Well it's exciting again to be here and to be kind of in this moment. As Matthew
said, I am excited about what we're tackling today. I'm excited about what
it is that we're getting into and it's kind of foundational and so we wanted to
begin kind of this semester where we all gather around together and we begin to
say what is it that this looks like? How is it that we can kind of focus on the
same thing? And really as we begin to think about this let me give you a
preview of where we're going for our next series. Our next series is is really
based upon this idea that I believe that we're a very connected group of people
and yet statistics tell us that at the same time we're very lonely and I think
that the art of friendship is something that that we don't understand very much
and so we're going to be getting into for the next series. How is it that we
begin to understand how we have deep, abiding, transparent, authentic relationships?
How do we begin to move towards other people and how do we create the best
friends that we've ever had in our lives? And I believe the Bible has some
significant things to say and I'm really excited about being able to talk
through this and take a few weeks and just say this is what the Bible looks
like when it talks about friends. This is this idea that the Bible has and I
believe if you feel like I'm very not like I feel very lonely or I feel very
connected I feel like this has something to say to all of us and as we begin to
walk through this I think it'll transform the community of our church so I'm
excited about I'm excited about where we're going but when we begin to think
about on the pathway there one of the things that as I talk to people that
we begin to think about what does it look like for you to connect with God? What
does it mean for you to to actually understand on a daily basis how do you
as a physical being connect with a spiritual being? And really what does
that look like? And I think that sometimes we can kind of get in weird places by
trying to figure out what does it actually look like for us to to connect
with God? Is it kind of living this inspiration to inspiration? I come on
Sundays I'm inspired and I kind of just let that drift during the week and I
come back to Sunday and I get inspired again. What does it really mean and and
how is it that we begin to see God at work around us? When I was in college I
remember someone said hey you realize Keith that God is always at work around
you and and I didn't realize that and I began to have eyes to see what God was
doing and it kind of transformed my life and it transformed my spirituality and
what it looked like for me to participate and to hear from God and so
sometimes I hear people say well I'm just not a very spiritual person and
really what I think is is that people that say that they just don't understand
what it really means to experience God because I think that we're all wired to
believe that there's something beyond ourselves.
That's kind of this natural but when we don't understand what that looks like
we're kind of left and I don't know if you've ever been there just trying to
figure out what what really does this look like? How do I crack the code? How
do I listen to his voice? How do I see God working around me and so
how is it that we live a life that's connected to our Heavenly Father and
see his hand and see his movement in our life and since
this happening and I think this is incredibly important it's essential
that we understand this because if not if we don't get this idea then the
participation in church is really just playing a game you know and it's
really not a game that's a lot of fun and
when I began to think about what game would this be like I thought of the
game catchphrase. Has anyone ever played catchphrase?
Yeah I don't understand why it's it's one of these things that seems really fun
at first someone brings out hey we're having a party we're playing catchphrase
yay it's really fun for like 10 seconds and then you're like
what's the point of this game? Well this game it's like someone
the creators of this game would just were ADD or something like that and
they're like let's have a game that's a really good idea now let's figure out
something else let's not complete any of the rules right
and so if you're strategic you're just like this is really boring
and I think that that's a little bit like church sometimes if you think about it
just in terms of this game that we're playing if we're saying
this is a social thing for me or or this is just an inspirational thing it
lasts a little while but it doesn't go the distance
and there's so many people who who have come to church and they drop out
because they didn't understand the key idea is that you would be able to
have a connection and be able to have something beyond just your physical
life that you're connected spiritually and so actually how does that work
and the great thing is you don't have to guess you don't have to try to crack the
code you don't have to wonder it's been given to you in
scripture and so we're going to walk through scripture and Jesus reveals
how it is what it looks like for us to live as people that
engage with our heavenly father and so we're going to look at mark chapter one
it's in the very beginning of this thing and mark chapter one gives us an
answer to this question it begins to reveal to us how this can go beyond just
playing games and how this can have some substance
reality in your life and how you begin to connect beyond just
events and things like that and so you can see it on the screen
you can turn there if you have your copy of scripture but we'll dive into it
we'll start in verse nine it says this i'm going to give you a little bit of
background and then we're going to dive into the text that we're in it says
at that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John this
is his cousin in the Jordan just as Jesus was coming up out of
the water he saw heaven being torn open
and the spirit descending on him like a dove
and a voice came from heaven you are my son whom i love with whom
