Mike Harrelson - The Danger of Drift

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God, you welcome you. [00:00:06] Speaker B: 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 can. We hope you enjoy the message. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Yeah. For those of you that I don't know, my name is Mike. I'm one of the elders here. Grateful to be here with you this morning. I get the privilege of sharing God's word. So to get us started, I'm going to pray. Pray for us. Pray for me as well. Yeah, pray with me, please. Father, I just thank you to see your faithfulness. As I look out right now, I see your faithfulness over all these people. Just knowing so many of the different stories, your goodness. Have you rescued people? Have you loved them so dearly? Yeah, I'm grateful for that. Grateful for this morning and just your word and how it is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword. And I pray that your word would go forth with power. I ask that I wouldn't be able to get in the way of anything that you want to do this morning. That you would bless your people, that you'd meet them where they're at right now, but at the same time that they wouldn't be left where they're at, that they would move with you where you're moving. Thank you, Lord. We praise you, Jesus. There really is no one like you. We pray this in your name. Amen. All right. All right. So I grew up surfing in Orange County. Do I have any other surfers out there? All right, I got a couple surfers. Okay, cool. Yeah. So my mom used to take my brother and I to Bolsa Chica State beach to the south end of it quite often as kids. And she'd start out before we got in the water. Every single time she'd tell us, I'm going to be in front of this lifeguard tower. Stay there, Stay in front of the lifeguard tower. I don't know why she said that, because I don't think she'd be able to come out and rescue us if we were having issues. But she wanted to be able to keep an eye on us. But I mean, for those surfers in the room, what happens when you try to stay in front of a lifeguard tower, you drift. Exactly. You drift off. That's the reality. I mean, the ocean wasn't part of my mom's meeting. For me to be there, it didn't care. It carried us away is what happened. And drift is sort of like that. You don't realize it's there because when you're drifting, you're just sort of going along, drifting away from where you're supposed to be, but you don't notice it until you actually start paddling against that current. And so, you know, it's rarely a decision. It just happens. That's the reality. It's gradual, it's invisible, it's quiet. And it happens through distraction, for one, for me, because I wasn't looking up at the tower. But it also happens from the pressure of the water pushing you along. And drift isn't just something that happens in the water. It happens in everyday life. I think relationally, in my life with Marla and my kids. You know, our calendar gets really full of school and work and, you know, sports, all those things. And before we know it, sometimes we're just managing a household. We're not even really connecting with one another. So we drift relationally from one another at that point. And I think sometimes it also happens where talked to some friends, and they're like, their closest friends are those that they sit next to at practice, sadly. And they don't even really know the person's last name. They just know the sports that their kids are in. So it's like we drift away from our friends at times because of everything else that's going on in life financially, man, lifestyle, creep. I think about who else in this room has gotten a raise at one point or another. And before you even got your first pay. Paycheck. Before you got your first paycheck, you're like, what happened to it? It's gone. It's gone. Like, yeah, okay, yeah, I'm not the only one. And that happened multiple times to me, you know, and then also spiritually, here's the thing is busyness sometimes can push out, like, that connection with God. We go into a time of prayerlessness, and we're not really reading the Word, and we drift away from relationship with him. It's like we go from relationship into just information at the end of the day. So drift is real, and we see it in scripture as well. This morning, we're going to be. We're not going to be in one specific text. We're going to be in a Couple different ones. But it all sort of revolves around the life of David, King David. And we're going to be surfing around to keep with the theme, the scriptures. So would you guys do me a favor? Put one finger in Psalm 51 and then turn to 2nd Samuel 11 and the words will be up on the screen as well. They just won't be really easy to read today, unfortunately. Yeah, I've been really fascinated with the life of King David for probably over 10 years. I find myself going back to him often to understand, like, what it looks like to walk with God because he did it imperfectly. But he was a man that sought after God to depend on God, like he found his strength in the Lord. And he also, which I love about him. He worshiped without concern for appearance whatsoever. He made a fool of himself at times. Well, at least his wife said that. But David is a man after God's own heart is what the Scriptures say. And so I think there's something that we can learn from him. But the text that we're going to be looking at, we're going to see that David actually drifted from his focus on God. It wasn't intentional either. So my first point for you this morning is drift is quiet. So drift is quiet is my first point. 