Relate Community Church
Relate Community Church
Who Told You That | Week 4
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Well, good morning. Well, you'll be happy to say I don't have a ladder and I will not be falling from it today. I told him, I told him, how am I supposed to go after that? You fell literally a coffee maker. You had a ladder. I got me. That's all I got is me. He said it's enough. We'll take it. I'm so glad to be with you this morning. Let's pray before we uh dive into the word. Lord, we just thank you. We thank you for this house. We thank you for these people. We thank you for willing hearts, open ears, open eyes, God. We thank you for lives changed. In Jesus' name. Amen. We have been on a series that is unpacking scripture verses that are cozy and nice and sweet and on mugs and on t-shirts, and we love to post them on our internets and all the things. And the last few weeks, when we look into the context of these scriptures, they don't always mean what exactly we think they mean. And I have a doozy for you today. It's the most highlighted scripture in the UVersion Bible app. And in fact, several, several people told me uh first service, that's my life verse. And I said, Well, now it's your life chapter, because you can't just take the one verse, you know, it's a context thing. And so Jeremiah 29, 11 is a favorite, and it says, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope. Have you ever heard that verse before? Have you ever posted it on your social media? Yes, you have. I've seen it. I have seen your social media. It's a favorite. It is a favorite. In fact, it's when pulled, millions of Americans said that this was their life verse. And the thing is, is that when you back all the way up and read the entire chapter, it's not quite as cozy and cuddly as you might think. And honestly, if you read the entire chapter, you'd have to put the entire chapter on the mug, and that is a very large mug. That's a lot of coffee. Send it this way. Thank you. And see, the thing is, is this uh chapter, Jeremiah 29, was written to exiles. It was written to displaced people, it was written to people that had been forcibly removed from their homes and put into a pagan land. People that when look when they looked around, they literally thought to themselves, this is not how it's supposed to be. This was not my five-year plan. This is not what I thought marriage would look like. This is not what I thought having children would look like. This is not what I even wanted to do in a career or even went to school for. It's actually human beings that needed a do-over. And the interesting thing about this chapter is that it's how to get better in the place that you are. Not a do-over, even though I think when we all look back on our lives, we wish we could do some things over. I will never forget, and I got I had a whole list of do-overs I could share with you today, but probably my biggest one is that we took our kids to Disney when they were kids, little kids, they're still kids, 20, 25-year-old kids. It's fine. Six, five, and six. It was our first big vacation, remember? We saved up our pennies. I had it all planned from the moment our feet hit Florida to the moment our feet left Florida. Timing and purpose. I'll just let you know, none of it went according to plan. Not a single thing. And I had a choice. I could act like an idiot and stomp my feet and be mad, or I could just go with the flow, like sweet Pastor Sean. Well, I am not too intimidated to tell you, I threw a royal fit. I actually remember acting like a two-year-old in an unsanctioned ride. We walked by the ride, Jake said he wanted to ride it. It was not on my list. We did not have time. We were headed to meet Mickey. Through a royal fit as a grown woman. This is not where we're supposed to be. We're gonna miss Mickey Mouse. Can you imagine behaving like you have never behaved like that when things didn't go according to your plan, I'm sure. As at that at that point, we were in our 20s. I've learned a few things. No. I remember telling my six-year-old, I hope you enjoy this ride because we'll never see Mickey. Could you imagine? We are in the happiest place on earth, and you are acting like you've lost your mind. If I could have a do-over, it would be to go back and tell that six-year-old, this is where Mickey lives. We'll find him again. Which we did, and it all turned out fine, and I'm sure they have great memories, but I remember making poor choices in the happiest place on earth. Maybe you too. Maybe when you look back on your life, you think, I could have handled that differently. I could have behaved differently, I could have made a better choice. The thing is, is the Israelites over and over and over were given a chance to make a better choice. He sent prophets after prophets to tell him, hey, get your act together because I am displeased with your behavior. Over and over and over. And then all of a sudden, they literally found themselves sitting in a pagan land with their bags all around them, thinking, How did I