i am well pleased think about that moment so he's there he's
he's displaying the same thing that we do in our baptism that this
this physical act of what is going on spiritually
and and and all of a sudden this is the heaven is torn open and and there's
a spirit that descends and and gives the most
significant encouragement ever like you know for us if this was something that
someone said to you you are my son we want more please man you wouldn't forget
that moment but if you're your heavenly father just
it's a big deal and so this is what happens after that
at once the spirit sent him out to the wilderness it takes a dramatic turn in
the story right go out in the wilderness and he
was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by satan and he was with the
wild animals and the angels attended to him
and number verse 14 it says this after john was put in prison
jesus went into galilee proclaiming the good news of god
the time has come he said the kingdom of god has come near
repent and believe the good news and so all of this is leading to this
this idea that that jesus begins his ministry with
so i just wanted to give you i mean mark if you've ever read the gospel of mark
it's like rapid fire it's it's like the action gospel right it is happening
and this happened this happened this happened and uh in this we begin to
see in a rapid fire all of these things are happening with Jesus's life and
they catalyze this moment for him to begin his ministry
and this is the message that he has he's beginning to gather people and to
beginning to say i have something to say and what he has to say is one sentence
right probably not but but it probably he expounded on it when he would
but he said this the time has come the kingdom of god has come near
repent and believe the good news and for us when we begin to say
what is this all about how is this beyond just a game
jesus is saying this is what it's all about this is the
the core of what i've come into this world
to tell the people of this world humanity and so when we begin to look at
this one of the things that we have to do is
is begin to say what is he trying to communicate why is he saying this
and as you begin to look at this and you kind of have the eyes one of the things
that when i read this it came out this this idea of the kingdom of god has
come near this phrase when he begins to say what's
happening he starts off with this phrase the kingdom of god
has come near and when we begin to think about the kingdom of god coming near
this might be something that might not seem strange
but to those people in that time in that day and age
when they would have heard that the kingdom of god is coming near that god is
coming near what this would have been was just a
mind-blowing idea because if you were to ask any of them where is god
where does god live they would say they would point towards the direction of
Jerusalem and say they're in the temple in the holy of holies in the inner
part of the temple that is where god dwells and that is far from
Galilee and so he is not near from us he is very far from us
but this is exactly what god is and this is where he's
at and so when when jesus comes and says hold it
i've got to say something to you there's a time that's come
and the first action that is being taken is god is going from distance to near
and for them to have a whole new view of this because here's what they believed
about god when when they begin to understand who god is god was
other it was it was away from them when they begin to when you look in the old
testament if you would do something about where god was
kind of contained if they called the ark of the covenant you might have
seen that in indiana jones but this was one of these things where this is
you know where god dwelled and if you we would read and if there was something
that happened wrong if or if you've touched it you would die the
holiness of god was so other that there was something that was
kind of a disconnected thing and so when we begin to
think about this when jesus is saying there's a dramatic shift
that is occurring that god is coming near
that he's coming near physically through jesus christ this is the first aspect of
this but the whole idea the good news is that god
is not distant but he is near that people are being brought from
being distant from god to being near to god and this is throughout all cultures
the tension that exists in terms of spirituality that we believe that
somehow there's a distant god but christianity begins to say here's what
we're going for is it's a near god it's bringing you
into a relationship and so jesus is telling them his mission he said i have
come to bring people from being distant to god to being near to god
and this is the sin of humans that ultimately created the gap that
ultimately in the very beginning when we look at this
there's a sin that was entering the world that basically says god i i don't
want anything to do with you i want to do it my way
and this gap created um or this created this gap between god and between people
but god decided to do this he decided to send his son jesus
into the world and jesus's work is to close the gap
between humanity and god and by this he's not gonna make humanity good enough
for god he's going to actually stand in the gap
and so from this what jesus does is he lives a perfect life
and sacchar officially for us gives up of his life
dies on a roman cross so that there would be an experience
of nearness given to us through his redemption
of our sins and so we would be able to close the gap with our heavenly father
now from the very beginning he's setting his mission he said here's the thing
this is the good news that there doesn't have to be a fear of god
in terms of i don't understand who he is or i'm i'm living in shame
but ultimately closing the gap and today this is the same thing for us
that when we begin to think are we living near to god or we
drawing uh are we i'm sorry are we a distant from god are we drawing near to
god for some of you here you've never made a
decision to accept jesus christ and the sacrifice that he made on
