Matt Sturdevant: Think about a friend of yours, someone you enjoy spending time with, someone that you just might want to hear their voice. If you were in the car and had a few extra minutes, that’s the person that you would call. I want you to picture them in your mind right now. Think about their face; think about the last time you got to see them in person and actually be with them. Now that you have that person in your mind, I want you to think about this. What sort of activities led to you having the deep relationship with them that you enjoy? It may actually even be difficult to remember a time that you weren’t friends with them, but there actually was a time when you didn’t know them. Then you were introduced to them, and then over time, you got to know them. And, your relationship developed to what it is today, the deep friendship that you have.
Today, we’re going to be continuing our series, Standing Strong When Things Go Wrong. We’re taking a look at Biblical principles that can help us when we face challenges in life, when we face the difficult times, when we face crises like we’re in during this time period right now with the Covid crisis and the pandemic that we’re experiencing. When we began this series several weeks ago, we talked about that when the storms of life come, when they’re raging all about us and things are going wrong and we’ve faced these difficult situations, we face trouble. The foundation of our lives makes all the difference. In order to stand strong when things do go wrong, we have to have an answer to a very important question. That question is “What am I going to build the foundation of my life on?”
We also looked at Jesus Christ as the firm Foundation that we’re called to build our lives upon that He is actually the Rock that we can build our lives on. As we do and the storms of life come, we have that firm foundation that’s needed in order to stand strong. Jesus told His followers that they needed a helper. When Jesus was returning to be back in Heaven with the Father, He said, “I’m going to send you a Helper,” someone to be with you. That Someone is the Holy Spirit, and the moment that we become a follower of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit resides inside each Christ follower and gives us help. He also helps us stand strong when things are going wrong. If you missed any part of the series, I want to invite you to take a look at the links that you will find on the listening guide that you can download.
Since Jesus Christ is the firm Foundation and the ultimate Source by which we stand firm when things go wrong, it’s actually the depth of the relationship that we have with Him that makes all the difference for us. For the next two weeks, I want to take a look at deepening our walk with Jesus. It’s actually God’s intention that we become like Jesus, that we become like Him in character. It’s actually not enough to just know about Jesus, but we’re actually to know Him and to know Him personally. Think about that for just a moment. I’m sure each one of us can think of some people that we know, but we don’t really know them. Maybe it’s a celebrity or a sports figure, someone that you know something about. But when it really comes down to it, you don’t really know that much about them. You don’t know them on a personal basis. The same is true when it comes to Jesus. We can simply know some things about Him, or we can actually know Him as a person. We can know Him as our Lord and Savior. We can know Him very personally—how He thinks about things, what is important to Him. What does He delight in? How does He respond to different situations in life? Since we’re called to be like Him, we should also be responding in a similar way.
One quick word of caution for you though, is as soon as we start talking about these things that for some would seem kind of basic, there’s a temptation to think, “I’ve got this! I already know how to walk with Jesus.” Particularly if you’ve been walking with Him for a while, there’s sort of a temptation to kind of mentally, emotionally, or spiritually check out when we talk about these kinds of things. But, I want to invite you to not do that. I want to invite you to not do that because if we did, those of us who are more mature followers of Jesus, we can actually miss some of the things God has for us. Some things that He wants us to hear. If you have been walking with Jesus for a while, my prayer for you is that today the Lord would refresh your perspective. He would give you a new sense of perspective and speak to you and give you energy as you continue the journey forward with Him.
If you’ve recently decided to follow Jesus or you’re not yet following Him, I also have a prayer for you. It’s that I want you to see that it’s actually possible to have a deep, personal walk with Jesus. Earlier in the series, we talked about the fact that God created us for relationships. He actually created us so that we could know Him. God knows everything about us, but He actually wants us to share our lives with Him. He wants us to share our thoughts, our feelings, and our heart. That’s one of the things you find when you read the Psalms. King David was very good at sharing his thoughts and feelings with God, his Creator. God actually desires that we have a relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. Just like we develop a relationship with other people, we develop a relationship with God through Jesus. It takes time. It’s over time that we actually develop a relationship. It’s not something that just happens immediately. That in an instant all of a sudden, we have this vibrant, deep walk with Christ.
