Jarek Berga - When Warning Lights Flash

[00:00:00] Almighty God, you welcome you. Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to, so we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we hope you enjoy the message. [00:00:34] If you are new here, welcome. [00:00:37] We're so glad that you're here. [00:00:40] My name is Herrick. I'm one of the elders here of Restore Temecula, and I want to welcome you to our Sunday morning gathering. [00:00:50] Normally, we have Tom and Mike as well as elders. They are still elders, they're just not here. They both have their wedding celebration, their wedding anniversary, around the same time, so they're both gone for that. So I'm flying solo today. Thank you, Mark, for jumping in. [00:01:07] Where are you? Back there. Thank you. It's good to be with you guys. So glad that you're here. I know it's Memorial Day weekend. It's a holiday. It's just kind of a different time of the year. Things are starting to slow down. And so glad that you are here. And I have something that I want to share with you guys this morning that comes out of a passage of scripture or a part of scripture that we haven't necessarily been in. [00:01:28] We have been in the Gospel of Matthew actually, for several years. I don't remember when it started. I think it was 20, 21. I'm doing my best to make sure that we don't end until the next decade begins, because every time I get a chance, I pause and I do something else. So normally we're in. Matthew, if you've been with us for a few weeks or if this is your first time, that's where we spend bulk of our time. But today, we're going to be in Ezekiel. [00:01:51] Jeff, Mike, who here has been in Ezekiel this week? [00:01:54] Not a one. One person. [00:01:57] Cool. You and me. [00:01:58] So I'll do some work to make sure that we're on board and understand what's going on in this passage. But before I do, would you pray? I'm going to invite you to pray and join me as I ask God for his kindness and help in this morning's message. [00:02:13] Father, thank you for this morning. [00:02:16] Thank you for the opportunity to open up your word. [00:02:19] God, I thank you that your word is Living active. [00:02:24] Your word does not return. Void. [00:02:27] And so this morning, I don't know where everyone is at, Father. [00:02:31] Some may be having great weeks, some may be having really hard weeks. [00:02:35] Peaks and valleys of life. I don't know where everyone is on that. I'm sure there's a variety in the mix in this room. [00:02:40] But God, would you meet us wherever we are? [00:02:44] Would you take what your word says and apply it to every heart as only you can? [00:02:54] God, would you tenderize hearts this morning? [00:02:57] Would you renew hearts, God, and if there's any that need it, would you replace hearts and do what only you can do? [00:03:05] God, we love you. We thank you. [00:03:08] Would you help me this morning? It's in your name we pray. Amen. [00:03:17] I want you to imagine for a second that you are a pilot. [00:03:20] It's easier for some of us than others, but I want you to imagine it, okay? Some of us in this room actually have been pilots before. Or you're like me and you're passionate without really knowing what you're talking about in terms of flying. [00:03:32] So close your eyes for a second. Imagine you're a pilot. [00:03:36] I want you to imagine that you are on a routine flight and you're mid flight. On a routine flight. The weather is fine. This is a route that you know. [00:03:47] And it's quiet in the cockpit until the warning lights start flashing and you hear this warning. [00:03:58] Turn around. Now. [00:04:01] You think to yourself, but the destination is close. [00:04:05] The passengers are waiting. [00:04:07] They've already come this far. Turning around would be costly. [00:04:13] Changing course right now might feel embarrassing. [00:04:17] The warning lights continue to flash, but inside you hear a different sound, different voice. [00:04:24] You know what it says? [00:04:26] It says, keep going, Keep going. [00:04:31] Sometimes later, the wreckage shows what the warnings were trying to prevent. [00:04:37] You can open your eyes now. [00:04:41] Some of you are like, who is this guy? He starts a message with a plane crash for real. [00:04:51] You'll get used to this if you hang out with us pretty much every time. [00:04:56] But here's the thing with this picture, if you can feel what that would be like, this kind of thing isn't true only in airplanes. [00:05:05] This is true in the soul. [00:05:08] Maybe you even know what this feels like. Maybe it's not a crisis for you. [00:05:12] Maybe it's just kind of a low hum. [00:05:15] Maybe it just looks like staying busy, not because there isn't enough time, but because stopping means feeling something you'd rather not feel. [00:05:28] Maybe it looks like work that has quietly become the thing that tells you whether you matter. [00:05:34] So you keep doing more. It keeps not being enough. [00:05:39] But you don't know who you are without it. [00:05:44] Maybe it's a little simpler. Maybe it just looks like a screen at the end of the day. [00:05:48] Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it has quietly become the place you disappear or something you keep coming back to that you wouldn't want anyone to see. [00:06:00] That's worth noticing. [00:06:03] Maybe for you, it looks like a conversation you've been avoiding for months. [00:06:07] Maybe it's something in a relationship that isn't right and both parties know it. [00:06:12] But saying it out loud feels like more than you can afford right now. You just can't pay that cost. [00:06:17] So you find ways to keep the peace without resolving anything. [00:06:22] The warning lights are going off. [00:06:26] Keep going, keep going. [00:06:30] Maybe for you, it just looks like getting through. [00:06:33] Maybe you're faithful, but you are exhausted. [00:06:36] Your fuel gauge is running on empty. [00:06:41] Or for you, maybe it's something heavier than that. Maybe something has turned your world upside down. [00:06:47] Maybe there are relationships that you counted on that are falling apart. [00:06:52] Maybe it's something you didn't even see coming. And you have no idea how you're going to carry this, how you're going to carry on through this season. And you're here today, maybe because you just didn't know where else to go. [00:07:05] Or maybe you're here and you're sitting with questions you actually haven't said out loud yet. [00:07:11] Questions about God, questions about faith. [00:07:15] Maybe you're here and you're struggling to believe. Is any of this even real? [00:07:19] And maybe it's felt more comfortable and safe to keep this quiet because you're not sure if anybody would understand you. [00:07:27] I think whatever you're coming in with today, I think there is something for you here in it. [00:07:34] Whatever it is, the shape of it is going to look different for each person. But underneath most of us, underneath most of it, if we get quiet enough, there is a voice that's saying something. I think this is what it's saying. [00:07:46] You cannot keep going like this warning