that roman cross for you to cover over your sins and allow you to be redeemed
and close that gap between you and god and so that distance is still very real
and for some of you there's a distance because you have allowed
that that sacrifice to not be as important or not be foremost in your life not
be a priority and so there's been a drift or for some of you maybe there's been
an event that feels like there's a distance from god because you feel like
you don't measure up in this way or there's some shame over this thing that
you did in that place and and and and when we begin to think
about this the mission of jesus is to draw people who are distant to god
into a near relationship with guys i haven't come to be distant
i haven't come to be confined confined into sacred spaces
i've come to enter into your space and then he when we begin to look closer at
this too he begins this whole thing not just this idea of i've come to be a
part of this this space i've come to draw near
but before that he says the time has come the time has come and when we begin
to think about time and space he's talking about space he's talking about
what's going to happen but this idea of time for us in english there's
that simple one word but in the new testament
there are these two words that we get to use and and these two words
mean two different things and one of the things that about 50 times in the new
testament the word chronos is used and chronos is this idea of of time as
sequential or a successive time so we measure our days we have a watch and
it tells us the chronos so we have a chronograph right
and so this is the chronos this is the way we live our life
in the linearity of that being able to just go through life and
and that's used about 50 times but throughout the bible there's another
word in fact 80 80 or a little bit over 80 times
the word kairos is used and this word kairos means something different it's
it's a moment it's an event it's an opportunity
where something has changed because it's the right time
it supersedes just a time in a sequential or
successive kind of way but you're in a moment
and when you begin to think about how you see your life there's kind of two
ways for you to see your life in terms of chronology
or to see your words your your life in terms of kairos moments
and what jesus uses is the word kairos and so he says here's the time has come
not not i came to this point and really the dates all aligned and
but he's saying the moment in time has arrived
the moment that i have come to fulfill has arrived interesting thing
at the very end of his life he uses the same kairos words
to say the time has come so he bookends his entire ministry on earth
talking about this moment and this moment for us i think that we
need to have this language that's integrated into our lives
because i think that we can live in these kairos moments and here's what
i mean by this in fact let me let me give you a slide that talks about
chronos you can talk about this in terms of of
linearity and so how this works but we can also see this in terms of
moments in kairos and the next slide says this
there's these things that just happen in our life
and what does it look like you see this is things that can be positive or
negative you can have negative kairos moments you can have
you can have positive things these are things like
maybe you look back and for those of you who are married you know that that
marriage day you can kind of capture it in your mind or
the birth of a child or maybe it was it was something that was a favorite
vacation or things that you did is when you're a kid and you can kind of just
capture that and those are kairos moments and then there's other things
again that are really negative you can think through maybe a death of someone
in your family a tragic situation the the moment you found out that the
divorce was happening all of these things kind of
suspend time for us and and really i i think our lives are more
connected to these moments than they are a chronology
and so you think back what are these things that we're we're really impacting
us and so you can recognize these things you can recognize
maybe things that happened in your past and really what
happens is your emotions are one of the best indicators of this
that they're the one of the best indicators that something's going on
that is not just a linear thing that you're gonna just bypass
that when you begin to say what is going on here what is happening in this
moment how is how is this kind of time is kind of
standing still in this in this moment and these can be even
smaller things in our life when we begin to recognize
things that are significant that are happening all throughout
our lives these are the things that matter and
one person says it like this kairos is when an eternal god breaks into your
circumstances with an event that gathers some of the loose
ends of your life and knots them together in his hands
and so when jesus is telling us about the time and telling up about
what we're looking at he's using this word kairos
and oftentimes when we begin to think through this idea when we begin to
think about how we interact with god we're thinking about how do i get god's
attention how is it that i pray enough to kind of get god on my side or i kind
of make my request known so i can get god's attention to this
matter in our life and what we begin to see is jesus
is revealing to us that the best question that we can
answer is is not whether or not we've gotten god's attention because the
the cross answers the question of whether god's given his attention to us
the question is do we have gods or does god have our attention
does god have our attention and what he uses this is the beautiful thing is he
uses all kinds of things to capture our attention
god uses all the kinds of things through our life
to capture us and to be able to look at how he's moving in our lives and so
some of us we need to begin to to notice
these things around our lives and i hope this becomes the language of our
church that we begin to have people that are having kairos moments that we