Actually, when we begin deepening our walk with Christ, I want to look with you at some key actions, some key things that are a part of that. So that, over time we can develop a deep walk with Christ. We’re going to take a look at three actions that are necessary. The first one is that we need to R.S.V.P. to God’s invitation for a relationship with Him. Before we can deepen our walk with Christ, we actually have to have a walk with Christ. We have to have started a walk with Him. We’ve talked a little bit more in depth about what that is and what that means earlier in the series. Again, you can check out some of the earlier messages if you missed those. But, I just want to kind of give you a summary of what it means to R.S.V.P. to God’s invitation.
R.S.V.P. is just an easy way to remember what’s involved. The “R” stands for realize the need. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall of the glory of God.” Each and every one of us needs to realize that we are included in that word “all.” We fall short of what God has for us. We already know, and we sort of experience trouble and problems, but we actually need to come to the point where we realize that we are sinners, that we are in rebellion against our Creator. We’ve been trying to do life our own way, a way that’s very different from the way God intends. The “R” is to realize the need.
The “S” is to say I’m sorry. The Biblical word for this is to repent. Acts 3:19 says, “Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away.” As we’re in rebellion against God, we’ve been going our own direction, but when we repent, we actually turn from our direction and go in the direction that God has for us. We start living our life in a way that’s pleasing to Him.
Then, “V” stands for verbalize our faith. We actually need to verbalize it. Romans 10:9 says, “Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” We actually have to have a moment where we verbalize it, and we have just a very short prayer and we pray. We tell God that we realize that we’ve been in rebellion against Him and that best we know how, we want to turn our lives to Him. We ask God for forgiveness for our rebellion, and we ask Jesus to come into our lives and to help us now live in a way that’s pleasing to God. That’s how we can confess and verbalize our faith.
The “P” is not actually part of the process of becoming a follower of Christ, but it’s actually the first step of obedience. The “P” stands for plunge the past because one of the ways that we show publicly that we belong to the Lord Jesus is that we are baptized. Baptism is a symbol of the death, burial, and resurrection that Jesus Christ Himself did for us. So, we plunge the past; that’s how we R.S.V.P.to God’s invitation. I want to invite you. Perhaps you haven’t done that yet; I want to invite you to R.S.V.P. to God’s invitation. Maybe you’ve got questions, and you’re not sure. We want to be as much of a help as we can in helping you get the answers to your questions. Because God invites each and every one of us into a relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.
After we have R.S.V.P.’ed and we’ve actually begun a walk with Christ, we can then work on deepening it. The next thing we must do is we need to realize that walking with Jesus on this side of eternity is a journey made one step at a time over my lifetime that I’ll be taking next steps. You see, following Jesus, that decision is one big decision that we make, but then there are all kinds of little decisions that come after. Hundreds of decisions that come after we make that big decision, and we make those little decisions in the form of next steps that we take for the rest of our life.
Thinking back to that dear friend that you thought of when we began, remember there is a time when you didn’t know that person. There was a time when you didn’t have the relationship with them that you enjoy now. But, there was a moment when you met. Perhaps someone introduced you, and then over time you began to deepen and develop a relationship that you enjoy today. The same is true with a relationship with Jesus Christ. There was a time that we didn’t know Him. Perhaps, some of us didn’t even know that He existed. Then, we found out that He existed, and we began to learn about HIm and the life change that is possible if we walk with Him. We have a moment that we decided to follow Him, and then we continue over time to deepen our relationship over time with Jesus.