light. [00:07:52] But if you're anything like me, you're human. [00:07:54] And we just tend to keep pressing through and pushing through. [00:07:58] Somewhere underneath it, there is probably a fear. [00:08:02] If I stop, what will I find? [00:08:07] If I admit weakness, Will people still love me? [00:08:11] If I stop performing or coming through or meeting other people's expectations at the workplace, Will I still matter? [00:08:20] Will I still be secure? [00:08:23] So oftentimes we just find ways to continue going. [00:08:26] We get busy enough that we don't have to feel it. [00:08:29] Isn't that a real temptation in this life? [00:08:33] Busy enough or distracted enough where we don't have to feel a thing. [00:08:38] We perform well enough that nobody asks. [00:08:41] Maybe we hold on tight, just tight enough that that thing that we're looking to just keeps from unraveling. [00:08:48] And here's what. Oftentimes we end up telling ourselves one word. [00:08:53] Later. [00:08:55] Later, when things settle, when I have more margin, when the season changes. [00:09:02] The crazy part is later never comes. [00:09:05] Later never comes. [00:09:08] These are the moments when God, in His mercy, lets warning lights flash. [00:09:15] How? [00:09:17] And this guy just keeps going on about airplanes, but I don't know what he's talking about. [00:09:21] Well, sometimes it comes through scripture, but just hits different. [00:09:27] Sometimes it comes through the Holy Spirit's conviction. [00:09:31] Sometimes it comes through someone who cares enough about you to tell you the truth. [00:09:37] Sometimes it comes through repeated consequences. [00:09:41] Or sometimes it just comes through the quiet exhaustion of just trying to hold everything to the together. [00:09:50] This all raises the question that I want to put in front of you guys today that's going to carry us through this entire message. Here's the question. [00:09:58] What am I trusting to hold me together? [00:10:03] What am I trusting to hold me together? [00:10:10] I know this is a heavy start. You're going to see why soon enough. When I actually get into Ezekiel, what I just did is going to feel light compared to what Ezekiel does. [00:10:19] None of this, by the way, is to shame you. None of this is to crush you. You don't need me to do that. Life does that. [00:10:26] Your inner critic does that. I don't need to sit here and make you feel worse. Most of you probably already feel terrible about yourselves, or you keep telling yourself a different narrative so you don't have to listen to that inner voice. So I'm not here to make you feel worse. [00:10:45] I'm also not here to make you afraid of good things that you might look to. [00:10:50] It's not what I'm here for. [00:10:58] Sometimes the mercy of God is that he not only comforts us after the crash, but that he warns us before it. [00:11:11] We're going to talk about that today. [00:11:13] We're going to talk about warning lights. Now. [00:11:17] One more thing. [00:11:19] One of the most reliable signs that we are avoiding our own warning lights is that we become expert at spotting everyone else's. [00:11:30] At any point in this message, you just find yourself thinking about somebody else. [00:11:35] It's worth noticing. [00:11:38] Not a shame. It's just information for yourself to be aware of. [00:11:43] Sometimes God's mercy is that he warns us about these things before they happen. [00:11:48] That's exactly what's happening in Ezekiel, chapter six. [00:11:51] If you have a Bible, turn over to Ezekiel, chapter six. We're going to get started in verse number one. [00:11:57] Little bit of context, because only two of us have been in Ezekiel this week, which, by the way, no shame or shade. It is a weird book to us thousands of years after it was written. It was probably a hard book to understand to those who were contemporaries of Ezekiel. [00:12:11] Flash forward thousands of years. Totally different context, highly prophetic image imagery, very hard to understand. So if you've tried reading Ezekiel and maybe like a yearly reading plan and you've given up or wanted to get it. Okay, totally get our hashtag. Still a thing, sort of 100%. Oh, okay, great. [00:12:39] Never mind. It doesn't matter. Ezekiel, chapter six. A little bit of context. Ezekiel was living in exile, which means that he was taken from Jerusalem, the city of David, God's people, the center. [00:12:52] He was a part of a group of people that were taken from Jerusalem as a prisoner to Babylon or by Babylon. And so when God calls him to speak to his people, he brings a word that is really hard to a people that are going through really hard things. [00:13:09] But underneath the severity of that, God is moving toward his people, not to destroy them, but to bring them back. Let's start with chapter one, chapter six, verse one. [00:13:21] Here we go. I'm in the Christian standard Bible. If you don't have a Bible with you, that's okay. The verses will be up on the screen. [00:13:29] Here we go. [00:13:31] This is Ezekiel. He says in verse one, the word of the Lord came to me. [00:13:36] Son of man, face the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. [00:13:43] You are to say, mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. [00:13:48] This is what the Lord God says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines, into the valleys. [00:13:56] I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. More on that in a bit. [00:14:04] Your altars will be desolated and your shrines smashed. [00:14:09] Like a rage room kind of situation. [00:14:12] Just, pssh, stuff's coming. Stuff's gonna be broken apart. [00:14:18] It says, I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. [00:14:24] Told you the intro was nothing compared to what was coming. [00:14:27] Verse 5. [00:14:28] I will lay the corpses of the Israelites in front of their idols and scatter your bones around your altars wherever you live. The cities will be in ruins and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will lie in ruins and be desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your shrines cut down, and what you have made wiped out. [00:14:51] The slain will fall among you. [00:14:54] And here's the key. [00:14:56] This is what it's all for. And you will know that I am the Lord. [00:15:02] Yet I will leave a remnant when you are scattered among the nations. For throughout the countries there will be some of you who will escape the sword. Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are taken captive, how I was crushed by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from me, and by their eyes that lusted after their idols. [00:15:25] They will loathe themselves because of the evil things they did, their detestable actions of every kind. [00:15:32] And they will know that I am the Lord. [00:15:35] I did not threaten to bring this disaster on them without a reason. [00:15:40] This is what the Lord God says. [00:15:43] Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and cry out over all the evil and detestable practices of the house of Israel. Who will fall by the sword. [00:15:54] Famine and plague. Verse 12. [00:15:57] The one who is far off will die by plague. The one who is near will fall by the sword. And the one who remains and is spared will die of famine. [00:16:06] In this way I will exhaust my wrath on them. [00:16:11] You will all know that I am the Lord when their slain lie among their idols, around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak, the places where they offered pleasing aromas to all their idols. Verse 14, Last one. [00:16:32] I will stretch out my hand against them, and wherever they live, I will make the land a desolate waste from the wilderness to Ribla. [00:16:42] Then they will know that I am the Lord. [00:16:55] Ezekiel's approval ratings were pretty low at this point. [00:17:00] Nobody really wanted to listen to this guy. I wonder why. [00:17:04] I wonder why. [00:17:07] Okay, here we go. [00:17:09] In Ezekiel 6, the warning lights have been flashing for years. [00:17:15] The high places where Israel, God's people, kept going to feel safe, secure, and okay apart from God. [00:17:24] Ezekiel 6 is severe. I think we can agree on that. [00:17:31] It's not light, it's not sentimental, it's definitely not easy to hear. In fact, it's kind of uncomfortable to read, let alone say out loud to a room this size. Pretty. Pretty awkward. [00:17:43] I do think about what I preach ahead of time, if anyone's curious. Like, does he? How does he pick these passages? I actually pray, and I'm like, God, are you sure? [00:17:52] And then I ask again, are you sure? And then I ask again, like, are you sure sure? Because this is going to land weird for people. [00:18:00] And then if I sense that God is saying yes, I move forward. It's that simple. [00:18:05] But Ezekiel 6 is severe. I suppose I have an intense personality type, anyway, so it kind of works for me. But I know it doesn't work for everyone in this room. It's not what you necessarily showed up to hear. [00:18:16] It isn't easy to hear, but it is honest. [00:18:19] Ezekiel 6 is honest. [00:18:22] And sometimes honesty is mercy. [00:18:26] Seeing the truth can be mercy. [00:18:30] The first thing we see in this passage, if you are a note taker, my first point this morning is that God exposes what cannot save. [00:18:42] God exposes what cannot save. [00:18:46] Let's get into it. Ezekiel 6. It begins in a strange way, very strange to us at least. It says, son of man, face the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. Why mountains? [00:19:01] You could prophesy against leadership, you could prophesy against the city. [00:19:06] Why the mountains? What's that got to do with anything? [00:19:11] Well, in Ezekiel, the mountains are not just scenery. [00:19:14] They're the places where Israel's worship had gone wrong. [00:19:19] By worship, I don't just mean singing songs. Worship is ultimately what we ascribe worth to what we treat as most important. [00:19:27] It's what we look to and say, sometimes without words. In fact, I'd say most of the time, it's without words. [00:19:34] I need you to be okay. [00:19:37] And so the hills, the ravines, the valleys, they were covered with the high places of Israel. And so what is a high place? [00:19:45] Okay, it was an elevated worship site, usually on a hill, on a mountain, where the people built altars, they burned incense, they offered up sacrifices, and they sought help from the gods that they believed could protect them. Now, for Israel, these places became centers of misdirected worship. They were places where God's people treated false gods as ultimately the most important, most powerful, most caring, most able to help sources of life for them. [00:20:17] So what is a high place? It's a place where you go to feel safe, where you go to feel helped, or where you go to feel okay without trusting God. [00:20:25] And then an idol. What is it? It's just what you find in your high place. [00:20:29] It's a thing you're asking to save you that was never made to. [00:20:34] Now, a little bit of historical background for you since again, Ezekiel. This is pretty weird, what we're reading. [00:20:42] They were Canaanite shrines, okay? These were the worship sites of the people who were living in the land. Before God's people got there, they were already there. And so what did people go to these gods for? Were these just kind of like primitive, unsophisticated people? Not at all. So the more I learned about ancient cultures, the way they thought and write I'm like, I think the unsophisticated ones are probably looking in the mirror. [00:21:07] There was a great deal of sophistication in how they thought and how they operated is just kind of foreign to us. So why did they go to the gods in the first place? Well, these gods, they promised what they needed. [00:21:20] If you. Again, right now, this is very hard for us to engage with because we go to the grocery store and we find what we need. [00:21:28] We find incredible things at the grocery store, things that fill our pantries and our refrigerators, and we just kind of take it for granted. Oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes we do, unless we go through some hardship that reminds us of how incredible it actually is that we have food in our pantries. And by the way, if you're in a spot where you're kind of like, dude, you have no idea what's going on in my life right now. You have no idea. The pantry's bare. I'm not here to shame or embarrass you. I'm just letting you know this is the reality, and we would love to help you if that's you. [00:21:57] This is a reality that we just kind of assume and take for granted. But guess what? The people of this ancient world, they didn't have refrigerators that were full of food. They didn't have these pantries that were stocked with all kinds of food. [00:22:12] They had to receive rain or crops. [00:22:17] They needed children to work the land. [00:22:21] The more children you had, the safer you were. [00:22:23] They needed protection from enemies that could come and destroy them. These were real things that every household was. [00:22:31] So it's not that big of a leap to think about the things we think about today. [00:22:34] They needed to go somewhere because one bad harvest and your children went hungry. [00:22:41] One drought, and everything that you've built that's taken years to build will collapse. [00:22:47] And Israel, instead of removing these high places, these idols, they moved in next door. And eventually, when things got hard for them, they started knocking on that door. [00:23:02] That's what happened. [00:23:04] Now, I want you to imagine you're in the middle of a hard week. [00:23:07] For some of you, that's not that hard to do. For those of you, imagine you're in the middle of a hard month. Some of you are not that hard to do. [00:23:16] Imagine you've been in the middle of a hard year or maybe multiple years. [00:23:21] For some of you, that's really not that hard to do. [00:23:24] Imagine that you are living with feelings of uncertainty. [00:23:29] Something feels out of control. [00:23:32] And somewhere, maybe underneath the busyness of life. Underneath the noise, there's a question that's going on in the human heart, maybe yours, that