recognize that god is breaking through or he's trying to get our attention
because that's a that's the bigger question that's a question that we
should ask each other does god have your attention
because that's what god desires you don't have to fight for his
you have to align your heart to say are you
are you aligning your heart do you have attention that you're giving
to your heavenly father
and so what happens with this when we begin to think through this
when we begin to understand we have some options here when there becomes a
moment in your life and you've all had these moments you have
had a lot of these moments when you begin to see
that something is happening you have an option
you have an option just to kind of go through and kind of do the cronos thing
or you have an option to say here is something
that i need to stop to think about and to allow god to work in my life
we need to ask ourselves what time are we living by
are we just marking off time are we looking for those events that god
breaks through because this is how we stop playing the game
this is how this starts becoming real when we begin to think about what does it
look like for us to interact and engage with our heavenly
father there's all kinds of stuff he's doing around our lives and there's all
kinds of things he's doing to capture our attention
does he have that and what happens there's this slide number three it looks a
little bit like this that we're going along and there's this
high roast moment and then what we can do is we have the option to continue on
through or we have the option to kind of begin to get into a loop
and this is for us the way that we're teaching people how to follow Jesus and
this is a tool we didn't come up with it but we're leveraging this tool to be
able to help us to understand what it looks like for us
to live this out and so what did Jesus say the time has come
the kingdom of god is near repent and believe so we have slide number four it
says this it says repent and believe Jesus is
saying this is how you go into this circle so instead of just
coasting through this moment and instead of just allowing this thing to just
kind of bypass what you can do is you can begin to engage with this
and so what i want this is how we go deep with christ this is how we begin to
understand what it looks like for us not to be just just superficial
followers of christ but we begin to say what does it look like for us to
actually dig into what god has for us and this takes courage for us to say
i'm going to process this and the two question
is this what is god saying and how do i respond
what is god saying and how do i respond and the two words we use
or the words that jesus used and this is the idea that we are to
the process of spirituality looks like this that we are in a continual
fashion it's almost like a slinky right we're going through these
kairos moments over and over and over and when we begin to think about what
this looks like i think the word repent is really a word that
is oftentimes misunderstood it has these negative connotations to it and we begin
to think like oh this is condemnation you should repent and
change your actions and stuff like that but when you begin to look at the
original text what it means is this word metanoia and
metanoia simply means to change your mind and so there might have been things
that you you know you change your mind you you had a metanoia experience
i remember the first week that taco bell was open
here in pulmon i had a metanoia experience right i was like sweet
i don't have to drive to moscow to go to taco bell
and then 15 minutes later after i was you know still waiting on my order
i wanted to side of metanoia with that right so i said i've changed my mind
on whether this is the right thing to do so uh bringing taco bell into sermons
that's right so um i you know that we change your mind you know and um
use this with my kids the other day and uh so um dad you said that we're gonna do
this and i thought i had a metanoia moment and so uh they didn't understand
what that meant but they stopped asking me so um great parenting so uh anyway
that's this idea for us of simply this this internal change of mind and so
oftentimes what we've thought about this is the external thing and belief is the
internal thing but i really believe that when we begin to understand what this
looks like we have to flip those around and begin to understand that
first starts with saying jesus is better that i need to change in this and
that ultimately when we begin to say how will i respond in belief that is an
action thing and and really this is the key thing as we begin to
understand these two parts of this i believe that the this most significant
issue with american christianity is that you can be a christian and not a
follower of christ that you can have knowledge but there's a
knowledge there's a gap between knowledge and obedience and i think that's
what an unbelieving world looks into our world or into
the church and says that's what's unbelievable is that there'd be this gap
between this is what you say and this is what you do and that's not what jesus
taught that we are to combine these things that there's a
repentance a change of mind when we begin to understand this is who i am
that's who god is there's something's gotta change god is eternal always
there all completely holy it must be my
issue and so how is it that i begin to live this out different and this is how
we begin to say what does this look like how do we understand
this moment and so having experienced a chiros event in our life then we begin
the process of learning then we begin the process of
this so um you know chiros is an event uh
metanoia or repentance and belief these are process words and i want you to
engage the process and this for us is what this looks like in our next slide
when we begin to say how is it that we begin to walk through something that
latches on that engages our heavenly father and allows us to understand what
it looks like and so there's three parts of the
repent process and three parts of the believe process
