonna miss everything because of the pride, and we know that because look what he says. He he he was gonna walk away, and then he says,

I thought he would certainly come out and meet me. That's why I think he said it. He would come and meet me. I'm important. I invented the piano tie. What have you done? That's what he was probably thinking, if he had seen the movie Zoolander. But he said, I expected him. See, first he thought dangerous, and he expected.

See through his pride, he he he thinks that I've hustled. I'm successful. I'm bringing the money. I'm bringing this. And he goes, I thought that their god was gonna do this because I expected it to happen this way. I thought he would treat me as important, and I expected it to be done this way.

Because look what he expected. He goes, I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call in the name of the Lord of his God and heal me. So he thought he's gonna come out. Oh, great warrior. Here you go. Alright. Let's get together and do this just for me. He's like, yabba dabba doo. And then he'd be like, yeah.

Look what I did because I, you know, I'm rich and powerful and and all this. But that's not what happened. Elisha didn't even talk to him. He just told us that, yeah, just go tell him to wash in that river seven times. And he gets he gets really angry. He's like, I expected you would do that. And he keeps going. It says

it says, aren't the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar better than any of the rivers of Israel? Why shouldn't I wash in them and be healed? So Naaman turned away and went away in a rage. He's done. He's like gonna leave. He's out of there.

And and and it's funny. He's talking about these rivers, and you know, I've been I've I've been in the Jordan. I've seen it. And those other rivers are way better rivers.

If you've seen the Jordan River, all you need to do is go up to one of these canals and look at it, and you've pretty much seen the Jordan River. It's just this murky little river, more like a canal that if you go in it to baptize people, fish bite you on the legs while you're trying to do it. That's about it.

And so he's like, he's getting mad because he's like, my rivers are better. I'm better than this. Why? If I was just at the Washington River, this is stupid to wash in that river. So he's about to leave. But then it says,

his officers tried to reason with him and said, sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn't you have done it?

That's an interesting thing to say. I think they understood him, and I think that says something about how we are naturally wired as people, and men especially us. It's like, I don't want something that's free. If I'm gonna go work for something, I wanna have the glory of it. So it's like, if he had said go climb Mount Everest

and or do something crazy, you know, just do something dumb like that, like like, I need you to do this. I need you to do that. I need you to, you know, whatever. That was hard. You would said, challenge accepted, because now I'm gonna go earn it.

But he said, so you should certainly obey him when he simply says, go and wash and be cured. So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times as the man of God had instructed him. And his skin became as healthy as the skin as a young child and he was healed.

Then Naaman and his entire party went back to find the man of God. They stood before him and Naaman said, now I know. And if we've learned anything from GI Joe, knowing's half the battle. Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.

He went looking for a healing. He left with a relationship with the healer. And when God helps, the point of this story, the reasons in the Bible is not about getting cured from leprosy. God just used that to show who he was. The point was the real healing Naaman needed is he needed to know God.

He needed to know where real salvation comes from. He needed to know where truth comes from. He needed to know the God who loves him. He needed to know and experience the grace of God. But how do you outdo that? He had to humble himself. See, we think of humility as a as a as a character trait,

and yeah, you need to be a humble person, but we think it's something that was born in like a personality trait. Like, hey, you're loud. You're quiet. You're this way. You're humble. You're proud. It's not that way. It says humble yourself in the Bible for reason. You may have a natural characteristic to be

more arrogant and to lean that way, but you can choose humility. It's a choice. You have to it doesn't matter if you feel more confident, you can choose humility. That's what we need to do. That's the only thing this guy had to do in order to then go the direction he needed to be to find what really mattered.

And it took this idea that this, you know, humble, not hustle. So how does that work? In here, I see three things. Three things that I think we need to understand that's gonna help our lives. And the first one is the distortion says earn it. God says receive it.

See, that's the problem with God helps those who help themselves. That means you gotta go earn it. The problem with when you earn it, if you thought you earned it, you're mad when it you win what you thought and what you expected doesn't happen. And you miss what God really has.