2nd Samuel 11, verse, verse 1. In the spring when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem. Everyone goes to war. David stays home. It isn't really a good thing to happen right there. It's not a good opening for a chapter in Scripture. David was a man that was called by God to lead a nation to the renewal of that land. And yet he stayed home in Jerusalem when all the rest of the kings were off at war. We'd see in the previous chapter that David actually. There was great victory that God gave to David and Israel in that time. I mean, so much so that there's other nations that were about to fight them. And they're like, uh, we saw what God did there. Your God's more powerful than ours. We're backing off and they went home. Like, that's how much victory was had there. But that's a scary thing too, because he stayed home in comfort while the battle was raging around him. You know, it gives us a hint at what was going on in David's heart. The danger here was that we can't rest in yesterday's victories. Can't rest in yesterday's victories. We can celebrate them, but we can't rest in them because the battle continues right now. Like we're in the middle of a battle right now. It's a reality. Feeling it even this morning, honestly. See, at this point in David's life, he was supposed to be in the battlefield depending on God, but instead, he was absent. He wasn't in the battlefield anymore. Alan Moseley says that spiritual drift for the average Christian typically manifests as a slow disconnection between belief and practice. So it's usually not something that's an obvious evil. It's something that slowly comes upon us. And it looks like we know that prayer is vital to our walk with Jesus, but we actually just don't do it. So it's a disconnection between what we know, what we believe, and what our actions are. I can think of two examples in my life. One season, I found myself. My priorities shifted slowly. I had packed my life full of really good things. My calendar was really full of all the things that you'd be like, oh, that was awesome. It was ministry. It was family. I should probably switch those around. Family ministry work is what was going on, a whole lot of it. But when you look at my calendar, it looked really like it was pretty holy. It was like, man, he's got it all going on. But reality is that I wasn't connecting with God at all. And so I felt like this outward pressure upon my soul that was crushing me in that season because the inward pressure of what was going on, my devotion to Jesus wasn't there to be able to press up against that pressure. And I realized I drifted. I was empty and exhausted and honestly, pretty burned out. There was another season, had nothing to do with ministry. We had a lot going on in our family. And I just, honestly, I neglected being in the word, neglected, praying. And I saw actually my life be shaped more by the people of my workplace and what the world was telling me than what God's truth said. And so, yeah, it was a really tough time. My desires were more for the world than they were for him, is what ended up happening. Russell Byram, I'll say Byram, probably got that wrong, but says, he says, you do not drift upstream, you drift downstream. You never drift towards God, but always away from him. Just thinking about this. There's this phenomenon in. Is there any hunters in the room? Any hunters? Okay, we got 10. All right. We got a couple hunters. There's this phenomenon in biology, I guess you could say, with bull elk. I was reading about this the other day, and there's a type of bull elk that's called a shirker bull elk is what they call it. Shirker bull elk. Now, what makes this shirker bull elk interesting is the fact that this elk doesn't actually. You guys know what the rut is? When these elks come together right before mating season, the males go out and they have battles. They come up against each other. They. The antlers get all messed up, all that kind of stuff. Well, these guys, they decide we're not gonna do that. They go off and they spend all their energy in getting big, huge antlers, and they get all big and strong, but they actually don't. They fail their mission of actually reproducing during that season. They're just loners out there doing their own thing. And so it was interesting as I was reading about this, and I'm like, oh, man, this a gentleman that wrote this book, he points out in there that we can do this spiritually too, where we can actually look really impressive on the outside. We can get all full of, like, all the things of Jesus, but we actually neglect the internal things that God wants to do in our hearts. And so you may look really impressive. You're like, I'm doing this ministry and that ministry, and I'm doing. Doing this Bible study and that Bible study. But you neglect to be on mission with God in that season. And it's actually a pretty scary place to be. Cause like, those bull elk as a hunter, that's the elk that they want as a trophy. They want. The one with the big, huge antlers. Looks all big and tough like, look, this is the one I get to put up on my wal. We could become very easily that one for our enemy. We could be a trophy for the enemy in that season when we're neglecting what God wants to do in our hearts, neglecting the mission that he's put us on to make disciples of the nations. And so this is what happened to David during this season. He stepped away from the battle and into comfort. So I'm gonna walk you through the rest of this chapter, because we don't have time to read the whole thing. But instead of being out on mission, David actually wanders onto a rooftop is what happens. He wanders onto a rooftop and he sees a lady. That's another thing. When you read that in Scripture, you're like, that's probably not a good thing right there. He sees Bathsheba, and he calls one of his. One of his servants over and says, go get that lady now. Bathsheba was married to a guy named Uriah, and he's off at battle with the rest of the nation. So