and so let me walk you through what this looks like
so the the observe thing is when we have a moment where something has happened
it's in it's really important for us to do this and we can go up to the kind of
the observe uh it's to change our lives we need
others to observe or we need to observe where we are
this means taking note of our reactions our emotions our thoughts
we have to be honest in our observations we have to be honest
and see things the way that they really are if we were actually going to change
and so it first starts with us saying okay here's this event
what happened in that event what was going on in that event what was what
was i feeling what was i experiencing what were my actions like
and so we have to begin to say okay we've got to objectively look at this and
begin to say if god is going to do something in our lives is there going
to be a repent and believe kind of component to this it starts with this
observation thing and then when we begin to move past the observation we begin
to get into this moment of reflecting and this reflecting piece
says this it means that we're asking ourselves why we reacted
or felt this way so what is the observation why is the reflection
if the real change is to take place we must be honest with our answers
we must then ask if there's a difference between my actions
and god's character so this is incredibly important so up for us to
begin to say hey i acted like this this this is the thing that i did and and
now i need to figure out where the heck did that come from
and and what is that out of when what what is it that that's connected to
and as i begin to identify some of the emotions or some of the things that are
going on on a deeper level we have to ask
ourselves does this align with who god's god is
and those are the moments when we begin to see okay this is
this is so key for us if we would just have introspection enough to be able
to look at this and begin to say oh you know what that doesn't look like
god and oftentimes what happens is we
get into cycles of the same thing over and over in our life because we don't
stop and ask is what i'm doing looking like who god is
we get stuck in this thing and we don't have a moment to be able to say
you know what i need to understand that this is not who god is that there's a
gap between my actions and the and the condition of my
heart and the character of god and those are not in alignment
and so when we begin to say what does that look like we begin to identify
what it would take to be in alignment what am i missing out on who god is
that i need to begin to integrate and what we begin to do then
and this is where it might be get tricky because some of you guys like doing
this on your own you can kind of process this over
and maybe you're doing this anyway but the next thing is discuss
for resonate church this is a significant thing it says this
discussing these thoughts with a group of trusted friends
is important it can be hard to share your thoughts and struggles with someone
else but it'll help you grow and it'll change the way god
wants you to so here's the thing we go back and we
base this on on james 516 pray with one another
and confess to another so that you may be healed
this is so key for us when we keep it internal
we don't change i promise you if there's some stuff that you've been going
through in your life that you've kind of perpetually
gone through the problem is likely
that you've never talked to somebody about this to the depth that you need to
it's one of the key things i think if you'll just get
someone who is a believer who's a follower of christ
around you and you'd be in the dialogue that there's significant things that
happen and so this is this idea that we don't just keep this
internal but we bring other people in there because here's the thing we can
often have a view of ourselves that is really unrealistic
that we can have a viewpoint of ourselves that really isn't
who we are but when we bring other people and say hey what do you think about
this oftentimes a loving trusted friend will
say incredible things to you that you would be able to never see on your own
every single one of you and me as well we have blind spots
and it's not until we have people around us that we're discussing our life
these kairos moments with that we begin to be aware of the blind spots
don't live with blind spots discuss and discover with other people
and that's the repentance process and then we move to the belief process
and then you begin to see this response and it says this for the plan after
reflecting and discussing the next step is to plan
this always involves considering the kingdom of god first
pray discuss and consider the best course of action to glorify god
there's all kinds of things that that we think through but we don't have a plan
and if we don't have a plan if we don't have something that we begin to say
you know god was speaking to in my life in this way but there's something that i
need to be able to respond to and i need to be able to engage into this and so
there's something that i actually need to do about this that there's some action
that i need to take towards this and i need to figure out how is it
that i begin to change my actions and my thoughts from this to that and that is
incredibly incredibly important this is the plan part
and the next part of this in the action step is to take
and have an account or bring somebody who's an accountability towards this
because there's all if you're like me there's all kinds of things that i think
in my head oh this is the goal that i have you know
and i just have this in my head and i ultimately
you know i don't reach it and it's just kind of okay because i never really
even told anybody about this right so i didn't tell you that i had this goal so
it's really easy for me to duck out of it it's really easy for me to not be the
person i want to be because you know i didn't really have anybody that's
that i told or kind of divulged this kind of idea that i wanted for my life
it is crucial for us to be able to bring other people in and say hey i want to