get here? What happened? And the entire chapter of Jeremiah 29 is a letter of what to do. Wouldn't it be nice if God sent you a letter on how to behave and how to act? Wouldn't it be so nice if He sent you a plan on what to do? Well, I'm so glad you came today. Do you see this book? Have you ever seen a book like this? Do you have one on your nightstand? Maybe a little dusty. This is your letter. This is how to start over. This is how to be satisfied where you are. This is how to grow where you are planted. And so we're gonna start at Jeremiah 29:1. And it starts like this. This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles, and to the priest and the prophets, and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Now, this next verse has a lot of names, and you're probably very Christian, and you can probably pronounce them all, but we're just gonna skip past them, uh, which I like to do when I don't know how to say any of them. And so we're just gonna go to the next verse. It said, This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. See, when you read the scripture, you can't just take one scripture and say, Oh, that's for me today. So good. Jesus wept, so good. Oh, he has good plans for me. Period. That's it. Oh, for God so loved the world. Period. You have to read all of it. You have to look at the context of it. You have to put your reporter hat on and say, what, when, where, and who? So that you can really understand what this text means for you. What if all I did, everything I knew about you, was what I read on social media? What if everything I read was where you checked in down in downtown Houston on Friday nights? I'm not judging, that's you. Or what you ate, or how precious and adorable your children are, and that's all I knew about you. And I never sat with you and really knew you, Miss Jackie. Because life looks good on the internet, but we all got struggles. We don't we don't put all the dirty laundry, we're not supposed to put all the dirty laundry on the internet. That was free, you can have that one. You see, the thing is, is if we don't look at the context of the scripture, we can't really understand. And so if we break down this chapter, the who, who are we talking to? It's the people of Israel. They were taken from their land by Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon, and literally they took the best and the brightest out of their homeland and put them in Babylon. They did do a little study on Babylon. In fact, they made a whole movie about it. I'm not gonna tell you what it is because I don't want you to know I watched it. They made a whole movie. They literally went from nation to nation to nation and took the best and the brightest and brought them home to their land to create this amazing whatever it was back then. Think Daniel, think the three Hebrew children. You know these stories, you just haven't researched the context. What was it? It was a letter. We just got a letter, we just got a letter. It's too old. This blue is closed, sorry. When 597 years before Christ, this was before Jesus ever came. God was telling them, I have a hope for you, I have a plan for you. We think, oh, he has a plan for me right now. What is it, Lord? Well, sometimes it takes 500 years for the plan to come. Settle in. Where? The letter came from Jerusalem. I guess Jeremiah wasn't one of the best and brightest. They left him in Jerusalem. He sent it to the exiles in Babylon, the ones who had been displaced, the ones that are looking around thinking, this is not the plan. This is not where I'm supposed to be. Find themselves in a brand new city, not knowing a single single soul with people that think they eat weird, they raise their kids weird, they act weird, they have Sabbaths, all the things in a pagan world. Sound familiar? I act pretty weird by the world's standards. You act pretty weird by the world's standards. Supposed to love our enemy, turn the other cheek. All the things. Why? Why would he send a letter to his people? Because over and over he had told them, get your act together. They literally were taken into Babylon because of idolatry, and they would not respect the Sabbath. Idolatry is when you replace God in your heart, when you put something else on the throne of your heart, and the Sabbath is you don't trust him. You just don't trust God. We are called to give a day to the Lord. It seems so small, but rest is important. And when you don't trust the Lord with your life, that's when you put stuff on the throne of your heart. It's all connected. He sent a letter which was a divine what now to a broken people. Maybe you're sitting here thinking, I could really use a what now. I feel displaced, I feel exiled, I feel lost, I feel dissatisfied with my surroundings. The thing is, is he gave you how to survive in exile. And we're gonna call it how to get straight A's in exile. Because if you're gonna be stuck somewhere, you might as well grow there. Because that's the thing. The number one way to survive in exile is to accept that you're there. Look around