you're quietly trying to answer. [00:23:44] And here it is. Am I going to be okay? [00:23:48] Will my kids be okay? [00:23:51] What is the next generation going to inherit? [00:23:55] And something in you starts looking for an answer. We just can't help it. We're human. [00:24:00] We need answers. [00:24:02] It's that thing that you feel like you need in order to be okay. [00:24:07] And if it is threatened, if you have a feel for this, if you've lived through this, you know, if that thing that you think you need to be okay gets threatened, you do not just feel sad and disappointed. That could be a part of it, but you feel like you might fall apart. [00:24:25] And it could look different at all, different ages and stages of life, but the heart is doing the same exact thing. [00:24:33] And it's into that that God says it's coming down. [00:24:39] Verse three is really direct. I will destroy your high places. [00:24:45] Verse 6 says that the altars will be ruined, the idols smashed, and what you have made will be wiped out. God's naming the entire system, the place, the practice, the things their own hands have made. And I want you to notice how many action words are a part of this. Destroy. Smash. It does sound like a rage room, by the way. I want to be careful. I'm not saying that God has this uncontrollable rage. I'm just saying, like, have you guys heard of these rage rooms before? Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Places that you go to just break stuff. [00:25:14] There was this band back in the day called Limp Bizkit. Don't Google them. They had a song called Break Stuff. Do not look at the lyrics. [00:25:22] You basically live out that song in a room and you pay to do it. [00:25:27] And so you break, you destroy, you smash, you scatter. [00:25:32] And God is essentially saying, this is what you were supposed to do to these high places. [00:25:38] You were supposed to take a bat to them. [00:25:40] Not to people, but to the places. [00:25:44] And God is tearing down in this passage what his people had been had trusted besides him. [00:25:52] We need to understand something, though. This is not a surprise judgment. Those warning lights had already been flashing. This is not a new issue. [00:26:01] Ezekiel is preaching inside the story that Israel already knew. God had been warning them about this for generations. [00:26:07] Long before Ezekiel showed up, God had told Israel what to do with the places of worship of the nations. [00:26:13] He said, you're not to adopt them. You're not to become like the nations around you. [00:26:18] You're not to Just thoughtlessly take it all in and have it rewire you so that you just live out the script that's been handed to you by the culture around you. [00:26:28] That was never the point. [00:26:30] They weren't supposed to keep, manage, rename, rebrand the high places. [00:26:36] And they were definitely not supposed to blend the worship of the Canaanite nations into their own. [00:26:43] What were they supposed to do? [00:26:45] Tear it down? [00:26:47] Bring it down? [00:26:49] These are not your gods. I am. And if this sounds intense, maybe it helps to think of an analogy. [00:26:56] Imagine a faithful spouse with a wandering spouse, married to someone that just likes to leave the house for a while and not come back. [00:27:11] This is deeply personal to God. [00:27:14] This isn't just like a God that has a temper problem. We as humans have temper problems. [00:27:21] God is not a human in that way that he has temper problems. [00:27:26] He's also not some weirdly jealous boyfriend or girlfriend, you know, that he's got to read your phone because they have to know everything that's going on in your life. That's not what I'm talking about. [00:27:37] I'm talking about a God who made us, who is the source of life, who sustains us. [00:27:44] And those God. It's like God saying, like, they have no claim on you. You're mine. [00:27:50] Why are you going to them? [00:27:52] You're mine. [00:27:54] And I told you to clear this all out. [00:27:57] But here's what happened. Israel learned to live with what God had told them to cut off. [00:28:13] And one of the most dangerous things anyone who considers themselves to be a part of God's people can do is to learn with what. But to learn to live with what God has warned us about, here's what happens. [00:28:28] The progression is really, really easy, simple, and it's understandable. At first, the warning bothers us, right? When the warning comes, we're bothered. [00:28:38] When that light on the dashboard comes up, at first you're like, what is this? [00:28:42] Maybe, maybe not for everyone, but when you're driving, for those of you that drive, some of you are getting your license, all that stuff, occasionally you're gonna see, like, a little light come on on your dashboard. [00:28:52] And the first time that happens, especially if it's an unfamiliar light, it's like, whoa, what is that? What does that mean? Oh, low tire. You gotta look at the manual and try to figure out what's next, right? But you know what can happen to anybody that's been driving for a while. [00:29:04] You can just get so used to driving around with warning lights on your car, right? Like, it's no big deal. And the Older the car, and the less you feel invested in it, the easier it is to just drive and drive and drive until one day you're on the side of the road and. And the engine is smoking. You're like, what did I do? [00:29:19] How did I wind up here? [00:29:22] But as human beings, at first, the warning lights can trouble us. [00:29:28] Then we might explain it, then we might start to minimize it, and then it might just become a part of the backdrop of life that we don't think about anymore. Like a warning light on a dashboard. [00:29:39] We just stop noticing it's there. [00:29:43] Actually going back into the cockpit where I belong. Forget cars. We're talking airplanes today. [00:29:50] Pilots know about this. It's called alarm fatigue. [00:29:55] Alarm fatigue. [00:29:57] Now imagine you have a warning light that just goes unaddressed for long enough. [00:30:01] It stops to feel like a warning. It doesn't feel like that anymore. It just becomes a part of the panel that is a part of the tragedy of Ezekiel 6. And the reality of any person who ignores the warnings that God gives them, that's the tragedy. And now in Ezekiel 6, God does what Ezekiel refused to do. The high places come down, the altars are broken, the idols are shattered. [00:30:34] And then comes the most haunting image in the whole chapter. And this is the part that bothered me the most. And maybe this is what bothered you the most when I was reading through that chapter is people slain in front of their idols. Did you catch that? When I was reading it? [00:30:49] Dead bodies everywhere. [00:30:51] That's so. I can't. I don't think it gets more intense than that. [00:30:56] And Ezekiel repeats this image. It's like, hey, pay attention here. Did you notice the dead bodies? Did I say dead bodies? Did you catch that part? It's. He wants us to see it. [00:31:07] He wants us to have this picture of altars, idols, bodies, bones, that whole scene. It's