one of his soldiers is out doing what he's supposed to be doing. And. And what does David do? He commits adultery. He gets her pregnant, and then he finds out when she's pregnant. He's like, I gotta cover this thing up. So he calls Uriah home from battle, and then he schemes to how I can cover this up is what he pretty much does. So he gets Uriah full of food and drink and says, go sleep with your wife. And Uriah goes, how can I do that right now? The whole nation is off at war at the moment. I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna deny myself of that because I should be with my brothers right now. And so he goes and sleeps at the gate. And David's like, what do I do now? So he sends Uriah back to battle with a note for Joab. Joab, the commander at that time leading Israel, gets the note, and in it he. David tells Joab, you're going to put him at the front. We're going to lay siege to your next opponent at that point and put him at the very front. And what happens to Uriah? He dies. He dies in that moment. Not just him, when you read the text, it's actually multiple people that die at that point. So Uriah's killed David's, committed adultery, orchestrated a murder, he's implicated others, whether it's knowingly or unknowingly. What strikes me about this is he never intended to do any of that. He just stayed home. He just stayed home. He was absent in that season from the mission. See, the most dangerous place for David wasn't on the battlefield. It was in the comfort of home. He wasn't on mission. See, he arrived home, lowered his guard. It's interesting. You read that whole chapter, you don't see David, this man of prayer, this guy that, like, wrote all these psalms that were so like man, such a gift to us. Honestly, you don't see him pray once in there for what he should do, not once. All it talks about God is at the very end how God was gravely disappointed at the evil that David had done. David had isolated himself from accountability. He was off on his own, and he chose comfort over calling. See, just as I've, like, prayed through this, I'm like, man. What's so interesting is that David got lax because he was depending on the victories of yesterday, and it led him to pride. And what does Proverbs 16:18 say pride comes before the fall. And we see a fall here of a king, a leader of the nation. So I'm gonna ask you this. Where might you be trading mission, the mission of God for comfort today? Where might you be trading the mission of God for comfort today? So this drift, it's never really private. And that's my second point for you this morning. It's never really private. Drift. It affects those that are around us. The lie that I've believed in the past, and I'm sure many of you have heard before, is that my actions only affect me, right? Who knows that one? Who's heard it before? Okay, a couple of us have. Guess everyone else, lucky for you, haven't. And here's the thing is I want to be really sensitive about this because I know that other people's. There's people in this room have fallen victim to other people's drift and sin. And it's really painful. It can hurt a lot. I mean, I've done that. I've dealt with that. Their poor decisions, how they've actually affected me. And see David's consequences. They affected everyone around him. You think about Bathsheba. She committed adultery with the king. She cheated on her husband. She got pregnant. Actually, she lost the baby, too. It's reality. She lost the baby. She lost a child in that moment. Soon after that, Uriah, probably the most honorable one of all of them. He's the one that's like, I know where I'm supposed to be. I'm on mission. What God wants, he gets murdered. Joab. We don't know if Joab was complicit in this or not. There's people that say both ways. Either way, he's betrayed by David because David asked him to murder another person, whether he knew it or not. And he didn't just murder him. He murdered multiple other guys, too, at the same time by leaving them up there with him. Those other soldiers that died in their families, think about that. Or even the messengers, think about being a messenger for that. I passed the message that killed a man, murdered a man. It's crazy. And then I just think beyond that, like the whole nation of Israel, because this is recorded in scripture. And the psalm that we're gonna read in a few minutes is about this. So everyone knew about this after the fact. I just think about, like, it brought me back to a time as I was considering this. There was a moment years ago, probably like 20, 19, 20 years ago, somewhere in there where I had a friend. He was a leader in our church. And he decided that, I mean, I don't want anyone to hear me wrong in this. It's not wrong to do the best job you can in the corporate world. This is not what I'm saying. Because 20 years of my life was spent doing the best job I could in the corporate world. But he actually prioritized his career over. His walk with Jesus is what ended up happening. He was a leader and he was a dear friend of mine at the time. And his drift in that moment became contagious to me is what ended up happening. When he prioritized that he actually ended up making a really, really bad decision personally for him. You guys can read between the lines. But it was a very bad decision that affected everyone in our church. And so I went to him lovingly and I wanted to encourage him to repent of his sin. And he was like, no, I'm not going to do it. And he swept it under the rug. And the church pretty much swept it under the rug too. And within a couple months, the church, small church, disappeared. And that started a two year drift for me. I disengaged from church life. We didn't go find another church. Marla and I were just newly married at the time. Eventually I was in prayerlessness. I