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One of the most common experiences of
everyone in the world is that feeling of being stuck.
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We feel stuck in our relationships. We
feel stuck without relationships. We feel stuck by our job. We feel stuck
because we don’t have a job. We feel stuck by our health. We feel stuck by our
addictions.
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We feel stuck when we don’t take
responsibility, and we feel stuck when we do.
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We feel stuck because of something we
don’t want to talk about, our sin.
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For much of my life, I have felt
stuck.
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While there are a variety of reasons
for that feeling, like being bullied and intimidated throughout my early
schooling, family of origin dysfunctions, and generational sin, the point is I
was stuck.
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I felt stuck as a husband and a father
and I felt stuck as a pastor.
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Many times, I reached out for help
through personal coaching or counselling and each time changes began, but I
would soon fall back into my old patterns and ways and stay stuck.
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Three years ago, I began my journey to
intentionally get unstuck.
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What began with a spiritual retreat
for pastors became an expedition to rediscover my soul and who God made me to
be.
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First, what I discovered through the
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Course was that although I have Jesus in my
life, I also have grandpa in my bones.
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While I know Jesus and I love Jesus, my
ways of relating to others came from what I learned at home and at school,
which I might add is true for most everyone.
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While I know Jesus, my relationships did
not follow the pattern of his relationships.
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The relationships of Jesus were
emotionally and spiritually healthy, while my relationships usually were not.
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Therefore, for the past three years, I
have been focused on re-learning to make Jesus my foundation for all my
relationships and to persevere.
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Perseverance, coping with adversity,
continuing to endure life’s trials without self-destructing, and constructing a
sense of identity that is grounded in Christ has been the most recent focus of
my expedition this year.
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One of the most important things that
I have learned in the last three years is this: my doing for Jesus needs to
flow out of my being with Jesus.
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Being
with God must come before doing for God. That is the first
step on the road to emotional and spiritual maturity.
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When I realized that and began to put
it into practice my life began to get unstuck.
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As I said at the beginning, everyone
experiences that feeling of being stuck and the thing we want to face the least
is our sin.
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Of course, feeling stuck is nothing
new; the prophet Isaiah felt the same way.
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No wonder! God sent Isaiah to preach
to a people who would not listen.
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God’s people repeatedly turned their
backs on God, so God allowed them to be carried off into exile.
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Isaiah’s country was in shambles, the
wall of Jerusalem a pile of rubble, and the temple of the Lord destroyed.
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All around Isaiah his world was in
chaos and ruin.
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If ever anyone had a right to feel
stuck it was the prophet Isaiah.
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He declared in Isaiah 64:1-9 that without God, we are stuck!
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“If only you would tear the heavens
open and come down, so that mountains would quake at your presence – just as
fire kindles brushwood, and fire boils water – to make your name known to your
enemies, so that nations will tremble at your presence! When you did awesome
works that we did not expect, you who came down, and the mountains quaked at
your presence. From ancient times no one has heard, no one has listened to, no
eye has seen any God except you who acts on behalf of the one who waits for
him. You welcome the one who joyfully does what is right; they remember you in
your ways. But we have sinned, and you were angry. How can we be saved if we
remain in our sins? All of us have become like something unclean, and all our
righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and
our iniquities carry us away like the wind. No one calls on your name, striving
to take hold of you. For you have hidden your face from us and made us melt
because of our iniquity. Yet Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you
are our potter; we all are the work of your hands. Lord, do not be terribly
angry or remember our iniquity forever. Please look – all of us are your
people!” (CSB)
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Isaiah was genuinely grieved by the
situation all around him.
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He was grieved that God chose not to
show up like the ways he had in the past.
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He was grieved that God had not
destroyed the enemies of his people.
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He was grieved that no one was waiting
on the Lord and doing what was right.
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He was grieved that God’s people were
stuck in their sins.
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“How can we be saved if we remain in
our sins?” He asked.
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Isaiah was grieved by people’s good
deeds which were a filthy cover-up for hearts that did not seek God.
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He was grieved that God had seemingly
gone into hiding while his people were perishing.
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But Isaiah also knew that God was in
control and that like clay God can take his people and shape them for his
purposes as a skilled potter.
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Therefore, Isaiah asks God not to let
his anger be the last word and instead of remembering their sins see the
trouble that they are in and remember they are his people.
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Do not we want the very same things
Isaiah wanted?
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Don’t we know that we are stuck
without God?
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We know we need God and we want him to
tear the heavens open and come down.
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We want him to destroy our enemies and
set things right, but do we wait for God and joyfully do what’s right?
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Are we so busy always doing things for
God that our good deeds are just a filthy cover-up for not taking the time to
be with God?
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Advent is about preparing for the coming
of the Lord.
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But are we really prepared to meet the
Lord whose presence makes the mountains quake and nations tremble if we do not
sit in silence and wait for him?
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We know he is the potter and we are
the clay, but do we really want him to come and set us free from ourselves and
our sin and the brokenness of our world?
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Why
don’t we see that we are stuck, and we need God?
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Perhaps we are in denial; we think, “I’m fine. I’m good. It’s everybody around me who
needs to hear this sermon. I have dealt with my sin; I’m right with God.”
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Please, do not be so certain about
that. Dealing with sin is not a one-time thing for us, but a daily thing.
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God dealt with sin once and for all on
the cross of Christ, but we still live on this broken earth in these sinful
bodies, so we must deal with our sins every day. Repentance is a daily thing.
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Perhaps we don’t see that we are
stuck, and we need God because of fear.
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We fear what we will have to give up,
what we will have to confess, what we will have to confront in ourselves, and
what God will ask of us.
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We are afraid of everything we will
have to surrender.
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But what I am more afraid of is what
will happen if I don’t surrender.
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What will happen if I don’t confess?
What will happen if I don’t give up whatever it is I need to give up? And what
won’t happen if I do not follow what God asks of me?
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What kind of blessings will I miss out
on if I surrender to fear instead of surrendering to God?
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We also don’t see that we are stuck
and need God because we feel we need to be in control.
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When we are stuck, and we need help,
then we must surrender control to God.
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That stubborn refusal to relinquish
control to God comes from pride.
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I don’t know about you, but I do know
about me.
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I have seen the kind of mess that my
life gets into when I do not let God be God and be in control of my every day
life.
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All of us have got to let go of our
foolish pride and surrender control to the one who is seated at the right hand
of the Father, running all things by the power of his spoken word, Jesus.
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When we surrender our denial, our
fears, and our need to be in control, then we are ready to believe Jesus can make us new!
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Are we willing to be the clay and let
him be the potter?
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Believe
Jesus can make us new!
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December is often the time of year
people think about making New Year’s resolutions, but we all know what usually
happens to New Year’s resolutions before the end of January.
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Therefore, this Advent I want to
invite us to do something different.
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As we believe Jesus can make us new, I
want to invite us to ask the Lord for one word.
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To help me out this morning with
explaining what I’m talking about I’m going to invite Toni to come and share a
short testimony about her experience with asking God for one word.
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Toni, won’t you come share with us.
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(Toni shares.)
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Everybody experiences feelings of
being stuck, but God in Christ has broken into the world.
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Jesus has torn open the heavens and
come down, he gave sin a mighty deathblow in his cross, he sent the Holy Spirit
to be the power we need, and he is coming again.
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Believe
Jesus can make us new!
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Are we willing to be the clay and let
Jesus be the potter?
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Are we willing to let him make us new?
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I encourage you to pray and ask the
Lord for that one word, and prayerfully put it into practice.
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Believe
Jesus can make us new!
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