See, you you you can't earn it. Like I said, we can't, and the distortion says you gotta go do this, but God says, you need to receive it. You know, ask yourself, where in my life am I trying to earn God's help instead of receiving it? Do you really want something? So you're like, I'm gonna make sure I go to church

because Jesus Claus is coming to town, and I don't wanna be on the naughty list. That's that doesn't work. It sets up all the things I said, that that pride and that panic result. So then the second thing that we hear is like if you watch what happened with Naaman is pride blocks the help, but humility opens the way.

It's God that helps. It's God that transforms. It's God that does it, But the channel in which he can in our life is humility. We have to choose to be humble. And that's why Elisha knew. That's why he didn't go to the door.

He needed a challenge. That was the ultimate. Elisha, I love this guy, man. He was a throat puncher. That's like a throat punching sermon. He just says, hey, avoiding what's really going on here is not gonna help this guy.

When I preach, I try to say, guys, I'll tell you what I think God wants us to hear, not what I think you wanna hear. I what do we need to hear? Because Elisha was willing to to to to to challenge this guy's pride by going, I'm not even gonna answer the door. I'm gonna send this guy to go tell him.

And the truth is God's ways may feel beneath you. They may feel weird. They may sound stupid. They may sound whatever God's doing, it may not make sense. It may be confusing, but they're really designed to bless us.

He's not trying to shame us. He's trying to free us at a deeper level than just the thing we think we need freedom from. He's trying to take us not just to this momentary healing, He wants us into an eternal relationship with the Healer Himself. That's what we need more than anything else.

But the thing is pride will cause us to miss that. We'll get angry. We'll think it's stupid. I do this. I do it with God. I think we all do. I know I do it with people. It's kinda like this. On Friday, was,

in a meeting with with my friend, Randy Deal. He helped plant the church. I don't know if you know him, but, he's like a 175 years old, and,

and a 100 of those years, he's been a pharmacist. You know, he was he's he's in in pharmacy, and he works with he's actually even though he's been in ministry for a long time, he's still on the side, still consults and does some pharmacy work. He stays active in that. He's medically trained and all this, so he really knows what he's talking about. And whenever I have an issue with health, I talk to him about it, but we were in a conversation about about the

I had to have a physical once a while back, and and they they were concerned because my heart rate was so low. And I said, it's because I'm in good shape. And the doctor said, looked at me and said, think we need to send you to a cardiologist. So that tells you how much he thought I was in shape.

And so I go, they made me do that treadmill test, which was annoying, came back. I was in good shape. And so

the the and I told Randy, he goes, what was the result? He goes, well, the cardiologist told me I had a point one percent chance of having a cardiac infraction in the next five years. And Randy isn't saying all he says is, he says, in in a in a I can't remember the name of the word. See, I hate it so much. Yeah.

Infarction. He just said he didn't say anything else. I go, cry and he just goes, infarction. I'm like, excuse me? Did you just sneeze? And he goes, it's a myocardial infarction. And I'm like, what? What you that's what a heart attack is. A myocardial infarction. I go, infarction? No. I'm pretty sure it's infraction.

And he goes, no. It's not a math problem. He goes, you didn't get a speeding ticket. It's it's infarction.

And I go, that no. No. I don't think so. That doesn't even sound like a real word to me. That sounds like a stupid word that's made up for a doctor Seuss book. And I'm saying this stuff to him. I'm arguing with him. And when I say how dumb it is, I go, I think I'm right. I think it's infraction.

I look back at him. He doesn't argue with me anymore. He's he's all he's doing is this. He's looking at me like this.

He didn't say anything. He just stared at me like that. Like he's like, I'm waiting for your brain to catch up. Just think about it, what you're doing right now. Just give it some thought. And he's right. He's like I'm like, oh, yeah. You probably know better than me. So I just I just thought infarction sounded stupid,

and I just didn't make any sense. Well, that's what's happening in here. What Naaman's doing, what I think we often do. He's like, he goes and he thinks, I thought I go, I bring the money, I promise this, I got the letter from the king. I'm me, and I've done all these things, and now I'm coming here. This guy should come out, put on a big show. I should be healed instantly. It should be celebrated.

And then instead, a servant says, you know what I want you to do? Go dip yourself seven times in that river over there. And he goes, infarction? That's stupid.

And he didn't realize it wasn't stupid. It just he didn't get it.