wasn't reading scriptures. I wasn't leading my wife at all in that season. That was rough. I'm sure it was really rough for her too. Luckily, she hasn't held it against me to this day. I leaned too much into alcohol at the time. It was a way to comfort myself. And then I remember one morning. Oh, actually, before I get to that, I remember. It's funny how you remember certain things. I had a. I had a family member that came up to me and said, not even a Christian. Not even a Christian. Aren't you going to go be a part of a new church? Like, where are you going? Like he even saw my drift in that moment. He was like, you're drifting off course, man. Where are you going? Then one morning I woke up and I was walking in the backyard, came in the house, and I remember exactly where I was at. We were in Long beach. And I felt like the Lord was like, what are you doing? It's the question. What are you doing right now? And I realized I drifted away from God. I drifted away from his mission in my life, man, I'll tell you what, I was zealous for the Lord in those days. When I came to, to Jesus, it was like, I want to tell everyone about him. I'm like, I was in the scriptures nonstop. We were praying together as a church. I was praying with small groups of guys. I was like, everywhere I went, people knew that I loved Jesus. I mean, it was amazing. But what had happened during that season, as I had shifted my priority from the kingdom of God over to the American dream, I had searched after other things. And so our lives affect others. When we drift, it affects others. It's not a private thing. People see it and they respond to it, too. Cause I had people that didn't even know Jesus that were telling me, something's wrong here in your life. Hebrews 2 says. Hebrews 2, 1 says, Pay attention all the more to what you have heard so that you will not drift away. I learned the importance in that season of keeping my eyes up and not worrying. I mean, we're going to be affected by the things around us, but when we keep our eyes up on Jesus, that's only where we're going to be able to survive those moments. You know, my. My disappointment did not remove my responsibility in that season. I had a responsibility not to drift, to stay, to abide. Like we sang about a little bit earlier, to abide in Christ during that season. And I didn't. And I think as I thought about it, I'm like, man, what was really missing in that season? Well, I didn't have community. I didn't intentionally put myself in community during that season. David was isolated. He chose. Instead of being on the battlefield, he chose to be back at home. He didn't have people around him to hold him accountable. I mean, I'm sure for a king, it's pretty hard to be held accountable. But he didn't choose to be accountable. And I think that's another thing, is, like, we're only as accountable as we want to be. It's a reality. If you don't want to be accountable, you can go off and do your own thing. But if you want to be accountable, like, it's a gift. It's a gift from God. It's a gift from God. And so the tragedy, when tragedy struck, he wasn't accountable. He grieved after the fact, but he. I mean, it's just when we have these issues, when things happen around us, we need other people around us. We need community to help hold us up when we're grieving the loss, when we're going through hard times. I guess my question is, do you guys. Do you have those people in your life? Do you allow them to speak into your life? That's the other thing you Might have people like, I'm a part of a gc. Yeah, it's great. But do you allow them to speak into your life when things are going off? Luckily, David had Nathan, the prophet. God sent him. So. 2nd Samuel 12. 2nd Samuel 12. We'll get into those verses in just a second. You have Nathan shows up on the scene in the first couple verses, and he tells David about a story about a poor man and a rich man and how the rich man takes advantage of the poor man. And David's, like, infuriated. He's like, what? He wants to deal with this thing in that moment. And then Nathan, verse seven says, you are the man. Not like you're the man, like you're the man that did that. You're the man that did that. And then he goes on, he says this. He says, this is what the Lord God of Israel says. I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from Saul. I gave you your master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms. And I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that was not enough, I would have given you even more. Why then have you despised the Lord's command by doing what. What is considered evil? Just think about that. Like, God had done so much in David's life. Anointed by Samuel when he was the least of his brothers, he went and played music in the king's house with Saul. He slayed Goliath. God gave the kingdom over to David and removed Saul. Cause of Saul's pride and unrepentance. Everything David had gift from God. And he did this. David says in verse 13, I've sinned against the Lord. He sinned against everyone else. But first and foremost, who did he sin against? He sinned against the Lord. And Nathan replied to him and said, the Lord takes away your sin, but your consequences will remain. That's my paraphrase right there. And David left. He lived. Like, you get into the next chapters after that, and you see the unraveling of the family, horrible things, even to the point where, like, his sons are, like, trying to overthrow his kingdom at the time. Like, he dealt with the repercussions of his sin. I think there's just a reality here. Like, we may get saved in a moment, but our sins, they have a tendency to. Like, we have to live with the repercussions of our sins still, even if we've already done horrible things. I think about my life, and if I hadn't, I