and just own where you are, just own it. Stop denying reality. Yeah, it's not ideal. Yeah, the situation is not what you planned. Yeah, we didn't think that this was gonna work out like this. If you would have told me seven years ago that I would be standing here on the stage without my dad and without my best friend, I would have told you that's crazy. We can't control life, we can't control how things happen, but we do have to acclimate to the situation that we're standing in, and we have to own our part. You see, Jeremiah told the Israelite children, this is because you are uh worshipping idols, it's because you are letting things be bigger than the Father in your heart. It's because you don't trust him with your time. He told them. But we continue to wonder why God can't heal the things we pretend that don't exist. We continue to wonder, God, why don't you heal me when we can't even bring it out of our mouths to say, I need help here. The scripture goes on to say in Jeremiah 29, 5 through 7, build houses, settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce. This does not sound like uh uh hold on, just wait a second. I have hope for you, and you're gonna get out real soon. It says, marry and have sons and daughters, then five, let those kids grow up and find wives and sons and daughters for them. This does not sound like a quick fix. See, that's the thing is Americans want it now. I'm uncomfortable, I want it now. I don't want to stand in this two-hour line at Disney. I want to go to see Mickey so I can sit in an air-conditioned room now. Uh, fair warning. Just because you're uncomfortable doesn't mean it's bad. It's hard to understand, I know. Just because you're a little doesn't mean it's bad because the struggle makes you strong. There's a whole idea that generations that struggle make weak kids because we don't let our kids struggle. We make the weak, it's us, it's not them. Because the struggle is what puts a backbone in you. The struggle is what says, you know what? I ain't letting that happen to my kids. So I'm not uh uh uh this chain breaks here. I'm not taking that generational curse to the next level. This right here, it's the struggle, but you have to acknowledge it. It goes on to say, also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you. Imagine praying for a city that you don't want to be in. Imagine praying for a situation that you don't want to be in. Imagine praying for a job that you don't like, imagine praying for a boss that you downright hate. Imagine praying for a marriage that you want to be out of, praying for a kid that you're like, oh. I could go on and on and on. It says, pray to the Lord for it. What's your it? What is your situation that you want out of? What is your situation that you're sick of that you don't even want to talk about anymore? Pray for it. Because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Jeremiah told them build, plant, pray right where you are. Don't wait until life gets better to go all in with God. Don't wait till life gets easier and then you'll tithe. Don't wait until life gets, you know, uh when when life settles down, hey, newsflash, life ain't never settling down again. I don't know what happened in 2020, but we all got on this car and it's just speeding past us. This is normal. Well, when life calms down, I think I told that to Gwen the other day, you know, when life calms down, she just kind of rolled her eyes at me, she she was respectful. Isn't that it? This is it. You can't wait to fulfill the calling on your life until life calms down because life is not gonna calm down, and the enemy doesn't want you to fulfill it, anyways. You can't move forward until you stop fighting where you are. When we moved to spring, we uh barely walked through the house that we bought, barely. And I I have this weird thing about me is that people meet me and then they feel like they need to tell me their whole life story. And so Sean and the kids walked through the house, and I stood in the kitchen with the homeowner, and as she told me her whole life. So I never actually got to see the house, which is fine. And I'll never forget we went we went to title, we signed our papers, and I'm so excited we got our keys, and we walked in and the door opened, and the smell hit me of dog, not one dog, plural dogs, not wet dog, other dog, you know what I'm saying? And I thought, I don't I don't think I can live here, which probably terrified the man who just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the house. The dogs had been left to run, and so and so much that when we pulled the carpet up, it was the concrete was stained, so just use your imagination. House is beautiful now, by the way. Took us a while. I sat down on the little hearth and I told Shauna, I don't think I can live here. It was dark, 1978 paneling. There went a light bulb on. There was no lights at all. Small and little. The best part about him. He said, Well, hold on, I'm gonna pull this carpet out. I'm gonna take down this wall. And then what really changed for