a. It's a sermon. It's preaching to us. It's telling us the things that they trusted to protect them. Couldn't. [00:31:26] Couldn't. [00:31:28] And, man, we know what this is about, don't we? [00:31:31] For those of you that have dealt with addiction, maybe with addiction in your family, maybe yourself, you know what this is like. [00:31:38] And if you ever lost a family member to an addiction to something that they trusted to save them, that could not, you know what this is? [00:31:48] God protect you if you don't. May you never know that kind of pain, Those high places. God is doing something very specific. He's not being mean. He's not being just angry for anger's sake. [00:32:05] He's showing them something. He's saying that high place cannot hold the weight of your life. [00:32:10] But can't. [00:32:14] It's not just judgment. It's exposure. [00:32:17] He's exposing something. [00:32:20] This is what this means. God brings the truth into the light. [00:32:26] God is showing the truth about Israel's false hopes. They cannot save. [00:32:31] The idols did not protect their worshipers. [00:32:34] The places Israel went to find life became the places where death was on full display. [00:32:40] Ezekiel 6. Think of it this way. It's like the end of pretending. [00:32:44] Boy, pretending is nice, right? [00:32:47] I don't know if you guys have watched the Matrix, if any of you have watched that movie. Some of you probably have. [00:32:52] Yeah. [00:32:53] So there's this character in the movie. And it's like you're in this world that's not real. And you're hooked up. You're used as a battery for this world that isn't real. And it's like you're living in a projection without getting into all the things there is one character. Some of the characters inside the fake world become aware this isn't real. [00:33:15] And so what ends up happening is that one of those characters that essentially breaks free decides, I can't handle it because it's suffering. [00:33:27] I would rather live in the fake world. [00:33:29] I would rather pretend. [00:33:31] And he goes back in. [00:33:34] He goes back into the fake world. [00:33:37] He couldn't not pretend. [00:33:41] And that is a real danger when life gets hard, that sometimes it's just easier to pretend like things are. It's much easier just to not look at the dashboard anymore and pretend it's fine. [00:33:53] But here's the truth. Ezekiel is telling us, and God is telling us through Ezekiel, that thing that you look to, that's not me. It cannot save you. [00:34:03] And Ezekiel, then he repeats that refrain and he says, then you will know that I am the Lord. [00:34:08] So on the other side of this disappointment of looking at things that can't save you, what do you get? [00:34:15] You get the one who can. [00:34:18] But not before the idols fall. [00:34:22] Not while Israel was keeping their options open after. [00:34:30] And there's a real grief in that because it took all of this for them to see that. [00:34:38] God's notifying someone today. [00:34:41] Did anybody else hear that? [00:34:43] I don't know whose that was. [00:34:45] Sorry if that's a hot call out for somebody in the room, but just maybe it's a notification for you. [00:34:52] What does a notification do but say, pay attention to this. [00:34:55] This is important. Now, not every notification is really important. [00:34:59] Doordash, if you're listening, not every notification matters. Okay? [00:35:04] But some really do. The One that comes in from my chart that's got your test results. You want to pay attention to that one, especially if you're 40. [00:35:14] It's not a personal story. [00:35:16] Kind of a personal. Doesn't matter. But let's pay attention. It's my point. [00:35:21] God is still speaking. [00:35:23] There's mercy in it. The doctor that calls and says, hey, this is. There's an elevated. [00:35:31] This is where my lack of cholesterol, LDL levels, right? Yeah, yeah, I know that one. Why do I know that one? [00:35:42] A little bit elevated right now. [00:35:44] Here's what you should do. You ever gotten that email from my chart? Has anybody just completely ignored it? [00:35:53] Well, it's not that bad yet, but it will be if you keep. If you keep this up. You see? [00:36:01] Now, is that mean the doctor is reaching out with this information? [00:36:06] Is that unkind? Isn't that their job, to value human life and protect it? [00:36:12] That's what God's doing. So Ezekiel's doing. [00:36:15] God's still speaking. [00:36:17] But even here. [00:36:19] And there is a real wreckage. If you see. Gosh, this is so dark. I don't know how dark. I want to make this preach. I guess I'm like, I'm debating that in real, in the moment, wreckage. [00:36:31] We're seeing the wreckage of God's people. [00:36:34] But even there, standing among people who just lost everything they had trusted, God is still speaking. He's still moving. [00:36:41] Guess you know who's not speaking? [00:36:43] The idols. They're mute. They can't talk. [00:36:47] This is why the chapter feels so severe. Because false hopes, they're not harmless. [00:36:52] They don't just disappoint us if left alone. [00:36:55] If left alone into our own devices, these idols can destroy us. [00:37:02] And Ezekiel shows us what that looks like. Real people, fallen, besides the very thing they trusted to save them. [00:37:09] Like someone with an addiction that you find just very dark. [00:37:16] But some of us have lived that, haven't we? [00:37:26] Some warning, some nuance is important here. [00:37:30] Not every hard thing in your life means that God is exposing something hidden in you. Okay? The Bible's a lot more careful than that. [00:37:40] Some of the suffering that we experience is just a part of this broken world. Some of the pain that we go through is not a consequence of rebellion. [00:37:50] And for some of you, you feel exhausted. [00:37:55] But that's not necessarily alarm, fatigue. [00:37:58] It could be the cost of staying faithful. When the conditions are really hard, you're not ignoring the instruments. You are flying carefully under really difficult conditions because you have precious cargo that matters. That's not a high place. That is faithfulness. And God sees that. [00:38:18] But Ezekiel 6 is speaking about something very specific. [00:38:22] God's people had been warned. [00:38:24] They clung to what God had told them to tear down. They trusted what could not give them life. And so God, in his mercy, exposes what cannot save them. [00:38:40] What if seeing the truth is mercy? [00:38:47] Most of us probably have something we've been holding onto rather than surrendering. [00:38:53] Maybe something we've kept close because we're not sure who we'd be without it. [00:38:58] Maybe something God has been naming in you for longer than you've been willing to hear it. [00:39:05] Ezekiel 6 is for you and for me. [00:39:09] And so we're going to spend the rest of this message sitting with this. What have I been trusting to hold me together that was never meant to hold me at all? [00:39:24] Let's move on to point number two. If you're a notetaker, if you're a note taker, point number one, that point we just