And that's really what what pride will do. It's like and and what I mean pride, you hear pride and you don't hear what I'm saying. Everyone who's pride, some of you have just as much pride, but you don't I'm not prideful. I'm I'm you know, I I feel like I can't do that. I can't even do this. I've I've done nothing but mess up. I just can't. I can't trust God. Even if I trust God, it's not gonna work. You'd like you get that's still pride. There's two types of pride. There's successful pride, where you you you're confident, you you feel like you are winning, and, know, and you're walking around like this.

I'm the I'm the alpha. There's also unsuccessful pride, where you're like, I don't think I could still do what God asked me to do. I still can't trust that because it's just not gonna work. I'm gonna mess it up. Pride is saying I know better than you.

So if you won't trust because you think you're a failure, that's still pride because it's based on you. You're still doing the hustle. You just think you're not good at hustling.

But what we need to know is that will block what God really wants for us, and you'll live in the pride and panic mode even if you come to church every week. So he says, here's what you gotta do. You gotta think about this. Ask yourself, where is pride right now keeping me from trusting and obeying

what God is clearly saying? Do you remember I said is if if hustle is what we don't do, then trusting God and humbling must be do nothing. No. No. It's not. Because the third point is that healing begin healing begins where the hustle ends.

And what does that mean? When the hustle ends is what what what Naaman did. He actually humbled himself, but then he did what God wanted him to do. Even though it was like to him, it's infarction. That makes sense. He was probably looking at that river and going, you know what?

What does that have to do with healing my leprosy? And you know what the answer is? Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Him doing that was not what healed him. All that was was God wanted him, and and the prophet knew he like, you need to trust God completely.

And God will often whisper in our ear, When we want help with this, he's gonna say, but I need you to obey me.

I need you to trust me with your life, because you're not gonna really get the true healing. You're not gonna get where you need to be. You're not gonna have the real gift of of that life that could make sense. The life that if you don't trust me, and I'm gonna ask you to do stuff that you think is disconnected from that.

And you were gonna look and pride will say, infarction. I don't wanna do that. Like you could be sitting here and I could be like Elisha. I'm sharing a message on here's what God's asked us to do. Well, I got this problem right now. Okay. You know what he wants you to do? Go dip yourself in the river seven times.

And you know what that means? You know why I know that's what it's talking about is because the fact that he said seven times. Numbers mean something in the Bible, and seven means completion. It means complete and total. Six means incomplete,

faulty, failure comes up short. That's why in the in the book of Revelation talks about six six six. That's the ultimate incomplete not there. Seven seven seven on the other hand is the ultimate number of perfection. I also know this because my birthday is 07/07/1970. So 07/07/1977,

I turned seven. I was born at 07:17 in the morning. That means I'm the most complete and perfect male that's ever lived short of Jesus. So I know. I also know now that I just allowed people to probably steal my identity.

Kidding about the part of me being complete, but seven means complete. So the fact when he says dip yourself seven times, the point is that had nothing to do with how he's gonna get it. God's gonna take care of that. But it had everything to do with, I want you to completely trust me. I need you to completely obey me.

Not for my love, not for my help, but from it. From my grace. Because you're never gonna actually learn to live a confident life in a broken world until you are absolutely confident that when I obey God, that's how life works.

And the problem with obeying God is not ever always about you. Matter of fact, that healing was not about Naaman. What was about Naaman is God wanted to know him, and he wanted him to know him.

And you know what's interesting? It's the hard that drives us to that moment. Not the easy, not the win. Because you know why? Most of you skipped right after didn't catch what verse one said in this whole passage. Verse one says, the king of Aram had great admiration for Naaman, the commander of his army, because through him

the Lord had given Aram great victories. Who gave Naaman these great victories for Aram? The Lord. It's capitalized. Not their gods, not other gods, the one true living God.

He was the one that had already made him a good general. He's the one that already gave him these great victories that made him wealthy and powerful. He's the one that provided for him all along. And a matter of fact, the weird twist in your mind that blow the mind, especially of the the the Jews that were reading this is like, woah. Woah. Wait. The Lord gave him victories? Most of those victories were over Israel.

The Lord allowed him to win battles against them, to prove a point to them, but also to show something to him. And here's it. Did did all of that victory, all that wealth, all that success get him to know the Lord?