sometimes go back to that Moment, like, where I'm walking into the living room and about to turn around the couch, and I'm like, what if I did not repent in that moment? What if I did not turn from my own way and turn towards Jesus? What would my family look like right now? Have you guys ever thought about that? Like, it's a scary thought, honestly. Like, he rescued me in that moment. I'd already been. I was already a follower of Jesus, but he rescued me in that moment. Like, that was a moment of salvation in my life. Think about my wife. Like, I could have very easily just led her down a road that was like, this is not what I signed up for. She didn't sign up for that. I think about my kids. Probably wouldn't be like, probably wouldn't be the same kids. Things would be different. Like, I'm so grateful for what God's given us. Like, it's been such a gift in our lives. See, I think when I thought about this, I realized that my repentance, David's repentance, our repentance in moments, is part of someone else's healing. And here's the thing is, David, we're so blessed. Like, David models this in Psalm 51. So why don't you guys turn there with me? Yeah. So Psalm 51 was written by David after his sin was exposed. Don't worry, guys. I know this is heavy right now. There's a lot of heavy stuff. We're getting to the good news. Don't worry. But we're. I think the thing I love about this psalm is we get to hear what it sounds like to repent. We get it. He models it for us. He models this for us. So verses one through four, we're gonna just breeze through some of this. I'm gonna make some comments on a couple things. We'll get to the meat of what I think God wants to show us right now for this day. Verses 1 through 4. It says, Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love, according to your abundant compassion. Blot out my rebellion completely. Wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. For, for I am conscious of my rebellion, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you alone, I have sinned and done this evil in your sight, so that you're that. Excuse me. So you are right when you pass sentence, you are blameless when you judge. Like, there's a confession here. David's not trying to hide anymore. He's like. He feels the conviction of his guilt. He's repenting. He Owns. He owns it. He's not trying to protect his image in this season. He's like, I've sinned against you, God. And he's throwing himself and trusting himself on a faithful God. He knows who God is, and he's trusting them with it. He's trustworthy. Verses 5 through 11 indeed, I was guilty when I was born. I was sinful when my mother conceived me. Surely you desire integrity in the inner self, and you teach me wisdom deep within. Purify me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Turn your face away from my sins and blot out all my guilt. God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence or take your holy spirit from me. He's asking to be cleansed. So he confesses confession, and then he asks for cleansed. He's asking God to wash him clean, to renew him, to give him a new heart. He's realizing, like, all of his efforts to do that. Nothing. There's nothing there. He needs his mercy. At verse 11, I imagine, like, in that, he's probably thinking of Saul in that moment, like, God took his spirit from Saul. Saul was dethroned far before he lost his position on the throne. David's like, I don't want that. I want to be back with you. We get a picture in verses 16 and 17, into his heart posture, he says, you do not want sacrifice, or I would give it. You are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humble heart. God, it's not David's like, all my religious activity, all my religious performance, it means nothing. This isn't what God wants. He doesn't want that. What does he want, guys? What does he want? He wants his heart. He wants his heart. That's the thing. Restoration starts there. It doesn't start with activity. It starts with humility. And that's what David's displaying here. There's a humility about him. He's like, I'm broken. I screwed up. I messed up everything. I've made a mess of this whole thing. The kingdom could possibly fall if it wasn't for you holding it up, God. But more than anything, I want to have a restored connection to you. When we drift away, we're drifting away from him. It's not the activities we may drift away from the activities. But we're drifting away from the heart of God, communion with him, that sweetness of when we come in to communion, first, get to know him. We're close to him. We feel his presence, his love, his care over us. And this is what he talks about in verse 12. He says, Restore the joy of your salvation to me and sustain me by giving me a willing spirit. I think this is where David realizes, like, long before he sinned, there's something else that disappeared when he made the choice to be off mission with God. He drifted. He drifted away from the joy of his salvation. He drifted away from communion with God. He wasn't listening any longer. He was just doing things, going through the motions. And eventually he ended up at home when everyone else went off to war. David wasn't of the age to not go to war. Eventually, he would be of the age to not go to war. At that time, he was in his prime to be on mission with God in that way, yeah, something had gone missing. The joy of his salvation. Man, do you remember the moments when God has rescued you? Do you remember this? Like, I think of multiple people in this room. I know moments. God has rescued you. I know it. But do you think about it often? Do you remember those moments where he pulled you from darkness to light? Where he rescued you from. Like, I think in my own life, crippling anxiety for years, man. Heavy, heavy. But at the same time, he