Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Chasing Carrots, Part 5: Comfort

Episode Date: May 26, 2019

What really makes for a happy life? A dream job, a bigger house, or a new relationship? If you’re always hungry for the next big thing, but frustrated because it never seems to satisfy, it’s time to hop off the treadmill and chase after something ... Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, thanks again for joining us here at Life Church. You know, if you haven't done so already, we'd love for you to subscribe to our content. That way you can be notified the moment it goes live and a great way to stay connected throughout your week. And everywhere you go is through the Life Church app. It's free and you can download it wherever you download your apps from. But right now, let's go to this week's message with our senior pastor, Craig Rochelle.

Is anybody in God's Is anybody excited to be in God's house today. I want to welcome all of our life church locations. Those of you worshipping with us at church online, we're so grateful that you are a part of our faith community. If we don't know each other, my name's Chris Beale. I'm the pastor here at Life Church, Oklahoma. city. And it is just an honor to be able to wrap up the fifth and final week of our series

Chasing Carrots. And it's kind of a special day because on this day, 28 years ago, our pastor Craig said I do with our pastor Amy Grochette. It is their 28th wedding anniversary. Craig and Amy. We love you. Thank you so much for the example that you set for our church. We are different because of your investment. You know, we live in a culture obsessed with the idea of living our best life. Do we not? We see it on billboards, like people selling you medicine, because they want us to live our best life.

Yikes the food, the perfect latte. I'm just living my best life, you know? Just want you to know. There's even companies designed to help you make people think you're living your best life when you can't afford your best life. Check this out. This is actually a real thing. There are companies that will fake a vacation for you. All you do is send them 49.95 and your family pictures, like 49.95, and they will fake a vacation

so the world will know you're just living your best life. This is actually an answered prayer for me. I'm just going to tell you. I think I'm not going to have to spend all this money to go on safari and Africa anymore, right? I don't have to do it because, boom, it happened. I'm living my best life. I'm not going to have to spend a fortune going to Egypt to see the pyramids. Done deal. It's amazing. You got to go. And the thing that we've like waited our whole lives for is that lunar expedition, just

spending a little bit of time. What is wrong with our culture that that's actually a thing, right? Obsessed with living our best life. In this series, we've been talking about how anything that you chase more than you pursue Christ is idolatry, period. And today, I want to just, as we conclude this series, I want to talk about the carrot that honestly, I have struggled chasing most of my life. It is the endless pursuit of comfort.

The pursuit of comfort. The carrot that I just don't actually ever catch. And our key scripture today is in the letter of 1st John. And I'm just going to tell you this scripture is a bit of a bit of a gut punch. John, if you don't know, is one of the kind of inner circle of Jesus. He was the beloved disciple. And there was nothing that happened in the context of three and a half years of ministry that John was not an eyewitness to, from the transfiguration to even being at the foot of the

cross with Jesus' mother. He saw it all. and in this time there is some dangerous theology happening within the early church and john had to deal with it head on and he says this in first john two 15 he says do not love the world nor the things in the world for if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him Ouch. 17 times just in the letter of 1st John, he uses the phrase the world. 17 times.

And literally it means the world, but contextually, what is he talking about? I think the best contextual definition for what he means by don't love the world is this. Do not love the cultural system of this world or even the spirit of this world. What would that look like? I just want to have enough to do whatever the heck I want to do whenever I want to do it, with whomever I want to do it with, and with no pesky distraction from things like pain or challenge. What am I basically saying? I want to build a life where God you aren't necessary.

Don't love that. If you do, it's evident the love of the Father. is not in you. Here's the thing. We have to be honest that no matter where you are in your journey of life, I promise you, every one of us has a desired life more defined by ease than it is struggle. Don't we? None of us is like dreaming about five years from now. I can't wait for the pain that's coming my way. None of us do that. We drift toward inactivity. We drift toward lazy. Don't believe me. Those of you who are married, I'm about to prove it. Husbands and wives, Before you said I do, correct me if I'm wrong.

Ladies, for some of you, your husbands would actually write poems for you back in the day. They would make you a mixtape, possibly, of their favorite songs. They would go to great links. They even knew, this is crazy, I know, they knew what a florist was. And the purpose for which, right? And today, getting your husband to come to the dinner table from in front of the TV is like you're asking them to climb Mount Everest, right? It's like we drift toward, I just don't want to do anything. Ladies, you're not off the hook. There was a day you used to shave your legs regularly. There was.