finished, we talked about how God is exposing what cannot save. [00:39:44] Point number two is going to tell us something that's going to flesh out the rest of the story, which is that our hearts keep going back to it. [00:39:55] God may expose what doesn't save, but our hearts keep going back to it. [00:40:01] The high places in Ezekiel 6 were not random. [00:40:04] If we go to verse 13, Ezekiel says that these places were on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak. [00:40:14] What does that mean? That's Old Testament language for idol worship that had spread throughout the entire land. [00:40:19] This was not an isolated mistake. This was a way of life. [00:40:24] But Ezekiel just doesn't talk about geography when he talks about idolatry. Did you catch what he said about the heart? Did you catch the word he used to describe. It's a very, very strong image. [00:40:37] In verse nine, God says that he has been broken over their promiscuous hearts that have departed from me and over their eyes that go after idols. [00:40:49] That word promiscuous is Ezekiel's own diagnosis of why Israel kept going back. [00:40:56] It just describes a heart that just keeps returning back to what it learned to trust, not always by a conscious choice. Keep that in mind. [00:41:04] It wasn't always a conscious choice. Sometimes it was just nature and habit. [00:41:09] Like a plane that follows a heading that was set a long time ago. [00:41:13] It wasn't necessarily decided in the moment. You're just flying the course. It's already programmed in. And the longer you fly it, the more natural it feels. [00:41:22] And that's not just a description of Israel, that's a description of Human beings. That could be true of any of us in this room right now. [00:41:29] For Israel, the high places were already in the land when they arrived. This was a part of the world that they inherited from Canaan. [00:41:44] This was a part of the Canaanites way of dealing with what they needed. [00:41:49] And see, the problem wasn't that Israel didn't have any needs. They had real needs. [00:41:55] The problem was that Israel brought real needs to the wrong place. [00:42:01] They brought real needs to the wrong place. [00:42:04] The high places gave them something to do. [00:42:08] It says in verse 13 that they offered pleasing aromas to their idols. That sounds like worship. They were saying with their actions, this is where we go for help. [00:42:17] This is what we trust. [00:42:20] This is what we sacrifice to. This is what we're devoted to. This is what we love. [00:42:25] But what belonged to the Lord had been redirected toward gods that could not give life. [00:42:31] It's kind of like, do this and maybe life will be okay. [00:42:38] Here's the interesting part about false worship. [00:42:42] It often grows where people feel genuinely vulnerable and want some way of grabbing ahold of something that they long for but can't quite reach. [00:42:53] The promise that they offer is, I can help you feel safe when life feels uncertain. [00:42:59] And that's a promise that really resonates with us because uncertainty makes us feel exposed. [00:43:05] We hate. Well, I'll just speak for me, I hate uncertainty. [00:43:10] And I don't think I'm the only one. But underneath uncertainty, there are deeper questions, like, will there be enough? [00:43:17] Will my children be okay? [00:43:20] Will we be safe? Will I be loved? Is the future going to hold? [00:43:25] And the high places give an answer. Come here. [00:43:28] Do this, trust this. And then maybe you can secure the life that you fear losing man. And many of us know what that's like. [00:43:39] Sometimes the high places in our lives are not things that we invented. [00:43:43] They might be things we inherited. [00:43:46] Sometimes it looks like realizing in your 30s or 40s that the way that you've been trying to feel safe is the same way your dad did or your mom. [00:43:58] You didn't choose that course. [00:44:01] You just look up one day and realize, oh my gosh, I'm flying this. [00:44:06] Inherited fears, inherited ways of finding security, inherited family scripts, inherited distortions of God. [00:44:18] That doesn't remove responsibility, but it can deepen compassion. [00:44:23] Many of us are just repeating patterns we were handed until God in his mercy shows us the truth. [00:44:31] I know this in my own life. [00:44:35] I grew up with a real need to feel safe, loved, seen. [00:44:39] It's not a bad desire. I think it's a real Human need that everybody has. [00:44:43] But over time, that need began attaching itself to false hopes such as achievement, romance, escape, fresh starts. [00:44:53] I thought a new season might finally make me whole. But you know what happened? I took that ache with me wherever I went. [00:45:02] Eventually, I looked to relationships to give me the love and safety that only Jesus could. [00:45:07] I tried to keep Jesus close enough to comfort me, but not close enough to confront the thing I was asking to save me. [00:45:17] That was one of my high places. That was one of the places that I went to to feel okay without really trusting or fully trusting in God. [00:45:24] And I wonder if you're here and you know what this is like. [00:45:29] Maybe for some of you, it's success. Maybe it's needing to prove or win, to feel like you matter. [00:45:36] Maybe it's somebody's approval, needing them to be okay with you before you can feel okay with you. [00:45:44] Maybe it's the appearance that everything nothing to see here. Everything is fine. [00:45:48] Keeping it together on the outside so that no one sees what's happening on the inside. [00:45:55] Maybe, like me, it's the hope that a new season will finally fix you. [00:45:59] If things just changed, that ache would go away. [00:46:04] Not true. [00:46:06] Circumstances cannot change. Circumstances can change. But you take what's inside with you. [00:46:13] And there may be some relief in changing things up. But eventually, you know what happens with time? [00:46:19] You show up because you were always there. [00:46:23] And that's the reality. You and I, we take what we have with us wherever we go. We take a real need and we bring it to something that cannot bear the weight. [00:46:33] What am I trusting to hold me together? [00:46:36] It may be something really good, but it cannot be God. [00:46:43] Your children are a gift. [00:46:44] They cannot save you. [00:46:46] Your marriage is a gift. But your spouse cannot be the source of your life. [00:46:51] Your work can be a gift, but it cannot tell you who you are. [00:46:59] Money cannot secure your soul. We could go on and on. The needs are real, but the high places can't give you what God can give you. [00:47:11] So thinking back to my life as I was thinking through this message this week. [00:47:15] I don't know if you've done this, if you've been following Jesus for a while. I recommend this to occasionally go back to the beginning. [00:47:24] Maybe it's sort of like if you're married, you kind of go back and think through, like, dating, which dating is a really interesting thing in and of itself, but I think there's value in it. I realize that