sat with me in it, and then he showed up in this beautiful way. It's not like the anxiety went away. He just showed up in the middle of it and he rescued me from it. That the joy of salvation. So for that day, when I had that moment in our living room, that day that I repented there, that actually was the catalyst for Marla and I. I think about it, it happened days, months later. But that was the moment that actually where Marla and I decided that we were going to come out to Temecula 16 years ago. So I was off mission with God, doing my own thing, American dream, all that stuff. And then that happened a couple months later. We're like, where should we move, God? Where do you want us? He said, come out to Temecula. And I think about, like, how many people. I don't say this in any bragging way whatsoever. This is all by the grace of God. He's put us in different places to be able to, like, walk with people in different seasons and to be able to see them come to faith for their lives to be changed. For generations of families, hopefully to be changed. And it's like the joy of his salvation was restored. We get to see it over and over again. And what he's doing, it's not just about us. It's about the community around us. We get to be on mission with him. And it was in that moment that he, like, convicted me. And I turned. I was like, okay, Lord, I went wrong. I'm going back your way right now. And he sent us out here. See, when joy is restored, purpose follows. That's the thing is, like, they're so closely connected. Like, and this is what David's talking about, you see, in verse 13, then. So after that joy is restored, then I will teach the rebellious your ways, and the sinners will return to you. The joy of. Of his salvation and the mission of God are connected in that way right there. When we are on mission, we're gonna experience the joy. When we're off mission, there's gonna be something that slips away. Don't miss the order here. There's a broken and humble heart. There's restoration of joy, and it leads to renewed mission is what we see. David wasn't asking to feel better about himself in that moment. He was asking to be in the presence of the Lord and to be back engaged in doing what God was doing. Not what David wanted to do, but what God wanted to do in that moment. See, drift steals joy and pulls us off mission. That's reality. It'll pull us off mission. Repentance restores joy and sets us back into mission with God. That's the beauty of it. He invites us back into it when we repent. DL Moody said there is no greater joy in the Christian life than joining God in his redemptive mission. Yeah. And that's what David describes here. Man, I think about the most meaningful moments in all of life. Who has been there and seen someone come to accept Jesus for the first time? Yeah. How meaningful are those moments? I almost think of it as, like, getting caught up in the splash zone of heaven's joy in that moment. We're gonna do baptisms here in a couple weeks. Seven, I think, to be exact. Easter's coming up. Think about when you get next to the baptismal pools, what happens? You get wet. Yeah. You're getting swept up in the joy of the moment. People are coming. They're the outward expression of the inward change that happened. You know, they're being buried and brought to life in baptism, and you get wet around there. Think of all the kids cheering and all that kind of stuff. This is like, this is the joy of it. We get to see God doing stuff. We get to be brought into his joy. This joy of salvation actually is his joy that he pours out on us. It's a beautiful thing. But when we look to David, we see that he failed. But here's the good news. The son of David, he didn't. He didn't. King Jesus. Jesus was victorious. He came. He lived the perfect life that we never will. He died the death that we honestly deserve. Guys, we deserve it. We all are sinners. He rose again. Now he intercedes at the right hand of God. You think about, like, the reality of, like, Jesus lived out intercession. He said, father, not them. Me, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die in their place so they can have life. And then I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna intercede for them for the rest of the time. There's beauty in that. So when we drift, we don't. Like, none of us want to drift. We don't mean to do it. The hope isn't that we drift less. Our hope is in Jesus. When we keep our eyes on Jesus, we're not gonna drift. When we're looking at the tower, we're not gonna drift. That's the reality. So. We hear Jesus actually talking about this in Revelation, the church of Ephesus. I talk. I feel like I talk about it every time I'm up here. I just fascinated with Ephesus as well. But Ephesus was like this moment. And when we see it in the Book of Acts, we see in the writings of Paul, we see Ephesus was actually the epicenter of just crazy revival is what happened there. Ephesus was a port city, extremely diverse in, like, faith and all that kind of stuff. Lots of different gods worshiped there. And what you see in the scriptures is that that's a place where God showed up in radical ways. Miracles that were just off the chart. But there was also demonic oppression that was happening there too. They talk about in the scriptures how there was witchcraft and occult. All the books and the paraphernalia and all that stuff. They threw it in the streets in repentance and burned it. And it was like millions of dollars of today's money is what it would be equivalent to. So huge sacrifice in that moment. This is stuff that were making people money. And then you also had, like. You had people that were making little idols and all that kind of stuff. They went out of business. They got mad they were, like, chasing after Paul, like, hey, what are you