There was. You know it. You did Zumba or whatever, Tybo, three times, whatever you did. Three times a week, you dress up all cute for date and I, and you'd only order a side salad on the side of your water because you wanted to be cute. And now, you still dress up to go out, but you put on the going out yoga pants instead of the staying home yoga pants. Like there's a difference and you know it. We drift. We drift toward inactivity and ease. And it's a counterfeit.

Today I want to talk to you about what does it look like and what are the dangers in chasing what I want to call a counterfeit comfort. Think about counterfeit for a minute. What does that mean? A counterfeit is a close representation of something that has value, but the counterfeit has no value. It has no depth. And so for those of us that find ourselves possibly like me, chasing this never, this thing that you never catch, this comfort, this ease that you never catch, understand the two realities about chasing counterfeit number number one is that it reveals spiritual emptiness. That's a problem.

them. Chasing and pursuing and living for this desired life of comfort reveals what John says in verse 15 of 1 John 2. He says, don't love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is what? Spiritual emptiness. Every time I've read this passage of scripture in 28 years of being a Christian, I always felt guilty. I would read it and I would be like, well, I love my house. You know what? I love it. And so because I love my house, clearly I don't love God. Or I can't wait to go on that vacation.

It's going to be amazing. And because of that, because of what John says, clearly I don't love God. He's not saying I don't love God. He's saying there's an aspect of the love of the Father that I have not allowed to penetrate me. What would it look like if you let the love of the Father foresay the poor get inside of you.

His love for the broken, his love for the forgotten, his love for the faithful, the ones who selflessly serve. What if that love were so deep inside of you? I promise you, you would not be living for easy because you would be disturbed

for what disturbs the heart of God. One of my favorite examples of this is a buddy and my name Dave Cawson. Dave and Deleese have been friends of ours for a really long time. Our kids have grown up together. Dave is a, he's an executive in the oil and gas business, does an hour commute to downtown. And one day, he gets to his work and he sees a guy that's homeless and he looks hungry. And his name's John. And comfort would say, just go into the corner office. Make yourself a good cup of coffee. The love of the father says, go give him something to eat. And so he did. And one meal became two, and that became an

invitation to church. Well, that's a problem because he sleeps on a sidewalk downtown Oklahoma City. So now, Dave and Deleese and their family take a drive, a commute, not just the five days a week, but now a sixth day of the week to go pick John up and bring him up to church. And he does that for three years every single weekend until the moment that John raises his hand and gives his life to Jesus. And this decides, I'm just going to go public with my faith and let the world know that I am not the same. I've been changed by Jesus. David got the opportunity to baptize John. To this day, he's no longer homeless. He has a job. And he actually leads a life group downtown where he communicates the gospel to the people he used to sleep next to on a sidewalk.

That's what the love of the father in us does. Paul wrote it this way in 2 Corinthians 5. He says, for the love of Christ, what's that word, church, compels us. You know, we're talking about chasing something out here. That's not it. If you're chasing something out here, it means you lack something in here. For the love of Christ, from the inside. side out compels us. I love that. That those who live should no longer live for themselves,

but for him who died and was raised again. Chasing a counterfeit comfort reveals spiritual intimate instance. Secondly, if you're taking notes, I love this, it eliminates our need for faith, and that's a problem. Chasing this, this empty pursuit of comfort, it reveals and eliminates that you don't need faith. In Hebrews chapter 11, the author of Hebrews kind of does this storyboard of the key stories in the Old Testament, kind of like a reader's digest, like really, really quick.

And every single story starts with this phrase, by faith. By faith, Moses, with a speech impediment, stared down the most powerful human being on the planet Pharaoh to deliver God's field. By faith, Abraham left the home of his ancestors to go to a place where God wouldn't even reveal where I'm wanting you to go. It would ultimately be the promised land. By faith, Noah built a boat and had to convince everybody that it was going to flood and understand this, not one of them had ever seen rain in their entire life. By faith, by faith, by faith, by faith.

Not a single one of these stories were people living in comfort. And every single one of them, they were living for a burden that if God had not shown up, they would have been helpless and looked like idiots. So here's a challenge for you. What part of your life today are you helpless unless God super, I've got to be honest with you. I'm not sure how I would answer that question. And if you are anything like me, possibly our dreams are quite too small. And our listening ear to the burden of God in our lives may be a little bit not quite so tuned in.

