This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Waterford Lakes, East Orlando. Visit us online at christkingum.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. If you're like me, there's not much more than you despise in some ways than regret. You know, regret is such a powerful emotion. In fact, it's one of those things that I remember saying to myself early on, I don't want to ever live or have regrets. The only problem is that I fail at that constantly. I don't know if you're like me, but 2011 to 2012 transition, whether I like it or not is often a time to look back and to acknowledge the fact that I do have regrets or things that I wish were different. You know, to have regrets is to know that something could have been different or something should have been different if you had thought through it, if you had not let your anger get the best of you. If you had chosen to be quiet, or maybe not chosen to be quiet, if you had taken the risk, if you had not been so stupid, if you had asked for help, you had taken a stand, if you had been a little more patient, if you had been a little quicker, if you had shared what you really felt, if you had not worried so much what people thought, if you had worried more about what God thought and one that gets me every time, if you had believed a little more. Now, I know it's January 8th, and I know that most of us have already put 2011 behind us, but it would be a shame to not ponder some of the things from 2011. Some of the regrets, I know it's not fun to go there, but I want to take you there only to ask hard questions that might be the seeds planted to harvest something new and alive in 2012. I know John did a great job last week talking a little bit about New Year's on New Year's Day. Thanks, John. But I wanted to follow up a little bit more in talking about it before 2012, just got going and running. So if you have a bulletin and if I want to follow along on that outline, you're invited to do that. The passage we read this morning, God says several things. One of the things that God says is that to live a life worthy of your calling that you've received, Ephesians 4-1, as a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. If you think about that, are there any regrets associated with that in 2011? Any fears thinking about that in 2012? Do you even care what God's call is on your life? God tells us Ephesians 4 to put off the old self and to put on the new self through a new attitude of the mind. Once we look a little bit more about that, and unpackage that some here. I want to look at a few things and encourage you to look at first a picture, if you're following along the outline. That's number one, a picture. Back in Numbers, chapter 13 through 14, we hear the story of the Israelites who had made that great journey from Egypt across the Red Sea. They had been moving forward to the land of Canaan. The land that God had promised them, the land that had been given to Abraham, they had been promised to the people of God in their on their way back, having been in hundreds of years of bondage and slavery, and been delivered by miraculous powers. The 10 plagues that God poured out on Pharaoh and Egypt, and God's incredible power opening up the Red Sea that they walked through on dry ground, and God providing for a man in the desert as they were crossing on their way, and God protected them from enemies, and God provided for them, and they are on the verge now of taking the promised land that God had promised them. So what do they do? They send out 12 spies into the land. 12 leaders from every tribe, I mean, one leader from every tribe, 12, to go into the promised land and to see exactly ahead of time, and to become report back what they saw. So the spies go out, and they come back, and they say, hey, it's as good or better than we ever imagined. They even bring back a cluster of grapes that they had to carry on a pole between two men. All right, I buy grapes at Publix, okay? Yeah, my pinky is sufficient, okay, two men on a pole was carrying this cluster of grapes. I'm a land flowing in milk and honey. The story as they told of it, if it's abundance, met or exceeded every expectation they had. The only problem was at least 10 of the spies, 10 of the spies had mortary port than just that. They said, but the people that inhabit the land are vast, and they're powerful, and we look like grasshoppers in their sight. There's no way that we could defeat these people and take this land. Except for the two spies, Caleb, Joshua, who came back said, hey, it is good there, and you know what, God will surely deliver them into our hands, let's go. Well the story as you know there, or any of you that grew up in the church know there, that it was enough of democracy there at the time, okay, that the 10 spies influenced the entire nation of Israel, despite Moses' best effort to tell them otherwise, to believe God. In fact, Moses has to intercede before God on their behalf, so that God doesn't wipe them out right there, and then God was so upset. You can imagine his power being displayed, to carry them all the way to this point, only to have them stop with their toes hanging over the edge of the land of Canaan to go, God's not big enough to take us across. There was something that happened there, and I want to propose to you, there was something that happened even before what you hear about in the story happened, something that happened beneath the surface on one level, and then something that happened even beneath the surface deeper than that on another level, and it's called belief. I'll explain what I'm more, what I mean about that little bit more is to go along. Some of the people of Israelites, of the Israelites believed, but most did not. Some obeyed, or wanted to obey, Moses, Caleb, Joshua, but most did not. Some led or tried to lead, so let's go, let's take it. But most