doing? You're putting me out of business. Riots were happening because of all this stuff. This is also the place where Paul spent three years. Timothy spent out. I don't know how much time, but he was an elder there. We see it in first and second Timothy. And then also John, the Apostle John lived there. His tomb is there to this day, they believe at the Basilica John in Ephesus. And then Mary, the mother of Jesus, she spent her last days there as well. You could visit her house there. And why do I say all this? God was on that place. He was using that church. Those people were just sold out for him, sold out for Jesus, doing the work that he put in front of him, right? And they were just, like, connected to him. And what we see in Revelation, verse 2 through 5, we see something that happened here. And this actually, like, scares me, if I'm honest, guys, this scares me because I don't want this. I don't want this. This is Jesus saying this to the Church of Ephesus. I know your works, your labor and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name. And you have not grown weary. Like, it's pretty impressive right there. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. But the next verse. But I have this against you. Oh, just think about that for a second. Jesus saying, but I have this against you. You've abandoned the love you had at. [00:44:33] Speaker B: First. [00:44:35] Speaker A: Abandoned the love you have at first. Whether that's love of Jesus or it's love of one another, we don't know. The scholars, they talk about it both ways. I think it could be both. Honestly, I don't know how you could have one without the other, to be honest. And then the next verse, verse five, remember that word, Remember. Remember then how far you have fallen. That word, remember. You see it throughout Scripture. God telling Israelites, remember what I did. I parted the Red Sea for you. I provided for you all those years in the wilderness. I've given you all this. Actually, did you catch it earlier? Nathan said the same thing. God said the same thing to David. Remember what I've done in your life. Why does he keep on saying remember? Now Jesus is saying it to the Church of Ephesus. Why does he say it? We're a forgetful people. We forget these things. I think part of restoring this joy is Remembering, guys. It's remembering God's faithfulness to us. The times he saved us. Not just when we said yes to Jesus, but saving us, rescuing us over and over again through our lives. Saving and rescuing the people that we love. Saving and rescuing our kids. I think Jesus is actually calling the church of emphasis to cultivate a discipline of remembering and gratitude. Because when we approach God with gratitude, there's something beautiful that happens in that place. Then he goes on and he says, repent and do the works that you first did. They had fallen away. They had drifted from their first love, and God was calling them back to mission with him. I'm going to ask the band to come up right now. Yeah, drift. We drift away. We drift to comfort, distraction, passivity. But restored hearts. Step back into mission. That's the reality. There's no greater joy than seeing God do his redemptive work. So as a church right now, we've talked a lot about Alpha. This is actually an effort, a strategy for us to step more into mission as a church is what it is. And I'm not going to talk a whole bunch about Alpha right now. You guys have heard a lot about it already. But what I think is even more important is as I think God's called us as a church, it's one of our values, is mission. But what's even more important is that we're actually stepping into mission on an individual basis in our lives every day, where we're thinking about those that are around us that don't know Christ. What are we doing to step into those places, to intercede for them? Cause God wants to meet him. We've been called to make disciples. That's a reality. We've been called to make disciples. And here's the thing. I realize some of you in this room might be a little bit tired. Like, you're like, man, I've been hurt by a lot of people in the church. I've fallen. I'm having a hard time getting up. And I say that with all humility, because I've been there before. I've been there, and I'm glad you're here. But here's the thing, is. We can't stay there forever. There's a time of healing and rest, but there's also a time of restoration, to be able to get back out into the battle like MASH units. For those of you that are maybe a little bit older, like me, watching MASH on tv, MASH units were tents. You know, they come in, they bandaged someone up, and what did they do? They sent them back out on the battlefield, right? We're not meant to live in a mass unit. We're meant to come in and get healed, to be sent back out into mission. I think that's what God wants to do. He wants to get us, our minds and our hearts set on his mission. Not our missions, not what we think, but what he's doing and seeing, giving us eyes to see those around that really need him. This city, honestly, when we first moved here, it was like, man, I don't know if I know many people that aren't Christians around here. This is sort of strange. I came from Long Beach. No one was a Christian in Long Beach. Now I look around the city, it's not that same way. There's so many people that don't know Christ. So many people that are, like, hungry for truth, that are looking for something stable, something that actually means something instead of just striving after the next paycheck, the next raise, the next promotion. The American dream is a lie. It's a lie. The kingdom of God is for real. So I want you to ask yourselves a couple questions for this week. How's your joy doing? How's your joy? I don't say that in a condemning way whatsoever. I think