live this way i want to be this kind of person
would you help me with that would you ask me questions
and i've been around hundreds and hundreds of people and and talk through
spirituality and discipleship and people that are trying to do really good
things but left on our own there's an
incredible incredibly few amount of us that
would actually do it things that we have difficulty
with on our own we need each other you need
other people around you simply to ask the question
and you need to say hey i want to give you permission
to ask this question accountability and the final thing is to act
is to begin to put this into place so that your actions now because of this
kairos moment you enter the kairos circle and you began to have actions that
are different and so that people can look back at
your life and you can look back at your life and say
you know what the gap between who i was and who the character of god is
it's beginning to narrow and i'm beginning to be live more like christ
and this is the follower of jesus if you're not doing that if there's not
some sort of a something that you're getting closer to jesus you're not
following you're a fan you're you're just saying you know
this is it that's a great thing i don't want to do anything but i just want to
be a fan and we have too many fans and not enough
followers in the kingdom of god and this is jesus'
statement you've got to repent and to believe
and oftentimes when we begin to think about this
we have to understand how do we balance all of these things together what does
it look like this morning i got up and heard about the
the bay area earthquake you know that that happened and there's few people
that injured and stuff like that but uh begin to think about this for some of
those people um there was a choice there there's
something that happened that was might have been something that was out of the
norm for them like so i mean they live in the bay area they should expect it but
it might still be out of the norm right for them to have an earthquake
and uh and hearing people post and and say it's like my house was on roller
skates or are these kind of things that like it felt like all the shaking out of
control i wonder what it would have been like for
someone to to take that and begin to realize there's a kairos moment that is
potentially in that scenario and so maybe you know
they're there and uh and think about this so so you're there and
and um and you begin to experience this shaking of your house and it's and
it's incredibly unnerving right because houses are built on firm foundations
and they don't shake and this is not something that is is normative but you
begin to see and feel your house shaking and all of a sudden there is
an overwhelming fear that begins to come over and you you begin to
to have this moment and you begin to understand there's nothing that you can
do you're trying to hold on to your bed but there's nothing you can do to stop
it and it is just going on without you you realize in the midst of this
that you're not going to die it's not like your house is going to collapse
but you do know that there's nothing that you can do to stop
your home from shaking and it begins to be a moment that kind of
sets you in a kind of some uneasiness
so you can go back and you can begin to say okay there's this moment
is there something in this moment that that I can just pass this by and kind
of operate out of chronos or I can say you know what in this
moment there was something that happened I felt something
could I instead of bypassing the chronos or bypassing the chiro's moment begin
to enter into the chiro's circle and begin to have some observation begin
to look at that and say you know what I had this moment of fear
and really when I unpack it a little bit it wasn't fear of survival I mean
everybody would have a fear of of dying in that
scenario but this was really a fear that I was out of control
I was holding on trying to make it stop
but it didn't and I couldn't handle it and then you go into the reflective kind
of thing and you begin to say okay so if I was trying to
to make that stop if I was trying to to figure out is that
what does that say what's going on where did that fear come from what was
happening there and maybe you can identify this and begin to say you know
what in this I recognize that it wasn't a survival fear it was a control fear
and I began to recognize in that moment that I had some
control issues and I wanted to make it stop and I tried to make it stop but it
wouldn't it wouldn't stop we begin to talk with
people around us and say hey you know what I had this you know when the
hurricane sorry when the earthquake happened
I began to have this this really fearful response
and it seemed like it was a little bit more about control have you seen that in
my life and they might say yeah there's a few things it seems like you're
really putting a lot of effort into controlling into your life
and you begin to identify and say when I reflected on that
I really kind of want to control my own life and I'm really distrustful that
God has my best in store that there's a fear in there and that
doesn't seem to my belief in the character of God is not
truly the character of God and so you begin to say what what can I begin to
do what's my plan and you might be able to
say I can I'm going to start identifying moments
when this out of control feeling surfaces
and when this out of control feeling surfaces what I'm going to do is I'm
going to go back to some scripture that helps me to know who God is
and I'm going to actually put a rubber band on my arm and my wrist
and just helping me to understand what flexibility looks like and the fact that
I can't I can't structure everything and make
sure that nothing's going to happen and so I have to be flexible in my life
then my ask the people around me I'm going to say hey you know what this is
who I really want to be I want to I don't want to be the person with the
control issue and I know that doesn't doesn't align up with what who God is