You see in both cases with our friend and with Jesus, we don’t just simply have a deep relationship just by doing nothing. In both cases, it takes initiative; it takes intentionality that we don't’ just spend time together, but we actually have to be doing some of the right things during that time so that we can grow and we can deepen our relationship. In John 15 in the New Testament, Jesus makes an interesting statement to some of His followers. He says this, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus and His followers at the time lived in an agrarian society where speaking of vines and branches would have made a lot more sense to them just in the way that they lived their lives.
For us today, basically what Jesus is saying is He’s the vine or the tree trunk, and we’re the branches. When the branches are connected to the tree trunk, that’s when they’re healthy, when they’re vibrant, alive, and when they bear fruit. But if the branches are no longer connected to the tree, they don’t bear fruit. You can look at an apple tree, and you can see all these wonderful apples growing from the tree. But if one of those branches falls off because of maybe a storm and it breaks off, it’s not going to bear any more fruit. We are just like that. As we abide in Jesus as we stay connected to Him, that’s when we are alive. That’s when we bear fruit in our own lives.
Our first move is to R.S.V.P. to God’s invitation. The second is to realize that walking with Jesus is a journey, and it’s a journey that’s going to last the rest of our life. It happens as we take next steps over time. The third move that we make is that we need to keep Christ at the center of our life, and we need to learn to walk in the Holy Spirit. To visualize Christ as the center of our life, I want to share an illustration with you that I learned of a number of years ago. It’s really helped me understand what it looks like; as far as I know, this illustration was originally created by Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators. The Navigators are a Christian ministry that really focus on helping people come to know Jesus and what it really means to walk with Him. They developed an illustration called “The Wheel.”
Over the years at Hope Church, we have used this illustration. We have shared it; we used a slightly modified version of what you would find if you looked at the original Navigator wheel. Here’s a picture of what the wheel looks like. Within the wheel, just like on our car, the driving force comes from the hub. The real power to live the Christian life comes when Jesus Christ is at the center of our lives. He actually, as I mentioned earlier, lives inside us in the person of the Holy Spirit. The moment that we decide to follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes and resides within us. He is that Helper that Jesus said He would give. The Holy Spirit’s job is to help us glorify our Lord.
The rim around the wheel represents Christ followers as they respond to Jesus. As they respond in Lordship basically means as we make Him our Boss, the Managing Director of our lives, we’re obeying the things that He says to do. That’s represented on the outside rim. Here at Hope Church over the years we have offered a variety of different trainings that have gone more in-depth with the concept of the wheel. I want to read a brief description for you of something that’s a part of one of these trainings. It’s a brief summary for you. “The spokes show us the means by which Christ’s power becomes operative in our lives. We maintain personal contact with God through the vertical spokes—the Word and prayer. The Word is our spiritual food, as well as the sword for battle. It’s the foundational spoke for effective Christian living. Opposite of this spoke is representing prayer. Through prayer we have direction communication with our Heavenly Father, and we receive provision of our needs. As we pray, we show our dependence and our trust in Him.”
This week I want to focus on those two spokes of prayer and the Word. Next week, we’ll take a look at the horizontal spokes—fellowship and ministry. To the extent that we engage in these four activities that we find within the wheel, over time we will be deepening our walk with Christ. My goal over these next two weeks is to take a look at these four activities a little bit closer and think about how they might help us when it comes to standing strong when things go wrong. God created you because He wants to have a relationship with you. One of the ways that we deepen that relationship...really the way that we deepen any relationship with anyone that we know...is we spend time with them. We get to know them; we get to know their likes, their dislikes, the way that they think, what’s on their heart. We actually get to know them. The same thing is true when it comes to God, our Creator, and Jesus, our Lord. We develop a relationship as we spend time getting to know Him.