it's driven along by feelings that oftentimes that eventually calm down and relax at a certain point. [00:47:45] But going back to the beginning has value. [00:47:49] And here's what I've come to believe about myself, about God, is when I think about the beginning of my life with him, my journey with him, That ache that came with me everywhere, it didn't stop until one night something broke open. [00:48:12] I remember where I was, Friars Road Caddy Corner from the Fashion Valley Terrace, from the Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego. [00:48:21] And I was completely drowning because my idols couldn't save me. They weren't delivering. [00:48:31] I kept getting exposed by God. [00:48:37] But something happened that night where I understood something that I had never understood before, which was that Jesus actually had to die for me. Because my wandering heart would just never stop. It would never find rest until I found rest in him. [00:48:54] And then something else hit me. What Tim Keller, pastor in New York, said not only did Jesus die for me, he was glad to die for me. [00:49:05] And I felt it for the first time in my life. That thing that I ached for, it entered my heart and soul. The only way I could describe it is using the words that other people have used before, which is liquid love. You've probably heard that before, people who have had similar experiences. It was like liquid love filled my soul. [00:49:24] And from that moment on, I'm not fighting to secure love anymore. I'm fighting from it. [00:49:31] That wasn't a fresh start. That was a new heart. [00:49:35] God doesn't just tear down high places. He doesn't just expose things. [00:49:39] He gives new hearts. [00:49:41] So my third point, if you're taking notes, is that Jesus, Jesus, the Lord Jesus, he gives us new hearts. He gives us what the high places could not. [00:49:59] In Ezekiel 6, the deepest issue was already becoming clear. [00:50:03] God was crushed. That's painful language. But God was not cold towards his people. [00:50:08] He was actually wounded by their wandering. It's like I wandered from God and He was wounded by my wandering. [00:50:17] But he didn't stop by just being wounded. I don't know if you've ever been in a spot before where you're just so wounded in a relationship, which there could be wisdom in that, by the way. [00:50:25] You're so wounded in a relationship, you may need to separate from that relationship. Could definitely be wisdom in that. [00:50:33] But God, here's what he does. [00:50:35] He overcomes my wandering. [00:50:39] He doesn't just heal my heart. He gave me a new one. [00:50:43] What ended up happening to me was I came to the realization that a fresh start could not save an old heart. [00:50:50] I needed a new one. [00:50:54] I was recently reading a story about Rod Carew. [00:50:59] Some of you guys probably know who he is. He's one of the greatest hitters of all time. Major League Baseball. [00:51:04] After he retired, he actually became very sick. [00:51:08] And his heart is actually not strong enough to keep him alive. [00:51:12] And so at that point, nothing could save him. [00:51:16] No encouragement, no. Like, let's look at your career. Let's talk about those 3,000 hits. Let's look at the. I think he had a ring, a World Series ring. Like, none of that mattered anymore. [00:51:27] All of the achievement, the money, all the fame, none of that mattered. [00:51:33] He needed a new heart. [00:51:35] His heart was failing. He needed life from outside himself. [00:51:39] And typically, when you're in that space, you're waiting. [00:51:42] You're on a wait list. And he was. [00:51:46] And he was waiting until a young man named Conrad Rulin died. [00:51:51] I think he was 29 years old, something like that. [00:51:55] And his family donated his organs. Rod Carew received Conrad's heart. [00:52:01] And a heart that did not begin in Rod Carew's body was placed inside of him. And he lived. [00:52:08] And he lived, which is a pretty amazing thing, if you can imagine that. Now imagine if you somehow find out whose heart you got. [00:52:18] Rod Carew found out whose heart he got, and he met Conrad's mother. [00:52:24] And it says that the article I was reading said that she, like, put her heart, her ear up to her son's heart and heard her son's heart beating. [00:52:38] And it was just this moment. [00:52:40] Brod Carew lived because another man's heart was given to him. [00:52:46] Israel didn't just need better circumstances. [00:52:49] They didn't need another warning, another profit. Although those things were important, they needed God to do what only he could do in Ezekiel 36. Thirty chapters later, God answers the problem that Ezekiel 6 exposed. The Lord doesn't say, I will remove idols out of there, only he says, he will cleanse his people from all of your idols and give them a new heart. You guys don't have this in the back, so I'm just going to read it. [00:53:13] God told the people, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you. [00:53:23] The Lord said, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. [00:53:27] In other words, God promises to wash away everything that separated his people from him and to change them from the inside out. [00:53:34] That is what judgment alone could never do. [00:53:39] God doesn't just show us what can't save us. He gives us what can you. [00:53:45] He's not saying, try harder. He's not saying, clean yourself up and come back when you're ready, he's saying, I will do this. I will cleanse you. I will give you what you cannot give yourself. [00:53:57] Not a repaired version of the old heart, a new one, with new life, with new power, with new direction. [00:54:05] There was a promise that needed fulfillment in Ezekiel 36. [00:54:09] And Jesus is it Jesus, he never built a high place. [00:54:15] He never ran to a false hope. When the pressure came, in the darkest moment that Jesus ever faced on the cross, when he was alone, when he was abandoned, when he was facing what none of us could face, he trusted the Father and nothing and no one else. [00:54:29] And then he was crushed. Even though he was sinless, he didn't deserve that. [00:54:34] Not for his wandering, because he never wandered. But for hours, he carried us in every high place we had ever built, every false hope we had ever asked to save us. He carried it on the cross. [00:54:47] And then he was cut off. Why? [00:54:50] So that wandering people can come home. [00:54:54] And then he rises from the dead, not to give us this better kind of religious system, but to give us his life. [00:55:03] And so he doesn't tell us, just try harder with your old heart. He says, I'm going to give myself for you. [00:55:08] And by my spirit, I'm going to put my life inside of you. [00:55:14] And that heart that did not begin in us is now beating within us. [00:55:20] And we live. [00:55:21] So the new heart, it doesn't just behave differently, it rests differently. It has found somewhere safe to land. [00:55:28] Those warning lights were never meant to send you into a free fall. They were meant to bring you home. [00:55:34] And that is why the gospel is such good news for