me, and this is where your Christmas tree is gonna go. And I was like, Yes. Yes, now I can live here. Christmas is saved. And see, the thing is, is that house built this house. That house that started off stinky and messy and dark and decrepit. We did not know at that point that we were building a room that would host the beginning seeds of relate. We couldn't know. We couldn't know the plans that he had for us. At that point, we didn't even want to start a church. I barely wanted to go to church. That's a whole other story. So you can't move forward until you stop fighting where you are. Proverbs says it like this: whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. You have to acknowledge where you are. The second A to get straight A's in exile is anticipation. To to have a tiptoe idea no matter what anyone says. To decide to be hopeful no matter what anyone says, to be able to look into the future and say, you know what? I don't like where I am, but God is still good and He has a plan for my life. The thing is, is it's hard to be hopeful when you surround yourself by people who have negativity. It's hard to be hopeful when you surround yourself with a community that is like to everything. You know the people. You know. I want to tell you about this job interview. I'm so excited. I felt so good. Oh, you won't get it. Uh oh. Those are balloon poppers. Don't hang out with them. You can quote that. You can tell them. Pastor Andrew said, I didn't have to hang out with you because you're a balloon popper. Don't be a balloon popper. See, the Lord knew about this because he told Jeremiah to tell the Israelites, do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Because I'm sure they were saying, Don't unpack, we're going home. He got us out of this before, he'll get us out again. Don't no, the Lord has a good plan for us. Nope, no, nope. Don't plant that garden. I don't care what the letter says. Don't plant the garden. We're going home. We're not staying. Because that's what people want to hear. They don't want to hear that you better just settle in. It's hard. Settle in. Nobody, nobody would watch that YouTube sermon. Life is hard while we're on earth. Settle in. Amen. You're dismissed. Not great. But see, right now, we all have phones in our pockets that we could pull out and listen to a sermon that will encourage us and tell us we are doing such a good job. You need someone to say, hey, life is hard and it's okay. Life's not supposed to be easy. This isn't heaven, it's earth. We expect heaven here, but it's not heaven. I don't care how much chocolate cake you eat, it will never be heaven. Because you'll never fit into your pants. Let's go on. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. What did the Lord say today? Did he say we're going home? Go go to sleep. Have a dream. What did the Lord say? Did he say we're going home yet? No. Settle in, plant a garden, bloom where you're planted, be happy, find a wife, have some kids. Do anything other than talk to the prophets and the diviners, please. Pray for your city. Pray for your environment. He goes on to say, they are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them. Be careful who you listen to while you're waiting on God. There will always be voices that rush you out of God's plan for you. There will always be people that will think that they know better for you than what God has for you. Why don't you just leave that job? Why don't you just leave that marriage? Why don't you just kick that kid out? Why don't you go get a new car? What's another bill? You'll figure it out. Oh, you're laughing. Just get another credit card. You need that vacation, girl. Sorry, Pastor Susan, wherever she is. That was not personal, I promise. When we came out and we were gonna plant relate and we started telling people, do you know how many of our mentors told us that was a bad idea? You know how many people looked right at our eyes and said, Spring does not need another church. Why don't you go help someone who already has a church? Why don't you come help me push my wagon and not do what God called you to do? What if we would have listened? What if we would have heard our mentors tell us, don't waste your time. You don't want to do that anyways, it's hard. What if no one comes? That's what they said. In fact, one of us told us, When you're ready to shut this little experiment down, I'll come help you. At some point, you have to buck up a little and say, you know what? I'm gonna do what the Lord called me to do. And I'm not listening to any more balloon poppers. Don't you dare! Don't you dare let fear narrate what faith is still writing in your life. Don't you dare quit because it's hard. Don't you dare back up because it's hard. Just keep walking. And if you can't walk, just stand. Just stand. Hand the pin back to God. This next A is so important because it comes right with this. It's the audacity to stand. It's the audacity to plant a garden in a pagan city. It's the audacity to raise your children in a pagan city. It's the audacity to