No. And I think it's the same true for you and me. Most of the time, in our greatest moments of success, we forget the Lord. That's why it's so easy for American Christians to be so, like, lukewarm. Because we've had blessing and success,

and and and we are have wealth compared to the rest of the world. We are more comfortable. We've been more safe. We've had better education. We've had cool stuff. You've had way better preaching. And

yet, that usually doesn't drive us to our knees. The leprous moments do.

And if you think it's about the hustle, and then you get driven to your knees, you think, why does God hate me? When he's trying to do something greater through you and in you.

He's trying to help us find hope when it seems hopeless. He's showing us how to have have see light when it's dark. He's showing us how to find where real life is and find something meaningful and beautiful when it seems hard. Because when you have that, life can go like this, but you're not gonna panic all the time.

You might get nervous. He's trying to give us a real life, but we have to obey after we've humbled ourselves, because He's gonna ask us to do something that seems totally unrelated, and we don't like that. We get confused by that.

And I'm telling you, we have the whole New Testament. We know what what God has asked Christians to do. We know what dipping ourselves seven times in the river. And when he says seven, that means complete. I want you to trust me with everything. Not not six times, not five times, seven times.

And the Bible describes what he's asked us to be as followers.

And he doesn't do it because you owe me or because you do this, I'm gonna give you something. Says, this is what I built you to be. This is how I built life to work. This is how I built you to find hope. This is what I built you for. And then so you're sitting, when I'm struggling with this, I'm struggling with it. Bill got up and preached on money again.

That doesn't really help my problem, because my problem is money. Uh-huh. I'm telling you, every time you go to the Lord and you're in hopeless, you know what he's gonna say? You know what the the New Testament version of go dip yourself seven times in the river is? Do you know? Do you grow? And do you go?

Let me take care of the rest. Just do what I've asked you to do and watch what I do. Do you know me? Do you come and worship me? Do you are you in the word? Are you letting God search your heart and and draw closer, knowing Christ deeper?

And we can't do that alone. When we really need help, God uses people. Just like in the story, he used his officers. If he didn't have those people in his life, he would have left. That's why we need to grow in biblical community.

Getting in a group with others that will challenge you to grow and be there for you isn't about a checklist that you gotta go do something. It's about life itself. It's why many of you need to go on a Monday night. You can't get past that issue on your own.

And then we need to go live intentionally with our time, our talent, our treasures, our testimony. That mouth that you're thinking, okay, that's just him. Bill just was trying to press up his organization and try to do this stuff. No. That's what the Bible says we are supposed to be as followers.

And if you don't get it, you're being when we don't get it, we, including me, not just you, me, is when we don't get that, we feel like, yeah, that's great. I know that the Bible says this, but but but what we're saying is, infarction.

That sounds dumb. It sounds what does that have to do with my problem right now? It has everything to do with your problem. Because what he's saying is, if you just obey and trust me where I'm taking you, I will help you. You don't have to worry. Everything. I will take care of you.

So being a disciple is everything has to do with how to have a good marriage, how to handle financial issues, how to deal with that, what am I supposed to do with my life. But if we have the hustle, not the humble, we're trying to do what we wanna do, and we're trying to get God to bless it. And what we end up missing

is the true deep relationship with the grace of the healer himself.

And you're only gonna be left with frustration in the end. That's our only choice. And you know, know why that's what this is about because because Jesus brings up this very story in Luke chapter four.

It's when he just he he just went through his testing time in the wilderness. It's when he it's the first time he decides to declare to these people, they're wondering if he's the Messiah. Is he the one who sent? And he declares very clearly, I am God. I am the one. And what how he did it is he went to his hometown of Nazareth,

and he walked up, opened up the scroll in the synagogue, so in church, opens it up, and he read this part of Isaiah that was a prophecy about what the Messiah would bring to his people, the blessing that would happen. And it talked about the blind being

be able to see, the sick being healed, the poor not being oppressed, the you know, and all these great things that we like the outcomes, we like these products. And then he just said, and you know what? Rolled it back up and said, in hearing this, it's been actually completed. Basically, I am is what he's saying. And it says, at first, they were excited. Yeah. Because you know what? All he read was the good parts.