Simply stated thinking about the Word is this: The Word is God’s way of speaking to me. In fact if I want to know what God thinks about something, I don’t have to just wonder. I can actually take a look at the Word, and I can find out what God actually thinks on a topic or a subject by engaging and reading His Word. God has already spoken to us on so many different things. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” There’s instruction; there’s perspective, and there’s correction. As we read the Word of God, He speaks to us. Psalm 119:105 says, “ Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” God’s Word provides an illumination for us as we move forward in life. Psalm 119:11 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” So that we can know what God expects of us, so that we can know what’s pleasing to God, He’s actually told us.
That’s one of the amazing things about God is He is very specific. He tells us the things that we should do and the things that we ought not to do. As we engage in His Word, we can learn what He thinks, and we can learn what is considered sin so that we can not do it. Then, if we do it, we can confess that sin, and we can re-engage and have a clear, right relationship with God. For me personally, one of the things that has just been incredibly comforting and refreshing is knowing that God’s Word is the same today when we’re living in a not-so-normal day and age. It’s the same today as it was when we began this year on January 1st. It’s the same that it was ten years ago. God’s Word is actually the same as it was a thousand years ago, and it’s the same as it was on the day that the words were written. God’s Word does not change over time, and that’s one of the ways that we can get to know Him and know Him deeply and what He says and what He thinks and what He expects. God’s Word is an incredible Resource for us to engage in so that we can get to know Him and deepen our walk with Him.
The Word is God speaking to me, and then prayer is simply me speaking to God. Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Very simply, prayer is talking to God. As the verse talks about supplications, supplication is specifically asking, humbly asking and requesting that God would do something. Maybe it’s something that we’re asking for ourselves or something that we’re asking for someone else, but it’s a posture of humbly asking God for something. Just prayer is talking to God.
So, why are we talking about this? Why are we spending some time focusing on prayer and the Word? What do they have to do with deepening our walk with Christ? Quite frankly, they have everything to do with deepening our walk with Christ. You see, God loves us. He loves us so incredibly much, and He wants a relationship with us. We chose to rebel against Him, and He made a way through Jesus Christ His Son so that we could be reconnected with Him. That’s how much He loves us and desires to have a relationship with us. He went to the ultimate limits sacrificing His own Son so that we could be made right with Him. God wants a relationship with us, and prayer and the Word are part of us relating. They are a part of us communicating with God. They are a part of us spending time with Him as we develop and cultivate and deepen a relationship with Him. Prayer and the Word are the tools and the means and some of the ways God has given us to be able to communicate with Him and deepen that relationship.
The more that you know God, not just know about Him… The more that you actually know God the more that you are going to trust Him, the more that you’re going to rely on Him, and the more that you’re going to have faith in Him, especially when things go wrong. As tempting as it is for us when life is going good and even when life starts to have problems, it’s tempting for us to rely on our own knowledge, our own intellect, or our own bank account or maybe how great circumstances are. We’re actually called to trust God, and as we deepen our relationship with Him, through Jesus as we have a greater understanding of who He is, it's so much easier to trust Him when things go wrong. It’s actually as we trust Him and as we deepen that relationship that we can stand strong when things go wrong and stand strong from an experiential knowledge not just a knowledge of but experience with.
The Bible, God’s Word, says so much about God’s love and God’s faithfulness, and that’s all true. In fact in the Old Testament book of Psalms, there are over 120 times that the phrase, “steadfast love,” is used. That basically means that God’s love is reliable; it’s dependable, constant, unwavering. It’s unchanging, and that’s all true. But it’s as we have more experiences with God, as we experience that steadfast love, that it actually becomes a reality for us. Sometimes those experiences are connected to difficult things; they’re connected to crisis. We spent two previous weeks looking at how God wants to grow us through the crisis that we go through. Earlier in this series I also shared through my own experience of an accident that I was involved in how God used that to grow some things deeply within me. There’s also the regular, everyday, even seemingly mundane experiences that we can have with God. As we have them over time, day by day we deepen our relationship, and the truths we have in Scripture actually are real to us. They become part of reality, and we don’t just know about them; we know them experientially.