chose to wander, and God gave them what they wanted. He gave them 40 years of a punishment to wander in the desert until that generation died. Every man aged 20 years old and older, and when they had been afraid that their children would be wiped out and taken as captives, God said, those are the ones I'm going to give this inheritance to. The very ones that you feared, something bad would happen to, they're going to reap what you didn't get a chance to reap. Oh yeah, except for Joshua and Caleb, because they believed. Let me ask you this, think about the story of Israelites, but reflect upon now your story, your story. The scriptures tell us that some will believe and follow the promises of God, but it actually tells us that most will not, right? Nero is the path that leads to life, and few find it. Some people will choose to obey and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the teachings of His Holy Word, but most will not. Some will become leaders as followers of Jesus Christ, but most will not. My question for you is this, will you, believe, will you obey, will you lead? Joan of Arc said this, she said, one life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are, and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying. But the truth is, you are always living what you believe. When you love football as much as I do in a house that eight people live in, you have to compromise. One of the ways we compromise sometimes is the football game is on the TV, but the sound is off, or the football is on the bedroom TV while Laura is going to sleep, but the sound is off, so I can kind of track and follow, but you know, it is amazing that I can follow the game without ever hearing a commentator, without hearing, play by play, without else, just by watching, just by looking, I can see exactly what is going on. You know what, your life, if you were to turn the volume off, if you were to turn your audio off, about what you say, what you say you believe, and people just watch what they do, they know exactly what you believe. And you might cloud it with what you say, but your life speaks by your choice of actions. And if you are like me and honest, or trying to be honest this morning, your actions continue far more often than you'd like to admit, by the choices you make, the subtle things you don't say, the subtle passivities that you take, but the reality is, is that our lives are choices reflect what we believe. So think about this picture, that the Israelites is born, you ask yourself this question, what if the Israelites and the 10 spies had repented of their unbelief and obeyed? And don't stop there, but ask yourself, what if you were to repent this morning of whatever level of unbelief you have and believed in obeyed? That's a picture, let me show you with your principles as well this morning. You know the Titanic sunk in two hours and 40 minutes, but history and scientists have gone back and studied the math and the things about it. And even the reports of it have said that, you know, if the captain of the Titanic had believed the initial reports that came into him and had at once called for the rescue of other ships rather than waiting, many, many lives would not have been lost in the Titanic because boats would have gotten there fast enough. But the reality is, it wasn't until he was, until the mail room was ankle deep in water that he finally rescinded and said, it's time to abandon ship and to call for help. Why? Somebody who should have known better, the captain of the greatest ship of all time, the unsinkable ship, should have known better, right? But he couldn't believe the facts that were being given to him that on its maiden voyage this ship was about to go down. What you believe always shapes what you choose to do and how you choose to act. It's inseparable. It's a formula that cannot be broken. That you act according to what you believe all the time. You know, you never know, well, this is what CS Lewis said, I like this. He said, you never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong as long as you're merely using it to tie a box. But suppose you had to hang by the rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it? Absolutely. Well, let me give you a principle here this morning that I think is from scripture all over the place and it's this, first A there, unbelief leads to disobeying, and disobeying leads to wandering, unbelief leads to disobeying, and disobeying leads to wandering. Let me define wandering, I saw this definition, I thought this was really good. Wandering is moving slowly away from a fixed point or place. And since the creation of the world, Genesis 1, God said, be fruitful, multiply, and fill on subdued the earth, man has been given a fixed place for all glory and worship to go God. Man has been given a fixed point of direction of what he should be doing, bringing the rule and reign of Jesus Christ here on earth in every aspect, not just on Sunday mornings, not just in their quiet time, not just with their Christian friends, but every part of their life should be about bringing the kingdom of God. So I'll be pray, Lord thy kingdom come and thy will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. It's the Lord's prayer and it's to be our prayer as Christians because that is what we're called to do. So if into whatever degree you are not living for that purpose, the Bible calls you a wanderer and the Israelites were experts at it, and the church today is often experts at it. And I'm ashamed to say I'm often too often an expert at it because it comes naturally because it's in my default code. It's how I'm naturally wired because of a sinful nature, but it is not how or who we've been redeemed to be. When God says, live a life worthy of your calling, it's not to be wanderer. So as this part of the principle is true, the converse of the principle is