But then one of them mentions, but isn't he the carpenter's son? Isn't that Joseph's son? They're like already showing some doubt, and Jesus already knew. He already knew. He went his hometown. He says, you know what? A prophet's without honor is a hometown. You want this healing. You want that. It's not gonna happen because you're not humble. You think you're entitled to this. You think you you go to church. You think you've done the thing, and you don't understand that, yeah, that's ultimately gonna happen. But what I really need, what you really need, the healing you really need, is you need to humble yourself before and know that I am the Lord God Almighty, and I died to save you, and you need to embrace my grace, and then live from that.

And and and that's what he said, and that's what he's saying. And since you don't get it, you're gonna miss out on this. And what he was saying, it's not just miss out on healing, is you're missing out on a relationship with me. You're gonna do that. And then he quotes this story as an example. And he says, it's just like when Naaman came and he found healing because he humbled himself, and he goes, and he was an outsider and a foreigner. He wasn't even a Jew. He wasn't even one of the promised children. And when he confronted their pride, guess what they did?

They dragged him outside and tried to throw him off a cliff.

He only escaped because I think he has Jedi mind trick powers because he's God. Says he just randomly says walked away through the crowd and they didn't do anything, and he left. I think that was a miracle. Think he think he Jedi mind tripping. He says, I'm not the Messiah you're looking for.

And then he walked right away. Powerful. Why would they act that way? Because he says, you need to know me.

You need to know my love. You need to surrender to that. You need to receive it, and then live from that. And the way you're gonna live from that is by humbly obeying me then. After you know my love, trust me with what I'm asking you to do, and you'll experience it in a deeper way.

But some of us in this room, are you being Jesus' hometown crowd? Is there four things out of the seven you're willing to do? Is there like but you know what? This thing, I'm not gonna listen to what God says.

And when I say it up here and say, hey, here's what the Lord's asking. Here's what the Lord's inviting us to. Here's what we get to do. And you're like, no. And then you get mad at me for saying it. Are you like him? Do you are you in your heart trying to throw me off a cliff? Please don't try to throw me off a cliff. I'm not Jesus. I can't mind trick you. I can take half of you with me though.

We need to completely trust him in all these things. And and it's true. And it's why we talk about things. It's why sometimes we're preaching something, hey, this is what God's called us to be. And for many times when you read or you're reading your bible yourself and it's like,

but I want this. I expected God to do this because I've already done this. Why is he telling me to do this? What does that have to do with healing this? It has nothing to do with that. It just unlocks his ability to work in your life. He takes care of the rest. That's it.

And trust me, I I I know this is because I still wrestle with this. See, I had to realize just recently again that I sometimes fall into this trap of I think even as I'm trusting God, and I know I trust him, I still have to deal with the fact that I have this concept that I keep leading back to that

becoming like Jesus like we're supposed to, that I feel like when I when I check something off that list of, okay, trust God when it seems stupid. In the infarction moments, just say, okay, it's infarction. I'm gonna go where you are. I'm gonna go dip myself in the river seven times even though it seems dumb. I don't see how it's gonna work. I just and I've done that before. So my problem is I feel like, okay, it's like a list. It's like once you did it, you cross it off. You know how many of you are list makers? And don't you like how many of you some of you like putting checks. Some of you are really like destroying those tasks. You feel really good when you draw a line through it when you're done. Right? Like, I've just x ed this whole thing off the list. I have beaten it. It's done. It's donezo.

And and and some of you are even worse than that. Some of you accidentally do something you didn't remember to put on your list, and at the end of day, you go find your list, and you write the thing you already did down, and then you with glee go, yes.

I thought that becoming more like Christ was when you have an issue you approach. Okay. Trusting God with the infarction moments. Did it. Done. What I didn't realize is this is an everyday battle, and God will allow you to be in tense situations to search your heart, to knock us, to remember, are you really,

really, really being humble in this moment? Are you remembering this? Because the world wants to pull us back the other way. Our old self wants to pull us back the other way. So we're constantly battling with this. So I understand

what it means to say, hey, what is God telling you that we know from scripture of this is what it means to be a disciple, to know, grow, go. That doesn't make him love you. It's because he already loves you. He's showing you how to live, and he's asking you to be a part of it.