The more time that we spend getting to know God—who He is, how He thinks, what His steadfast love looks like throughout history with His people and then even in our own lives—the easier it is for us to trust Him and to have faith in Him and to rely on Him as we walk through the storms and the difficult times of life. The more that we trust Him the more that it has an impact on how we’re able to stand strong when things go wrong. I want you to hear from some people who are a part of Hope Church and hear how their walk with Jesus has deepened over time as they have engaged in the Word and prayer in their own lives.
(Joanna) “One way my relationship with Jesus has deepened is that I know that God is real from reading the Bible and just from everyday life. Another thing is I know He hears my prayers, and even through these difficult situations like we’re living in right now, I can trust that He has every little thing under control. One way God has personally answered my prayers is that when I was raising money to be part of a mission trip, as I was coming up with ideas and even before I said anything, someone had called my mom and asked if I could babysit for them. That really showed that God really does care about me.”
(Jake) “There have been times where God has encouraged me as I’ve been reading the Scriptures in times of discouragement. He’s given me just what I needed to hear. There have also been times where I’ve prayed, and God has answered my prayer for direction about a specific decision I have to make. Those things, that God is real to me through prayer and Scripture reading, have really impacted me and made me feel closer to God.
(Samuel) “Some of the ways that God really deepened my faith through reading the Bible and praying with Him is that when I’ve prayed to God, He’s really answered my prayers so that I could really tell that He desires the best for me and wants to give me what I want if it’s within His boundaries. Also, God has shown me that I cannot control events in the everyday and that it’s fruitless for me to try and control events. Also, God has really shown me that even though I am young, I can still set an example in Godly behavior to other people, as it says in 1 Timothy 4:12.”
(Anna) “Two of the ways that I’ve grown the most in my journey as a Christ follower have been reading the Bible and praying to Jesus and God. I’ve learned so much about who God says He is and who we are through Scripture and how I’m supposed to live my life in light of those things. Also, just through prayer and through the way that He’s over time answered different things in my life, and I get to go back and attribute those things to Christ.”
(Cindy) “I have been a Christian since I was in the second grade. I was very fortunate that the church I grew up in was a church that really emphasized growth, and they also really emphasized having a personal quiet time as part of that growth. That means that I have had almost 63 years to work on or that I have been working on developing a good, consistent habit of devotion. I’ve had that habit I would say for 63 years, but I am still working on it. I have not...I cannot sit here and say that I consistently, every single day, have just wonderful quiet time. I have to...I’m still working on it. I’ll go for long periods of time, and I will just do really well and think, “I’ve got this down. I’ve got the habit.” Then, a period will hit where I will let everything in my life interfere with having a quiet time, and I will realize I do not have this habit down as well as I thought I did. It’s a continuous choice that I have to make everyday. I’ve learned that it’s so important because the only real way that I’m going to know God is if I spend time with Him. That daily quiet time is the way to do it.”
(Randall) “So over the years, it’s been a wonderful thing to get into God’s Word and to spend time hearing what He wants to tell us, hearing what He wants to say—what He wants to say to me directly. It’s really easy to get...to think on...with everything that’s going on in the world to think on other things and to let your mind go into weird places. The Bible is the thing that always brings me back into center, that always brings me back into line with what God has for me. When I spend time in prayer communing with Him, it’s really refreshing to reconnect with His love in that direct interaction with Him.”
(Pastor Matt) God made us to love us and to have a relationship with us. Two key activities that are a part of growing and developing and deepening that relationship are spending time with Him in the Word and in prayer. There have been volumes of books written on each one of those—the prayer and the Word. I want to take just a few moments and make a few comments as we wrap up our time—some things to consider as you think about deepening your own relationship with God through prayer and the Word.