exposed people. [00:55:39] Because Jesus gives us what we can't give ourselves. He took our exposure. [00:55:46] He embraced our shame. He actually stood out in the open. Jesus did. On the cross, he wasn't clothed. He was completely exposed. [00:55:55] Why? [00:55:56] So that you and I could be covered by his grace. [00:56:01] Fully known, fully loved, nothing left to hide. [00:56:05] That is why coming into the light now doesn't have to destroy anyone. [00:56:09] In Jesus, exposure is not the end of the story. It's a doorway home. [00:56:15] So when God shows us what cannot save, it is mercy. Even if it's a severe one. [00:56:22] It may feel like chaos, but God is showing you. [00:56:25] It may feel like chaos to you, but God is just revealing to you what already had control over you. [00:56:33] With Jesus, though, that invitation is to come home. [00:56:37] Because the true God gives what false gods can only promise. [00:56:42] Some of you are here and you're like, I'm not sure I believe any of that yet. [00:56:46] If the questions are still louder than the answers. That's okay. That doesn't put you outside of God's reach. The fact that you're still here, that you're asking questions, may be the most important thing you could do and the most important thing you can keep bringing back into this room. [00:57:01] And it is good news for the person who has experienced Jesus. [00:57:05] It's also good news for the person who has not yet. I'm going to invite you to stand with me. I'm going to call the band up to the front, take a minute to stretch out. [00:57:31] Let's take a quiet moment before Jesus, the gracious, forgiving King. [00:57:38] I'm going to invite you, if you can do it without falling asleep and face planting, to close your eyes to protect you from a rather unfortunate moment in front of everyone. But if you can close your eyes and I want you to imagine yourself in the cockpit. [00:57:57] The warning lights are flashing. [00:58:01] Not because God hates you, not because he wants to shame you, but because mercy is telling the truth before the wreckage. [00:58:11] I'm going to ask you, encourage you to ask yourself one question. [00:58:16] What is the thing I feel like I cannot lose without falling apart? [00:58:22] What is the thing I feel like I cannot lose without falling apart? [00:58:29] Maybe it's a relationship. [00:58:31] It might just be being right. [00:58:34] It may be how people see you. [00:58:39] Maybe it's something else. [00:58:42] Where are the warning lights flashing in your life? [00:58:48] Where has scripture, the spirit, God's people, someone who loves you, or a repeated pattern been telling you you cannot keep going like. [00:59:05] And then ask, what am I trusting to hold me together? [00:59:12] What is that? [00:59:15] We're almost done. [00:59:16] I want you to imagine yourself bringing whatever that is to Jesus, like handing it to him in some physical form. I don't know what it looks like for you. Maybe it's a piece of paper, maybe it's a key, maybe it's a ring, I don't know. [00:59:31] Imagine yourself giving that to Jesus and I want you to imagine him saying what he tells us through the scriptures. I will never leave you or abandon you. [00:59:47] Because of Jesus. [00:59:49] The high places don't get the last word. [00:59:53] They don't. [00:59:56] Alright, you guys can open your eyes. [00:59:59] We're going to go into a time of singing. Got maybe like another 10 minutes or so. [01:00:05] I'm going to invite the prayer team to come up to the front. If you're on the prayer team today, if anything that I talked about today stirred anything for you, maybe, maybe it's a warning light that you've been kind of so used to that it's just part of the Panel now, and it's no longer generating any sort of concern anymore because you're just so used to it. [01:00:28] Maybe God's reminded you of some. By the way, not all warning lights are the same. [01:00:33] And oftentimes when we get to things earlier, it can create. It could help prevent bigger problems later. So this doesn't have to be some catastrophe. This does not have to be some scandal or anything like that. It could just be like a normal, hey, it's time to get that checked out. [01:00:49] So maybe for you, it's a warning light. [01:00:51] Maybe for you, you're just a weary pilot. Keep the plane imagery going. You've just been flying through such crazy weather, faithful, because what you have on that plane is important. It matters. [01:01:04] And you're just tired, and you just kind of need a. You just need a break in the clouds and you need to land and you need to rest, you need to eat, you need a nap. [01:01:15] Maybe that's you. [01:01:17] I'm invite you to come up and get prayer. This may not be warning lights. It may just be exhaustion or maybe for you, you need. [01:01:24] You've been flying around, the warning lights are going crazy, and you realize, like, I don't know how to land this plane. I cannot do this if that's you. And you're just overwhelmed. [01:01:36] Imagine that picture shifting. [01:01:39] And you're not the only one in that cockpit, but you have someone next to you who knows exactly what to do. [01:01:45] And maybe what you need to do is allow him to say, my plane, and let him take you home. [01:01:52] But the first step is to acknowledge, like, I don't know what to do. And that's a good place to start, because God loves to meet us in our weakness, says that he actually opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. [01:02:05] So part of what you might need to do is to follow in, follow the scriptural command to just humble yourself before the Lord. And coming up to receive prayer from one of these trusted men and women might be your next step. It doesn't have to be crazy, but if you're in a spot where it's like, this season has been crazy, this is for you, too. So let me pray for us, and then we'll respond with prayer and praises, which is a perfectly good response to. By the way, if you're just like, I just want to praise him, I'm gonna stop talking so you can do that. Father, thank you. [01:02:40] Thank you for sending your son to give his life for us so that we could taste and experience freedom from those high places, a new heart. [01:02:53] God I thank you also. [01:02:58] This is true as well that a new heart doesn't mean no struggles. [01:03:03] A new heart means new power to deal with those struggles. [01:03:07] And I thank you that even in my lowest moments in my struggles which I struggle in ways that actually mirror those of the old heart, that I have a whole new power available to me in Christ, the Spirit. And thank you for these means of grace where we can experience your grace just by acknowledging our own weakness. And you can meet us with a power that the ancient Israelite, the people of the Old Testament could have only dreamed of. [01:03:34] We have access to your spirit now in a way that they could only have dreamed of. Would you help us to take full advantage of all that you've given us so that we can experience renewing grace, restoring grace and maybe even new life in Christ? [01:03:52] Thank you. We love you to name me pray. Amen. Okay. Enjoy him.