The author goes on to say in Hebrews 116, and without faith, it is what? impossible to please God. His love in us will create more disruption than ease. I need you to know that. A buddy of mine, Justin Wren, heavyweight MMA fighter. He is the real deal. I think we've got a picture of him. Come on. Come on. Isn't that? That's impressive, Justin. I still think I could take you. I'm totally messing with you. Don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me. Justin and his bride, you know, they're pursuing their dream.

He's on the ultimate fighter television show. He's extremely good at what he does. Yeah, good for you. And somewhere along the way, the reality that slavery still exists in our world came really close to home. and Justin found himself in a part of Africa in the Congo, meeting with the Pygmy tribe, who for generations have occupied land that technically it should be theirs, but over the course of time,

other people have become the landowners, and the landowners have now become the oppressors and the slave drivers of people who have technically the right to occupy that space, and their life is horrific. What can one guy do? Right? Have you ever felt that way? What on earth could I do?

Well, let's just go down and see. And the name that the pygnavies gave Justin is this, the man who loves us. And they call themselves the forgotten ones. And so from this burden of the father's love, you just have to sit in that disruption for a moment and say, God, what would you have me do? Well, why don't we drill water wells? Why don't we give these people clean water? Why don't we figure out a way to buy land that to this day,

Fight for the Forgotten, their foundation, has purchased over 3,000 acres of land that the pygmies who were once oppressed by those who own the land, they are now the landowners. They now own the land. And the thing that blows my mind, it makes total sense, Justin, that you would go and drill wells for the pygmies and give them clean water. That's what a humanitarian would do.

Here's what the love of the father does. The love of the father goes a step beyond. And the love of the father drills water wells for those who used to oppress the pygmies. That's what the love of the father does, right? I'm telling you, church, when you get this inside of you, when you allow the love of the father to compel your life. You cannot pursue something as shallow as comfort. I want to challenge you with this. You cannot pursue comfort and walk by faith at the same time. You cannot. You can do one or the other, but you cannot do both. So if this is a counterfeit, like if you are listening to this

match as saying, I think I'm on the wrong track, you're in good company. So what then is the authentic? When I was 15 years old, my first, job, I was a cashier at a grocery store in Texas, and I was actually really good at it. I was fast. I could, the cans and I would, the bread and the eggs, I was amazing. And like, to the point that, when my friends were playing football games on Friday nights or running check meets, I actually entered grocery store Olympics. I was in a competition. Like, there's an actual thing. And you guys are like, man, you have no life. You are right. I did not. But I was good. And in learning how to do my job as a 15-year-old, we learned how to spot counterfeits.

And I was like, man, this is going to be great. I can't wait to see what a fake $100 bill looks like or a $20 bill. Guess what? To this day, I've yet to see one. Because if you want to learn how to spot a counterfeit, you don't study the counterfeit. Right? I know how it feels. I know how it smells.

I know the texture. I know all the symbols that most people, because I've fixed. on the authentic. And for the rest of our time today, I just want us to fixate. Not on the counterfeit, not of the shallow. But what does God's words say? Because our lives have to be built and led in such a direction that it flows out of the word of God. And so Paul actually let us know in 2 Corinthians 1 what a biblical perspective of comfort is.

praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Compassion, and say it with me, the God of what? The God of all comfort. He is the full embodiment of what you've been pursuing. Just him. He is the full embodiment of comfort. Why, Church? Because he comforts us in our troubles.

Well, that's nice. But it's not just for you. It goes on to say, so that we can, can comfort those in any trouble with comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, I'm going to pause here. If you were a follower of Jesus, what I just read is a part of your life story. Part of your life is to share in the sufferings of Christ, period. For just as we share in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort about.

abounds through Christ. This is the real thing. He is the real thing. When our paradigm for living now flows not out of what we see in the system of our culture, but what we see presented in 66 books of God's Word, we then realize that there are some things that we have to actually start to embrace and some things that we have to stop chasing. So if we stop chasing a counterfeit comfort,

I just want to challenge you with two things that I want, I want to challenge you to embrace. The first is this. I want you to embrace divine discomfort. I want you to embrace it. I want you to learn how to welcome pain. I want you to be able to be somewhat open armed with suffering. If you think about it, think about this.

Chicken fried steak, comfort food, right? Not a bad thing. You guys, you probably like it. If you're in another country, you don't know what that is. You're fine. Don't ever eat it. So chicken fried steak, comfort food, doing squats, uncomfortable, right? You do one time, no big deal.