I mentioned the Navigators earlier. The Navigators have several great resources, and I’ve put them in your handout, some links to them. They actually have two more illustrations I want you to know about that you can take a look at on the handout and download the PDF if you’d like. They have taken our hands, and they’ve got the WORD hand and the PRAYER hand—ways that we can think about how to grasp the concepts of engaging the Word and engaging prayer. Very simply, we engage the Word through hearing it, through reading it, through studying it, memorizing it, or meditating on it. Then, there’s all kinds of ways to pray and maybe you’ve heard some “more spiritually sounding” words. What does that mean? As I mentioned earlier, prayer is not only me talking to God but there’s different types of prayers. There’s confession where we agree with God about sin that He’s pointed out in our lives. There’s prayers of petition where we’re asking God to provide for our needs or prayers of intercession where we’re praying for the needs of others. Then there’s prayers of thanksgiving and prayers of praise. If you’re interested in learning more about what I just mentioned, I’d encourage you to download those through the links that you can find in the handout.
There’s so much that could be said about engaging through the Word and through prayer, but I want to mention some of the simplest forms and putting the two together. It’s something that we commonly refer to as a quiet time. Quiet time is just an intentional time each day that we set aside to spend a few minutes with the Lord. There’s prayer and Bible reading involved in that. The point is that we’re intentional; we’re intentionally setting aside some time to deepen and grow and develop our relationship. Sometimes we make it too complicated. Sometimes because it’s complicated, we don’t know what to do, or we give up. So, having a habit, a daily habit, of spending time with the Lord, again through what we commonly refer to as a quiet time, is one of the key things that’s made a difference in my own life. I want you to be a part of what I’m calling the “5 Day Quiet Time Challenge.”
That’s for this week where today is Sunday if you’re watching it on the day that we’re releasing this message, but starting tomorrow on Monday, or whenever you watch this, for five days I want to invite you to participate in a quiet time. Here’s what the challenge is; it’s to very simply just spend three to seven minutes a day for five days engaged in God’s Word and praying. You can break down your time as simply as this. Spend the first 30 seconds praying and asking God to speak to you. Ask Him to speak to you and show you more of who He is and help you to understand more about how He’s made you and what He intends for you and your life. Then, spend the next one to three minutes reading the Bible. We’re going to provide some passages for you to use. You can spend the next one to two minutes thinking about what you’ve just read and then writing down anything that stands out in your mind. Then, spend the last one to two minutes in prayer praying about what you’ve just read.
For example, if you were reading Psalm 23 and it starts out, “The Lord is my Shepherd…” You could then pray about the fact that the Lord is your Shepherd, and then thank Him for being your Shepherd and caring for you like a shepherd and protecting you and providing for your needs. Whatever the Lord has shown you in that passage of Scripture that you just read, simply use that as a guide to pray back to Him for a minute or two. I know many of you already have a pattern of a daily quiet time, and you're doing something that you’re used to doing. That’s working for you, and that’s great. You don’t have to use what I just described, but the point is that I want to invite everyone to join me in the next five days and set aside some specific, intentional time to spend with the Lord through prayer and reading the Bible for the purposes of getting to know Him deeper and deepening your walk with Him.
As your pastor, my desire for you is that you will come to know Jesus as your personal Savior and that over time as you take steps with Him, that you would grow a deep relationship with Him, a relationship that encourages you and helps you stand strong when things go wrong in your life. Would you join me in prayer? Father, we thank You so much that You have created us. You created us to know us and to love us and to have a relationship with us. Thank You that You have given us Your Word. Everything we need to know about You and about how we should respond to You, You’ve already given us in Your Word. If we want to know anything about what You think, we can look in Your Word, and we can discover what You have already revealed to us. Thank You that we also have prayer that we can speak to You; we can talk to You just like a person in the room with us. We can have a conversation with You; thank You that we can bring our requests to You, that we can share what’s on our heart, and that through our time with You, You encourage us. You strengthen us; You deepen our resolve, especially as we face the difficult times in our lives. Thank You that You have given us Your Word and that You have given us prayer. It’s in the name of Jesus Christ that I pray. Amen.