and the trust that I might have with God would you just ask me how I'm doing
with that
are those am I responding to those issues in a godly way or in a lack of God
in godliness and the final thing is I'm
actually going to do it I'm not just going to talk about it
but I'm going to to to identify those things and replace those
with truth it might be something like that it
might not be something that is as significant as that
in terms of a moment it might be a little bit
of something that happens normatively in your life and you begin to
to kind of process this I don't want to just say these are big moments but
but let's let's say you have let's say you have a conversation with your wife
about coming home late and and you begin to have that
conversation and that begins to kind of have this moment where you begin to
recognize hey there's there's something happening
and and the conversation wasn't really exactly
a pleasant experience and I want to try to figure out what is this look and
what's this dynamic look like in our relationship
and let's say you know that that said person has an opportunity to
to continue in the Kronos or to enter into the Kairos
what does that look like and as you begin to think about
this you know as you begin to think about
what are my actions and what does this look like and I begin to realize that
the actions that I'm communicating and I come home late
see I suddenly shifted the pronouns there but
are something that doesn't align it begins to
to communicate priorities to my family I begin to realize this and I begin to
understand what this looks like and begin to say okay there's some
there's some actions that that really communicate that there's something
else that's a higher priority and so what are those actions as I begin to
reflection what do these look like and somehow my actions are talking
about my my valuing of my family and that doesn't
align with who God is and and it really is when I begin to look at
the character of God being always consistent and being always consistent
in the valuing that looks like who God is and there's a gap in that
or if I'm pressing a little deeper into this
I'll candidly say that there's a little darker side to this
that maybe this coming home late is a reflection of this
idea of the trust I have of God and that if
I don't keep at it he's not going to keep at it
and I'm not sure if I can trust God with this thing I'm
building and giving my life to and so I begin to bring other people in and
begin to say hey there's there's this thing that I'm
perceiving in my life that that I'm not sure if I can trust God
I'm not sure if I believe this and this is brought on by
the conversation right I begin to recognize that I need to be able to
have a system in place to communicate the values to my family
to communicate somehow how I am going to to react towards them
and so I have a plan and that's to create always to have a six o'clock meeting
so that I never am working too late as I begin to think about
my kids going back to school and and I think about the time that I need with
them to create a plan on that to be able to create a
timer on my calendar and to be able to say I'm going to share this calendar and
create accountability with this and then ultimately I'm going to follow through
and be able to say okay you know what this moment this conversation
that I had with my wife triggered something that is a
divergence between who I am and who the character of God is
and then be able to see as I act this out this week
my wife did a thing where she was talking through
what do you what do you like the most and all these things
what was your favorite memory of summer and all of these different things
and my daughter said my favorite thing was when daddy came home from work
right and cotton candy but I'll take it you know I'll take it cotton candy man
to be up there with that that's that's a pretty good deal
but I have to begin to real realize that that conversation I could just say
you know what she doesn't understand you know what there's a lot of pressure in
this you know what I can just do a little bit better
but could it push us into kairos moments to be able to not just say I'm going to
live by this but I'm going to try to figure out how is it
that I understand who God is that I understand what he is doing
that I understand that he is at work so for you tonight
what time are you living in are you living in kronos
where you're just seeing things go by are you living in kairos
when you begin to see that there's these moments and there's these things that
are happening what does that look like
what time are you living in I want us to be people that are recognizing God
around us so that we don't be the people that are playing games
for us to be the people that are are are engaging the circle
and be able to go around and say this is how I actually become a follower of
Christ is there a kairos moment that you've recently
gone through is there something that's happened
that has triggered because here's the thing it's not about getting God's
attention it's about God getting your attention
and he uses all kinds of things in our lives to bring us into these moments
where he clearly articulates what this looks like
this is who we're called to be and I hope this builds a foundation for us to be
people who are not just going through the motions but are truly experiencing God
let me pray for us gotta ask that you would
in these moments that you would
reveal who you want us to be God that you would allow us to hear this
and to be moved towards this God that they that we would be people
who hear this idea of repentance and belief
and are drawn to it and today that we would just hear this but we would begin
to to talk through our lives and talk through the lens of having kairos
moments and talk through the lens of being able to understand what it means
for us to to change our mind and to act more godly and to to to move
towards God so let us Lord respond this evening
and understand how you've begun to even in this time
create a kairos moment in our hearts let us respond to that in your holy name
amen