You do either one of these three times a week for five years. You get two different results. Heart disease over here, from the comfort, over here, you look like. like Craig or Shell, right? Hard to see? Well, that may be a stretch, but you're working your way, you're working your way there. Discomfort produces something in us. And I love the way James put this in James Chapter 1.

And some of you are familiar with this verse, but there's probably an aspect of it that you aren't aware of what it means. James writes, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, various struggling, very sufferings, knowing that the testing, everyone say testing, that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result so that it may be perfect, complete, not lacking anything. But many of us don't enjoy taking tests, right? The testing of my faith, I'm sure my faith is going to fail, or maybe it's going to barely, maybe I'll get a 72 on the testing of my faith.

This word has nothing to do with that definition. This word testing in Greek is the word dochaumian. And this word is the same word used to describe what a silversmith would do with raw silver. He would take the ore and he'd put it in a big bucket pot thing and then he'd build a really, really hot fire beneath that pot. And then slowly the silver would start to melt and the impurities as its testing would come to the surface.

And the silversmith would take an instrument and scrape the dross off of the silver, would scrape the impurities away. He'd let it cool and he'd do it again, and he'd do it again, and he'd do it again, and he'd get to the point that the silversmith could see his own reflection in the silver. What if? what if the sufferings that you've gone through? What if the pain you've endured is just God's way of saying, I just want to reveal the selfishness in your life.

I just want to reveal that which does not bear the image of Christ, the sin, the struggle. What if I'm doing all of this and allowing all this so that it comes to the surface and then your creator can slowly and repeatedly scrape it off to the point that God himself sees his own face when he looks at your life. Right? Right?

It's the testing of your faith that produces something that makes your creator smile. You find maybe you have a child that is seemingly unreachable. As a parent, there's nothing more helpless. Maybe you're paralyzed by the report from the doctor. Maybe some of you, you're in a marriage right now and you've never felt more alone.

Maybe you find yourself with some kind of behavioral or chemical addiction. And the only way you could describe your life is despair. What if? Just what if? What if the setback is supposed to be a set-up? What if the misery is about to become your ministry? What if? what if the pain that you're facing is going to produce something more valuable than anything in your life

when i look when i look at my life church 47 years old i've done some cool things this this moment is a cool thing been on trips bought some stuff the most valuable things in my life i promise you is is the presence of God in the context of my pain. It has produced things in me that only struggle and God can create. And it is part of the journey of following Jesus. Paul goes on in Romans 5. It's about to get even crazier. He says, but not only this, church, but we also glory in our sufferings.

Now, he's maybe getting a little bit carried away. Like some translations of this verse say we exult in our suffering. It's like we are literally celebrating. We are praising God in the middle of our pain because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance creates character. Character gives birth to hope. And hope does not put to shame. Why does this happen?

Look at this. Because God's love has been poured into our hearts. Remember where we started? why we are pursuing this counterfeit empty comfort is because there's a degree to which the love of the father has not been allowed to penetrate our heart. But when that happens, you look at pain and you give God praise because you know what it's going to produce in your life. In embracing authentic, I want to challenge you. Embrace divine discomfort. It's going to produce something special And lastly, write this down.

Embrace in a culture obsessed with living your best life, that this is not your best life. This is not your best life. Paul, in the book of Romans, a letter to Romans, writes this. He says, yet what we suffer when, say it with me, what we suffer? Okay, we're going to see chronological order here. For what we suffer now is what? Nothing. compared to the glory he will reveal when later.

This is not your best life. God has one for you. I promise you he does. But it is not here and it is not now. What we suffer, what we struggle through, is not even worth comparing, not even worth speaking it in the same sentence with the glory that he will reveal.

later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for the future day when God will reveal who his children are. You are wired with a longing for eternity. Scripture says it. God has set eternity in your heart. And so this drive inside of you to attain and get this stuff, a lot of that is God given. But you're filling it with the wrong things. If you try to fulfill an eternal longing with temporary comfort, I promise you your life will be empty. I promise you. You cannot put heaven's standards on an earthly existence. It will always fall short. This is not your best life, church. So what do you do? Jesus said it in Matthew 16. Just let go. Just don't live with such agenda of what you want this life to be? What if your posture to God was, let this life be whatever you want it to be?

