But I want you to hear me say this. When you're in that moment, when you're in that place you never thought you would be, when a phone call changes your life, you will preach some kind of gospel to you. I say this all the time, and when I say it, people tend to laugh, but I'm really quite serious. No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do. See? You laughed. Most of us have learned its best not to move our lips and don't ever change places. They'll put you away. But you're in a constant conversation with yourself. Everyone in this room is a theologian. Everyone in this room is a philosopher. Everyone in this room is an archeologist who will dig through the mound of her existence and make sense out of your life. And I would ask you this evening to be honest in this moment. Don't be afraid of that honesty. The cross permits us to be the most honest community on earth. We should be known for our honesty. We don't need to front anymore. What gospel do you preach to you in those moments? What do you say to you about you, about God, about life, about others? The embarrassing thing probably for many of us, I know it is for me, is it doesn't even take real trouble for me to lose my way. You know, you're in one of those afternoons where you've been assigned to just get one thing from the grocery store that you need for dinner. Now, it doesn't seem much to ask of God that that could be done quickly. He's the Lord almighty. He can handle grocery store traffic. And you get to the store and it's fairly empty. You think, there must be a God. And you run to get your one can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes and you sprint to the one lane that actually has a clerk there. There are 72, but they're empty. What's up with that? Don't they know that having that many and only having two people there discourages us? And you're sprinting down the aisle and out from another lane comes this woman with 150 items. Already, you're halfway to atheism. And she begins to slowly pull out items as if she doesn't know how they got there. She's reading ingredients. "Oh, I didn't know they had that in that." Doubt of God has been placed with utter rage. You'd like to share something with that woman, but it wouldn't be Jesus. So she's finally through the basket. Words of the hallelujah chorus are coming to you. And you think, "I'm getting close." And she pulls out of her pocket 120 coupons, which now have to be carefully matched to the items. I'm a psycho killer at that point. Forget God in His glory. I need to be put away. She finally gets through the coupons. I'm like this now. And she pulls out her purse. It's the size of a camping tent for a family of six. When she looks into it, the whole top half of her body disappears. She's not pulling out makeup items to find her purse, she's pulling out children and small dogs. At that point, I've forgotten who God is. I've forgotten who I am. I've forgotten what life is about. My theology is gone. Why? Because I've been delayed 10 minutes. How shocking is that? Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. You're always preaching some kind of gospel to yourself. It's a gospel of aloneness and poverty and partiality and injustice and a graceless world, or it's the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that orients you in these moments where everything seems like sinking sand. Well, turn to Psalm 27. I love the Psalms. I am persuaded that the Psalms are in the Bible to keep us honest. I'm serious. Because faith is messy in the Psalms, not pretty. The blood and guts and dirt of the struggle of faith are splattered on every page of the Psalms. And this is a Psalm of trouble. I just want to read a few verses of this Psalm and then think through them with you. "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is a stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army and camp against me, my heart shall not fear. The war rise against me, yet I will be confident. One thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple, for He will hide me in a shelter in the day of trouble. He will conceal me under the cover of His tint. He will lift me high on a rock."
Transcript: Session 3
WOMEN HELPING WOMEN
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