say, you know what, it's not good right now, but God has a plan for my life, and I'm gonna stand here and walk it out until He tells me I can move. Scripture goes on to say, this is what the Lord says. When 70 years are completed for Babylon, imagine getting the letter and you hoped maybe maybe a year. We'll just stay here a year. I could probably grow something in a year. What grows in a year? Tomatoes? We could get tomatoes in a year. How old are you? You eight? You ready to get married? We can figure this out in a year. No, 70 years. I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. Here's your favorite verse. In 70 years, for I know the plans I have for you. 70 years. Plans to that's on a coffee mug. You just need to go home and write in Sharpie. 70 years. Your t-shirt, if I see you wearing your t-shirt and it doesn't have 70 written across it, I'm coming. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future in 70 years. They had to sit there and recognize. I'm sure the silence in the room was deafening when they recognized they would never see home again. 70 years. The babies that were just born would be 70 years old as they walked across the homeland. Come on, Mabel, we're going home. I ain't never seen it and I don't know what it is, but they say it's good. They got milk and honey, that's what I heard. 70 years, God said, Build, plant, pray where I put you. Settle in. I stand on this stage because my grandfather heard a revival sermon that there wasn't enough men who wanted to preach the gospel overseas. And his heart was quickened that day. And he said, I'm gonna take my whole family. They had like a hundred kids. I think it was like five. It could, it's four. I don't know how many uncles I have. I have no idea. Numbers are hard. A hundred kids. It might as well have been to up chuck a hundred kids and take them to the mission field in a mud hut with no running water. I'm not called for that, Lord. But because of his yes, I stand here. Because of his yes, I have a heart for missions. I am reminded that we are blessed to sit in the AC and the electricity today. I am reminded that we are blessed to have running water this morning. See, the thing is, is he had the audacity to see a need and fill it. You may never see the full harvest. He never saw me preach. My grandfather passed away. Numbers are hard. Four years, my mother sitting on the front row. Four years ago, he never saw me preach. He never saw the harvest of his yes. See, obedience plants the seeds. You just gotta be obedient. Do what you're called to do in the space that you are because your faithfulness is what builds the legacy for tomorrow. Deuteronomy puts it like this These commandments that I give. And when you want along the road, and when you want to get out of the way because you have to have the audience. That's why you can't wait. That's why you can't wait. That's why you can't wait. We are like the devil all the other days. They lost their freedom by rejecting God's authority in their life. But the only way out of exile is to surrender. And this last part that I want to read to you is so sweet. In fact, it's almost sweeter than your favorite verse. It says, Then you will call on me and come and pray to me. I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all of your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord. And I will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all of the nations and places where I have banished you, declares the Lord. And will bring you back to the place from which I carried you. God literally told them, You've tried everything. Now try me. And maybe that's where you're sitting today. Maybe you've tried everything. You have tried everything the world will give you. It's time to take a turn. It's time to settle in where you are and surrender to the Lord. God is not hard to find. It's rely realizing that we cannot fix it, that we cannot control it. No matter what your schedule says, no matter what your agenda says, no matter how that Disney trip is supposed to go, God is in control. And until you humble yourself and say, okay, God, my way is not working. This is not working. Your way, not mine. James 4.10 says, humble yourself before the Lord, and he will lift you up. It's humility that opens the doors of restoration. It's the decision to say, I cannot fix this. And then God just says, okay, now's my chance. I can. In 2021, we were displaced. Our family relate, you were displaced. We couldn't meet at the theater. It's the end of 2020, the first of 2021. We hadn't met for months. And we felt so pressured. Pastor and I felt so pressured to find you a place. We started knocking on doors. In fact, we were laughed at by some nuns, and I'm still going through that. A whole other story. I'm going through freedom. It's fine. We found an indoor football field. You remember some of you, we set up chairs every Sunday. Willows, no, you guys were there. And the owner of the indoor football field said, you know, you could sign a lease and have some space during the week. And we