Let me experience whatever you want me to experience. Let me suffer with grace and dignity. If you hold on to your life, Jesus says, you'll lose it. But if you live open-handed, whatever you want it to be, God, you will save it. Five years ago, I stood on this stage and preached a funeral. And Ryan Sanderson, great little volleyball player, incredible young woman. I preached funerals for people in their 60, 70s, 80s, and 15 or 20 people show up.

They had 70 years to influence people. And only a handful showed up. Ryan had 11 years on planet Earth. And there was not an empty seat in this room, not one. And it wasn't because her life was so amazing. It was one struggle after another. And it was the presence of God through her in the context of cancer. In the context of chemotherapy.

In the context of pain and headaches and nausea, that when her friends would come around or her family would come around, they would see this light in her life. that lit up their darkness, and she's barely holding on by a threat. And I stood right here in front of a casket, and joy just washed over me momentarily. Not because there are people that were going to miss her dearly that brings grief, but the joy was fueled in the reality that her best life has not ended. It literally just began.

It just began. Just now. As Paul writes, no eye has seen, no ear is heard, no mind has ever imagined, ever. What God is prepared for those who love him.

I'm asking you, church, to join me in calling our pursuit of comfort what it is, it's a shallow counterfeit. It's like eating carbs. They taste good for a moment, and you're hungry five minutes later. It's empty. It's not going to produce in you what you hope it does.

Embrace discomfort. Let pain bring the impurities of your life to the surface so that your God can slowly begin to remove them out of your life. and recognize that we don't have to wait until heaven to live for eternity now. We can do that today. At all of our churches, can you join me in prayer together? Father, we thank you that you are the God of all comfort. You are the God of compassion, and we are so grateful for your patience with us.

We often don't get it and have to be repeated lessons over and over and over. And I pray that in this moment today, God, we would hear your voice and we would just have the courage enough to be honest with ourselves and with you. In an attitude of prayer today, I just want to ask you at all of our locations. Maybe you're listening to this message today and recognize that you are chasing a life that is more defined by ease and possibly missing the productivity that your struggle wants to create in your life. And your prayer is, God, I'm open. handed. Let my life be whatever you want it to be. If that's your prayer at all of our locations, would you just boldly raise your hand right now? I just want to pray over you. I just want to

pray hands everywhere. Father, thank you for people that are hearing your voice, God, that are responding to your truth. God, we repent for chasing after something that seems like it matters, but it has utterly no value. God, let our lives be whatever you want them to be. Use us to let your love impact others. As we continue to pray, church, I want to challenge you with this thought that you might find yourself here today in a direction your life is going where you're living for you. And I get it. That's what the system of our culture would tell you is the right way to live.

Scripture says that there is a way that seems right, but it leads to death. The reality is that every single one of us have sinned. Every single one of us have missed the mark of Christ. And the bad news goes on to say that the penalty, the wage of that sin is death. It is eternal separation from God. But I'm here to tell you that while the bad news is bad, the good news is even better. Because while we were in our sin, Scripture says Christ died for us. Not to pay a debt that he owed, but one that you and I owe.

We owe for our sin. Jesus paid for it. So what do you do? You have to accept what Christ did as effective for your sin. Scripture says to as many as have called on the name of Christ, to them he gives the right to be called children of God. You have to choose to surrender your life to Christ. And if he is not first and you, you know, you know, you have to choose. you are not living fully for him. My challenge to today is settle the issue. Repend of your sin.

Call out on Jesus. And I promise you, you will be forgiven and made new. If that's your prayer at all of our locations, just raise your hand boldly right now. Say, Jesus, I'm giving you my life. Keep it up for just a moment. Right up here. Here in the back I got you. Keep it up just one a second. So proud of you. Others of you, Jesus, I'm saying yes. Others of you, I need Christ. Church online. Would you just click right below me? All of our locations praying together. with those saying yes to Jesus. Father, I need you. I've sinned. I'm asking you to save me. Jesus, I believe you died to pay for my sin and rose from the grave to bring me life. Fill me now with your Holy Spirit that I could serve you always. In Jesus' name I pray. Come on, church.

Somebody make some noise and celebrate new life in Christ. You know, as a church, it's always our heart and our hope to see you continue to grow in your relationship with Christ. And we have a great resource to help you do that. It's called life.com slash next. There you can find all kinds of resources to help you take your next steps in your relationship with Christ. Again, thanks for joining us here at Life Church. We'll see you next time.