also true. Life leads to obeying and obeying leads to leading. Belief leads to obeying and obeying leads to leading. If you define leading using the converse of what we said for wandering, leading is moving decisively and intentionally to a fixed point or place and leading as a follower of Jesus Christ that fixed place as the glory of God above all. Saying his word above all because he's given it to you and commanded you, laying down your life for him as he's laid down his life for you so that you might become a child of his. That's what leading really is. Charles Spurgeon said this. He said, I would recommend you either believe God up to the hilt or else not to believe at all. Believe this book of God every letter of it or else reject it. There is no logical standing place between the two. Be satisfied with nothing less than a faith that swims in the deeps of divine revelation, a faith that paddles about the edge of the water is poor faith at best. There is no room for that which is in the middle. God has called us to a life of faith and belief. And honestly when we think that we're writing the fence or doing something in the middle and we're content to stay partially believing, partially not believing, partially leading, partially wandering, I think verses like this in Revelation make it very clear where God stands. I wish that you were either hot or cold but not lukewarm. For those of you who are lukewarm, I want to spew out of my mouth, a very graphic translation of that. What does God say? He would rather you be 100% one way or the other than 50-50. He would rather be 100% against him than 50% for him. Why? Because he's a holy God. Why? Because he created the heavens and the earth and he created you. Think about this principle and ask yourself, what if the Israelites and the ten spies had repented of their unbelief and believed? And what if you were to repent of your unbelief, whatever degree in place and how it looks and shape and size this morning? What if you were to repent of that this morning and believe how would 2012 be different in 2011? Well, you've seen a picture, you've seen a principle, let me share with you a problem. You see the ten spies from that story, there's not a whole lot of explanation going on behind who they were and why they thought the way they did. But if you look at the whole context of scripture and understand what the Bible talks about, the sinful nature and what it means, as you go look and realize that and then think back about what was going on for these ten spies? Why were ten coming back with a totally different conclusion than the other two and what was going on with that? Well, I think if you peeled it back and asked yourself, why did they wander? Why did they choose to wander rather than choose to follow the God who had led them out of Egypt across the Red Sea just days earlier? Well, somehow in their thinking, somehow they thought about the challenges of leaving Egypt and they thought about the difficulties of it and it made them question. Somewhere they thought about this idea of eating strange mana when they'd wake up in the morning and they'd find this wafer-like substance on the ground. Somewhere they thought, that's a little strange, we're used to planting seeds and harvesting our own crops and we're going to keep gathering this mana stuff. Somewhere that was weird to them, somewhere they thought about that golden calf. When here they thought they were resurrecting a mighty statue to represent the God who had delivered them and those as comes down with a tin tablets from the mountaintop and he comes and says, you have gone into rebellion and wickedness against God and many perish that day. Somewhere they thought, what's up with this God? Any other God on earth would have been highly pleased and honored to see that we had erected a statue in his honor. Who is this God that says you should have no graven images before me? He's a little unsafe, he's a little bit fickle sometimes it sees. We can't quite figure him out, we can't kind of put him in our box. These were the kind of thoughts that no doubt run beneath the surface of the tin spies. They thought about giants in the Promised Land, not the giant God who had delivered them from Egypt. Somewhere deep down there was something going way beneath the idea of wandering. They're wander because there was disobedience in their hearts. They wander, their outside actions were present because there was underneath hearts of disobedience. And they disobeyed because beneath the heart of disobedience at the core was a heart of unbelief. Well, let's parallel that with or contrast that with Joshua and Caleb. What was going on different for them? They had been through the very same experiences that the other tin spies had, but somewhere they saw when God delivered them from Egypt, they saw God's faithfulness through that, even though it was hard and difficult and not easy. Somewhere they saw God's provision, when they thought about mana, not the strangeness of it. Somewhere they saw God's blessing of the tin commandments and the idea that a graven image is not worthy, could not possibly represent the Creator, anything that the creation created. Somewhere they saw that was glorious and different than every other nation and they were ready to worship them as that God. Somewhere they thought that there was a giant God who had led them and the inhabitants of Canaan were like grasshoppers in his sight. See, there was a vastly different perspective that Caleb and Joshua had that called them to lead instead of wander. Beneath that was a heart of obedience and beneath that at its core was a heart of belief. Caleb and Joshua at their heart believe God to be not just powerful on mighty but to be good and to be loving and to have their best interest in mind. And if he said he would do it, that's it, case closed. Yet may not look the way we