What is the thing that you just refuse to trust? I'm only gonna dip six times in this river.

Well, partial obedience is actually disobedience, isn't it? I know you know that with your kids.

And it's not so He'll give you was so you you can be close to Him and trust Him because the trust when it is hard comes when you do it. And I've had to deal with this recently. I've had to deal with this recently.

You know, because and it came from a real blessing. It came from God calling us to do something that sounded crazy.

Is in the in the we were running out of room in this campus, and we said, what are we gonna do in the future? And we prayed, and leaders prayed, and we said, hey, we're not supposed to stop pointing people to Jesus.

So what we've done is we've we've went out and and we we started churches, and we've started six daughter churches

just in the last year and a half. Thousands of people going to those churches, thousands upon thousands, thousands of salvations through those churches, thousands of baptism. Life change has been crazy, and the most recent one was the most powerful one. And if you're new around here, six months ago, we sent out our teaching pastor, Daniel, and he planted a church down the street about twenty minutes from here called Echoes,

and and we embraced it. A lot of people go, there's gotta be problem with that, because this sounds so stupid that a big church that's trying to build a building, that's trying to pay its way would say, hey, why don't we take the teaching pastor, send him right down the street, and invite as many people as they want to go and and and leave. And and a matter of fact, I am extra stupid.

I actually got up, announced we're gonna do that, told everyone they should go, talk to him about it. He started doing meetings, and then I left on a a sabbatical and he preached for the next eight weeks. And I said, say whatever you want. Take whoever you care to take. And and everyone's like, you're an idiot.

And and and maybe I am. I don't know. I just felt like that's what we're supposed to do. The problem is is is is it worked. That's the problem. No. It's like and and they they they left with 1,500 people commissioned. Yes. 1,500 people. And there's two issues. Of those, it wasn't just 1,500 people sitting around.

About 600 were leaders. Our children's ministry lost a 160 leaders instantly. That's why my friends in big churches go, you're an idiot. You just weakened your own church. You just hurt it badly.

And I'm like, yeah, but if I have a God helps those who help themselves, I wouldn't send anyone because we can't really help ourselves. We'd be too busy holding on and hoarding. I think we're supposed to go live intentionally.

See what I meant about God's gonna tell you to do something that doesn't seem connected to your problem? And our problem was we were building this building, and he goes and takes all those 1,500 and takes $2,000,000 a year in giving.

At the same time, it happened so fast, it grew so quickly that he wasn't supposed to leave until about two weeks from now. But it hit so fast, it's like there's only one place he can meet. You got too many people. You gotta go now. So go now. And and and and he went. And he's actually at like 2,700.

They're at 2,700 attendance. They've left a thousand people to the Lord. They're over there. They're busting the seams. They gotta have they're adding a fourth service. And guess what he has to say to his 10:00. It is 11:36. Please don't come on Sundays anymore. Please go to the other days. And guess what he had to start talking. Some people left. Some people didn't leave for good intentions. They left because Bill talks about money too much. Guess who's talking about money right now over there?

Matter of fact, I know this because I was asking him. Yeah. It sounds great. What he's doing is awesome. But we were talking recently and that's how I got even thought about this. He's like, yeah. The sexiness is worn off. It's been six months. People don't like turning a cafeteria into a children's ministry every week. They don't like, and it's it's getting hard.

And but it's being successful. Matter of fact, that the attendance threat and the way they launched, the best we know from knowing people that are consultants and history of church history, the best we know that launch is the largest daughter church launch in the history of The United States church.

But people said I'm dumb because I said we think we should do it. And then it got dumber.

It got dumber because when he since he had to leave early, it was the same time we just finished this building. We thought we had more time to help get settled into it, but we finished the building. And the problem is the building payment came due. We put 35% down, but we had to, you know, finance

the rest. The problem is we had to finance the rest was was it building costs went up. This we started building a couple years ago. So everything started labor costs, it ended up overages of a couple million dollars, and then interest rates went up four points from the time we started building to times we signed our interest rate. So needless to say, just the increase in payment, not the regular. The increase was a $100,000

a month or 1,200,000. So in overnight, we lost hundreds of leaders and had a shift of $3,000,000 on our budget. So yes, Bill has to talk about money. Because guess what? If God's people choose to seven out of seven dips in the water, one of those dips is you will honor God with your money,

and you will give generously to your church to be a part of it.