it just. They'll share with us a little bit, like, what's going on in our own hearts. How's your joy? Maybe for some of us, we gotta repent. Others might need to just get some prayer because we're hurting with a lot of stuff that we're carrying at the moment. Our joy isn't our happiness. We're not talking about happiness. Talking about joy of the Lord. And then on a missional side, I want you to ask God, who in my life are you pursuing and how can I join you in that pursuit? Who in my life are you pursuing and how can I join you in that pursuit? See, mission isn't a burden that's added to our lives. It's, gosh, it's often where we return to enjoying him, enjoying him in his mission. So I told you guys at the beginning how I. My mom would tell me, stay in front of the tower. Don't drift away from me. There was a day a couple years after that where my mom was no longer taking me to the beach. I was older and I started. I actually surfed in that same area. It's the funny part. In front of Tower 17 at Bolsa Chica Beach. And, man, the surf was epic that day. It was so good. The current was really strong. And I'm like, after each wave, I'm like, I should probably get out and walk back down right now. I should probably walk back down over and over and over again. And then two, three hours, I don't know how long a while passes. I'm all the way down at Golden west street in Huntington Beach. That's two miles down the road. I'm two miles down the road. I get out of the water, and I'm like. I got like, the awkward surfing sunburn from here up and right here on your hands. Cause everything else is covered in a wetsuit. And I'm dehydrated. Cause I haven't drank any water. I'm exhausted. Because you're surfing that much, you're gonna get tired. And I go, oh, man, I gotta walk back two miles. And even though I had a short board at the time, it feels really heavy. Cause your arms are so tired, right? Here's the thing is a long drift turns into a really long walk, guys. Turns into a really long walk. Drift pulls us away from what we were sent to do. And over time, it drains us of the joy that the Lord has put in us, the joy of his salvation. So this morning, I want to recognize that some of you might be, like. It might be sort of like a temptation to feel shame in this moment. That's not what I'm talking about here. This is a moment where we can return. We can turn and recognize I have drifted and get our eyes back on Jesus, get anchored in him. Because reality of it is mission is where joy. We get to see the joy of the Lord in that moment. Heaven splashes on us in those moments. So, yeah, you don't have to go where the current takes you. You can stay with him. That's the reality. So I prayed a lot about, like, How this might be hitting some of you guys. I think there's a couple different groups. Some of you have been hurt by the church. And you're like, I had the temptation to drift in this season. Actually, the prayer team. Will you guys come up, please? There's the temptation to drift in this season because you've been hurt by someone else, by a leader, by another church member. Someone sinned against you in some way. And I don't. Like. I say this all love. I don't want you to drift. I don't want you to drift. And so I'd say, come up and get prayer. Like, allow someone to pray for you to, like, tell you what's true about who you are to encourage you Some of you might be in active drift right now, like, where you're like, I've known this for a little bit, but I'm having fun. The surf's real good right now, and I think the Lord's calling you out of that drift to get out of the water and start walking back. And there might be some of you, like, I'm just not experiencing the joy, and I want to experience the joy. These faithful people up here would love to pray for you. They are a gift. And I mean, quite honestly, I can say that all of us desire that God would have his way in your life. For the rest of us, we're going to get an opportunity to praise him, that he's allowed us to be on his mission, because what a privilege. We get to be on the mission, on mission with the King of the universe, the maker of all things. How beautiful is that? Like, he hasn't just left us to wander, to drift away. He's called us into what he's doing. We get to go to work with dad, guys. Get to go to work with dad. How beautiful is that? Okay, let's pray. You guys pray with me. Yeah. Father, thank you. Thank you that you've called us out of darkness into light, Jesus, that you are our hope and our salvation. There is truly no one like you. I pray for each person here, regardless of where they're at. I pray that they would experience your presence, your love and your care. That it would be your kindness that would call them back, that they'd know who you are. For those that are hurting and have been hurt and they're tempted to drift, I ask God that you would fortify their hearts, that you would stop the current from flowing, that they would cling to you, that they'd experience your presence even in the midst of it. It wouldn't necessarily take away the sting of what has happened, even though I do desire for that to happen, but it would anchor them in you. For those that are drifting, God, that there would be a turn, it'd be your kindness, that there would be a spirit of remembrance, of your salvation, your rescue, your care over your church, over each individual here. Yeah. God, we thank you. That you don't leave us, don't forsake us. You are right there waiting for us to turn. Like you were for David, like you are for each person here. We bless you, Lord. We thank you. It's your name, we pray. Jesus. Amen. All right, guys, so the band is going to lead us praise. If you want prayer, please come up, encourage you to, and then Herrick will be up in a few minutes to close us. Thank you.