think it will look but it will be good and it will be better than anything we could have hoped or imagined. So God, let's go. If you can hold back Zillion molecules of water so that we can walk through and dry ground, you're quite capable of healing inhabitants of Canaan and to wipe them out in our presence. See, there was something different at its core with that. Hebrews 11 and 6 says this, and without faith it is impossible to please God. Why? Because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. That's what faith is, believing God and that he is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him. And that's why what Joshua and Caleb had is called faith and what the other 10 spies had is called unbelief. But I want to ask you, what about you this morning? Are you wandering? Most people wander. Most people in the church wander. Think about the cruelty of the world they live in, and how they need to get delivered. Something fair or something right. They think about the wounds in their own life and the pains they've been through and they wonder how could a God as good allow that to happen. They think more about the latest trends and what Oprah has suggested or the latest book or philosophies or popular worldly viewpoints. They think more about tolerance than they do about truth. They think more about pleasure and comfort than holiness and righteousness and it push comes to shove they will pick pleasure and comfort over holiness and righteousness in a heartbeat. That's what wandering hearts do. To understand this, you wander because disobedience is in your heart. That is why you wander and you disobey because unbelief is at the core of it in your heart. Unbelief. So ask yourself this question this morning. What if the Israelites and the 10 spies had repented of their unbelief and believed? What if you repented of your unbelief and believed this morning? Let me give you a very specific challenge. Let me give you some warnings real quick first. One warning is this. It would be a mistake to focus on not being a wanderer. To come out this morning and think or to look at the 10 spies or to think about the exhortations and Ephesians for and go, okay, okay, okay, okay, all right, don't wander, don't wander. That'd be a mistake and there's no power in that. You know what else would be a mistake or a mistake to come out from here and go thinking out. All right, I need a lead. I need a lead. I need to try to lead. All right, try better. I'm going to try harder. I'm going to try to do what God tells me to. I'm just going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to lead. I'm going to lead. Okay, there's no power in that. And by the way, these are all things that I've tried and failed at. So I'm speaking from experience here. You know what? Trying to obey God instead of disobeying God is a path of failure. It's a guy. I'm just going to obey you this time rather than disobey you. If you focus on wandering versus leading, if you focus on obeying versus disobeying, you have missed the front lines of the battle because the front lines of the battle are quite simply, do you believe God and do you believe Him as He's been revealed in this holy word? And do you believe that His promises are true, that He's good? Not safe, but He's good, and that if He didn't spare His own Son to save you from eternal separation from Him, there really, really, really is nothing else. He's going to hold from you from this light that you need. Appreciate it, Kevin. Sharon this morning about how God's glory is revealed and the hidden things. Why is it revealed there because it's in those moments and those places that it requires a very clear decision of faith or not? And let me tell you, God's calling you, He's calling me, He's calling this church, He's calling all His people in 2012 to not try harder. There's no gospel truth in trying harder. You might as well sign up for another world religion if you want to try harder. I'm just telling them to shoot them straight with you. And if you're going to focus on obedience and willpower and I just need more self discipline, which my goodness isn't that the thrust of New Year's resolution, self discipline, to make it happen, I'm going to do it. There's no power in that anywhere. And you know what the worst thing that could happen is that you could succeed through self discipline, whatever your goal is. And you will be the object in the center of your life and all the glory that goes to it. And if you live a little bit more like the Bible tells you to, because you're trying harder and because it's self discipline, is that the heart of it, then Jesus would put you in a category of a Pharisee. And He would say, you know what? You're looking good on the outside, but you're just a white wash too. There's no life on the inside. It's about effort. It's about being better. It's about looking good. It's about doing the right thing. But there's no transformation of your heart because that happens through belief. It happens through a faith and trusting who God is and who He's revealed Himself to be. And there will be no difference in your life, meaningful difference. And even worse, you could be self deceived if you think there is a difference when there's really not. If you focus anywhere else other than on the core issue of belief, the God is who He said He is. And He will do what He said He will do. And He will do it in the power of His Holy Spirit, not in your self discipline, because you get the glory for that. But in the power of His Holy Spirit, only He receives the glory for that. So instead, focus on Him who He is in the Scriptures, listen to what Hebrews 12 2 says. It says, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down on the right hand of the throne of God. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author, the one who gave you salvation in life, and the perfecter, the one who finishes the job. Ephians 1-6, He who began a good work and you will carry it on to the day of completion. Fixing your eyes on Jesus is the only hope that you have to live the Christian life. But if you fix your eyes anywhere else or anything else that's good, quote, anything else that's self discipline driven, anything else that is action results oriented and you miss the heart of obeying and believing God, the heart of believing God, then you're missing the power of the gospel.