But then on top of it, to make it worse on stupidity, we had to change over our database. I just found this out. Some of you might not even be giving, and you think you are. Anybody get the emails and think it's a scam? Like, hey. I'm supposed to change over my thing. It's not a scam. That is from us.

And I'm in a meeting and go, wait, we had to do what? And it did what? Now we made it harder for people to figure out how to give, and it's complicated right in the middle of this? I'm like, infarction.

And it's it's it's stressful. But here's the the thing is, I know God will take care of this. I know we did what God want us to do.

Because because of our church plans, if you look at Easter, look at this. We already have more people now that know the Lord, that have come to the Lord, that are attending church weekly, than we will ever be able to get even with the 700 new seats in this location. And God let us do that.

Every one of us is a part of He let us do that. But here's the deal. Can you actually be doing what God wants you to do and still be struggling with the attitude as well? Does it have to be either you're right or you're stupid?

Because I'm telling you, I don't know. I think you can do both because I think you gotta wrestle with that. Because as it happened, all the other big churches, my friends are like, not only were you dumb to do it in the first place, you did that, you did that, you did that, and I look at them and I I don't know, part of my attitude, part of my ego, somebody's like, you think that's stupid. Wait to see what I do next. I'm gonna double down on my stupidity. I will triple down on being stupid.

And and that's my personality. So I was like, well, wait. So then what happens? Even though I did the right thing, when it gets hard, the enemy tries to come in and says, did God really tell you? Why is it so hard? Maybe you are dumb.

And then you doubt, then you get fearful, then you get angry, then you get scared, and then you get panicky, and then you try to do dumb things, then you try to force people into doing stuff, and then you I'm not trying to force anybody in anything.

But I had to challenge that thought, and here's where I'm at. Seriously. Here's here's where I've been. I'm gonna be honest with you guys. This is how I feel about what we've done with them. I feel like the parent, and a lot of our leaders and people feel like the parents that sacrificed financially

and resource and everything to send our kids to college. And now we can't make our house payment, and yet I'm watching their TikTok videos of them having fun on campus. Does that make sense? That's what I have to deal with in my heart.

But here's the thing. That's not bad. Did I say I hate my kids and I don't know? I'm glad. I'm proud. I wanted to do that. The problem isn't that we did it. The problem isn't even that it's hard. The problem is, as Naaman said, I thought and expected

that God would make it a little bit easier because a little piece of my heart said, no one is this crazy stupid to do this as a church, and we trusted you God that much, you should have made this easier. That's where I'm at. That's what I had to deal with.

That frustration to me has nothing to do with what we did. It'd have everything to do with what I expected God would do after what I did. How about you? Do you have those moments? Are you having one right now? Because in those moments, in that hard, guess what it forced me to do? Confront my helplessness.

Confront the fact that, oh, wait. I expected a difference. So maybe I was just I did the right thing, but I was still trying to do it. Just make it work. And now I just gotta fall on my face and say, God, what do you want me to do now? And as I spend the time with the Lord, I'm not frustrated. I don't walk away mad.

I get to walk away the same way that Naaman did. Grateful. He was actually grateful for his problem. Because if he didn't have that problem, he never would have met the Lord.

How about you? Where is it? Where is it that you just need to listen to God and stop fighting Him and be humble and just whatever other issues in your life, just say, God, what do you need from me?

What's my Jordan River I need to dip in seven times? Not because I know that's gonna make you heal me, but it's just because I know I'm gonna draw closer to you because I'm gonna trust you, not myself and not anything else. Father God, I thank you, Lord. I thank you that you love us the way you do,

that you love us more than we can love ourselves. And Lord, right now, I pray for myself as well as everyone in this room and anyone online, May we just simply humble ourselves before you. Stop trying to hustle and just humble ourselves and listen to you. And listen for your voice even if what you ask and what you do

is not what we thought nor what we expected.

May we just trust you and then see just how you help and what you do and be grateful on the other side of it. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey. Thanks for joining us for service online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on our Rock Point social media to stay connected.