were like, oh, that's exactly what we need. All of our pastor friends during COVID were signing leases. Left and right. We were the only ones left that were still portable. And we weren't really even portable because we couldn't meet anywhere. So we looked at the lease and it was expensive. It was crazy. And then we, when we really looked at the lease, it was only like for a couple of days a week, and we'd still have to set up the chairs, and they were gonna let us use this old subway that smelled just like you think it did. We can only use that on certain days, but we're gonna fix it. But we were all in, we're gonna get our family a place. And so we started praying, Lord, if this is your will, let it go. Let it be smooth. I'm telling you, as soon as we prayed it, that door slammed so hard, it hit my toes and my teeth. Still smarts. The man of God over there said, Okay, the Lord's answered. I was ticked. Mad. I went for a walk. I'm sure my neighborhood thinks I've lost my mind. I am screaming, you, this is your church. You're supposed to, we can't even meet. Not only did, not only did the door slam, we couldn't even meet there on Sundays anymore. Slammed. I was mad. Still maybe, still maybe a little mad. So we started saving our money again. We had a few church services in parks, met in our backyard of that old stinky house, did what we could. Pastor Sean kept saving his money. Saving the church's money, just sucking it away. And in 2023, we found this building. Also had a smell problem. It's my fault, clearly. Um the Lord's trying to teach me. We paid cash for the miracle that you said in. And I'm I'm here to tell you that if we would have pressed through and grit our teeth and figured out how to sign that lease at the athlete's building, we would have been setting up chairs this morning and a leased space. We never would have owned our own space by this time. We would be sweaty and hot and still portable because we were outside the will of God. Would we have bloomed? Sure. But isn't God's plan better? Isn't his plan better for us? If we would just stay in his will. If we would just plant, build, and pray where we are. See, the whole idea of Jeremiah 29, 11 is not that our lives will instantaneously get better, but it's the idea that Jesus is the hope. Jesus is the answer. 500 years later, a baby was born in a stable for you. Not so you can get a better job and a better car, so you can go to heaven. This world is not my home. No wonder it's so hard here. We are in a pagan land, exiled into a pagan land, stolen from where we are supposed to be, but we're going home. And I want you to come with me. And I'm about to open these altars so that you can pray. Because someone in this room needs a realignment. Someone in this room needs a renewal and a refire. Because we can acknowledge where we are. We can anticipate where we're going. We can have the audacity to say, you know what? If this is where God wants me, this is where I will stand. And we can submit to the authority that is Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:13 through 14 says, For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son, He loves, in whom we have redemption for the give forgiveness of sins. Our exile ends when we come home to the Father through Jesus. Will you stand with me? I'm gonna call the prayer partners in just a minute. Begin to prepare your heart. The Lord is about to do something in this room because if you have messed up, now's your chance. If you feel displaced, now's your chance. If you feel stuck, now's your chance. It's the same God that got the Israelites out of Babylon is the same God that will get you out of the situation that you're in. He is the same one that will meet you in your muck and your mire, not to punish you, but to redeem you. But we are called to surrender. We have to humble ourselves. We cannot do it without you, Lord. That's what I want to do. I want to pray together and renew our hearts, renew our decision to follow Jesus. Will you bow your heads? Will you repeat after me, dear Jesus? I've gone my own way. I've wandered so far, I'm ready to come home. I believe you died for my sins and rose again for new life. I surrender my past, my pain, my plans, all of it. Be my savior, be my Lord. I'm coming home. In Jesus' name. Amen. The thing is, maybe that was your first time. I want you to come to the altar and pray with somebody. Maybe that was your hundredth time. I want you to come to the altar and pray with somebody. Because something has to change today. Because you can't always do what you always did and get a different thing. You must step out and walk. You must plant. You must build. You must do. Prayer partners come. We're gonna worship for a few minutes in the presence of the Lord is gonna make. If you can't bring yourself to come to the altar, make your chair an altar. Because lives are about to change in this room. Do not leave here the same. Maybe you're not part of God. You're just tired. Maybe you've tried to fix it all on your own. Give it to the Lord. Let's worship.