So let me give you some real quick action points, number one, repent of unbelief and choose to believe. In a moment you're going to be invited to come to Lord's table and you're going to be invited to confess your sins and to claim the forgiveness that is in Jesus Christ. Let me ask you to do something. I do want you to confess your sins and I want you to do that every week, but I want you to go deep. It's fine to confess the sin of lust or pornography. It's fine to confess the sin of hatred or lying or deceitfulness. It's fine to confess the sin of apathy or whatever you want to confess you and all those are important, but when you not stop there and when you go deeper and confess the sin ultimately of unbelief, every single surface sin that you might possibly confess has been originated in some version or form of unbelief and there is a real enemy who still has looseness and power on this earth for a little time longer who wants to deceive you from confessing and repenting from the real core sin. It started in the Garden of Eden and it continues to this day, unbelief, will you go deeper and confess the unbelief that's behind that and say, God, I choose in faith to believe you and who you are in your word. Number two, will you clarify your calling as you start 2012? As while we use the Ephesians 4 as our text here this morning, as a prisoner for the Lord and then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you've received. We took time to do this as a family a week or so ago. I asked all of our kids to think through, ask us two questions. One, do you want to be the man or woman of God that God's called you to be? Because you got to settle that question. Do you want to be who God has called you to be? And then second, what does that mean? What does that look like? Number three, set goals in faith. Number four, don't do it alone. Now the ushers right now are going to hand out a specific tool that I'm going to give you to go and take home today. You can during the communion preparation time or time after you've taken communion, you feel free to work through that. This is just a tool that we use, let me grab one real quick. Yeah, I know it looks like a gingerbread man, but it was a wide open space. Here's my 2012 challenge to us as a church. And if you're a guest here this morning, you're welcome to be a part of this. But to using the words of God and some scriptures that have been on here, I believe God is calling me to be after you have repented of unbelief to say, God, I believe you're calling me to be this. And I just put down eight slots thinking that might be enough. It may not be enough. You may only need one. You may need two. I've taught the one person. I said, I only need one. Mine is I need to be in God's word and feeding on it. Mine is all you need and all the Spirit is telling you to do today. Then on the back, be the next step, setting goals. It's taking those from the front and saying, therefore, I will choose to blank. If you sense God was telling you, you need to be in His word, which would be a great one for all of us. Therefore, I will choose to get up 30 minutes earlier to reserve time before bed. Here I have got to choose to set aside this much time. Again, it's not the action that God is looking for. It is the heart of belief. But a heart of belief leads to obedience and obedience leads to the leading. That's how we become leaders. We have our eyes fixed on a set point, and that's Jesus Christ. So here's just a tool that you might be able to use as you're thinking through before we get too far into the new year, but you're at the start of a new week to begin to think, how can I be intentional about this? How can I put this to action? So consider using that or something like that. But again, don't jump into this tool even before you stop and pause in confessive unbelief this morning and ask God to bring a fresh wind by His Spirit of belief and faith in your heart. Because without faiths and possible, please God. Because you must believe that He exists and He's the rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him. Let's pray. God, I just pray that as we transition this morning, God, to come to your table, that you've your mind is God of our great need for you, that you've your mind is of the reality, God of the core of every single choice we make. We are believing in something, whether it's ourselves, whether it's our own good works, whether it's some religious philosophy, but God, your calling is for us to, at our core, to believe you, to yield to you, to understand that you are king of kings and Lord of lords, to not wait till the last day for our need to bow, but for our needs to bow today and to serve you. So God, would you speak now as we even prepare and come to your table in a moment? God, would you bring a fresh wave of repentance of unbelief? God, would you speak and allow us to go to the very core sins that, sin that we need to confess? And God, would you bring, bring out new life for us? Would you extend your mercy and grace? And God, would you remind us that we've been freed, we've been set free from the curse of sin, not to be forgiven alone, but to be transformed through renewing of our mind, to be the people you've called us to be, to walk in faith, to experience your power working in and through us? So God, we ask that you would do that now, let me pray this in Christ's name, amen.