Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - The Last Four, Part 1: Psalm 143:8

Episode Date: July 9, 2016

In this series, Pastor Craig Groeschel unpacks four of his favorite verses—powerful passages from Psalms and Proverbs. Great for small groups or a teaching session, these short videos let you take a closer look at these well-known verses. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, I want to say hello to our extended Life Church family and tell you guys, thank you so much for joining us every week. If you're watching your listing right now, you're probably watching on YouTube, iTunes, the app, the Life Church website, or somewhere else. And what we're going to do for the next four weeks is something a little bit different. And I want to tell you why it's different and then kind of tell you what we're going to do. Right now at Life Church, we're doing a four-week message series that we do. Every year we've done it for probably, I don't know, gosh, probably 18 years or so. It's called at the movies. And what I do is actually teach scripture and let movies illustrate the scripture. So we talk a little bit about what God's Word says,

and then we let movies kind of bring a motion and illustrate the teaching from God's Word. And it was really cool as we see tons and tons and tons of people that normally wouldn't come to church actually come during this message series. What's different is we're not allowed to actually show these messages after the fact because of the movies in them. And so if you are interested, maybe if you live somewhere else, we'd like to view them. We've got 75 or 80 different opportunities. You can watch it live during the week at Church Online. You can just go to our website at life.church and click on.

It'll tell you when the next live message is. And those will play during the week and then they go away. So we can stream them live, but we're not allowed to show. them on the archives later on. So what I wanted to do is something really different and kind of give you a little behind the scenes glimpse at what I've been reading in scripture lately. I also want to tell you that before we dive into that today, that every month we actually release a leadership podcast. It's a teaching that I do. Our mission at Life Church is to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. And I actually like the word lead.

Jesus, in my opinion, was the greatest leader who ever lived, and I think they were all called to be leaders, to lead people to Christ. And so we want to get better in our leadership. You can go to life.shirt slash leadership podcast. You can subscribe on iTunes or watch on YouTube and such. Anyway, I want to invest in you as a leader, and hopefully that'll make a difference. So here's what I want to do over the next four weeks is I want to do something I'm going to call the last four, the last four. Our church created the U-Version Bible app. And what's really cool about this is not only is it on 240 million devices, we've been blessed to give it away for free, but the U-Version Bible app has really revolutionized the way I study scripture. And so it's amazing to me,

the gift that we get to give to people is giving back to our staff, our team, our church, is we get to use this tool to grow. So every day I do, um, at least one, I'm usually doing multiple reading plans in the U-Version Bible app. And if you don't use it, I recommend you try it, but there's a way you can actually highlight a verse on there. You just kind of click on it. And then you can go back and see all the different verses that you highlighted. And what I wanted to do is just share with you very few thoughts. I've literally spent about five minutes just kind of organizing some thoughts about the last four verses that I highlighted. So I just went back through my U-Version plan.

looked at the last one I highlighted, and I want to just do one of these this week, one next week, and then two more in the final weeks. And I want to just give you my thoughts on the last four verses that I highlighted. They stood out to me, and I'll kind of even tell you a little behind the scenes on how I meditate on Scripture. So the first one that I want to look at is actually a Psalm of David, and I'm reading through the Bible with an emphasis on Psalm and Proverbs. so I read those many, many times, then we read through the rest of the Bible through the year. But Psalm 143, verse 8, I'll read it to you and then kind of unpack it a little bit. David says this.

He says, let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I've put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for I entrust, for to you I entrust my life. Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I've put my trust in you. show me the way I should go, for to you, I entrust my life. Powerful verse, and this is just one that I highlighted, and I want to tell you just kind of as I read through these, what I do is I pause on a verse like this, and then I meditate on it, I think about it, and this is kind of what goes through my mind. Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love.

I start there with mourning, and I go through my mind, and I think about all the different times that mourning is brought up in the Bible. I think about the reality that Jesus often would go and seek God in the morning. To me, there's no time of the day that's more spiritual than another time, but to me, the morning time is the best time to seek God. So that's when I always do my prayer time, when I do my devotion is in the morning. And so let the morning, if we start off the day with God, we're likely to walk with God throughout the day.

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love. stop and just think about unfailing love. There are so many things that fail in this world. My love for anyone is imperfect. God's love is perfect in every way. So I meditate on his unfailing love. Even if I am faithless, God is faithful. His love never fails. There's nothing that I can do to cause God to love me more. There's nothing I can do to cause God to love me less. I want you to think about that. No matter what you do, God loves you. He loves you not because of what you do, not because of who you are, but because of who he is. Love is not something that he does. Love is who he is. But the morning bring me word of your unfailing love. And then David says to God,

and if you think about all that David went through, I mean, running for his life, all sorts of ups and downs. And he says a really big statement. He says, for I have put my trust in you. And then what I would do in my own devotion time is just pause and think about what, am I trusting in? So many times, you know, I'll say I'm trusting in God, but the reality is I'm trusting in my own abilities, my own wisdom, my own strength, my ability to try to figure things out, and then I would just kind of go through and say, what in my own life am I not totally trusting to God? Then David says this. He says, show me the way I should go, for I, to you, I entrust my life. And I love this. Show me the way I should go. This is crazy. I'm a pastor of a church, and so

and I literally am making decisions without pausing to say, God, show me what to do, show me the way I should go. In fact, just two nights ago, I was trying to make a decision, and Amy said to me, she said, why don't you just take 24 hours, pray and listen to God? I'm like, well, duh, of course I should do that. But, you know, I'm just going through the day. I'm trying to make decisions. And it's crazy how often I'll try in my own strength to figure out what to do instead of stopping and saying, God, I want to trust in you.

show me the way I should go. A lot of times a common question people kind of ask me, how do I know what God's will is? Well, you know, that's a really big question. We could talk for a long time about it. But one of the things I always try to remind myself is this, that Jesus is the good shepherd and he leads the sheep. He teaches us, in fact, over and over, John 10, if you want to read about it, is that the sheep actually recognize the shepherd's voice. And so that means that if I'm a sheep and he's a shepherd, I have the ability to to recognize his voice. The best place to hear his voice is always in God's word. That is, I mean, it's clear and black and white, God's truth to us. But the reality is that as a spiritual being,

I have the ability to pray to God. And as my spirit is connected to his spirit, literally God can prompt me. God could speak to me through circumstances. God could speak to me through people. God always speaks to me through his word. God could speak to me literally through his voice. and I've never heard the audible voice of God, but there are times when I know God has prompted me. So if Jesus is a good shepherd, he's got a job. If I'm the sheep, I have a job. My job is to follow, but guess what his job is? His job is to lead. It's incredibly comforting to me to know that his job is to lead and my job is to follow. So he shows me the way. If I ask him, he will show me. James says that we don't have because we don't ask. If you're trying to make a decision, maybe you don't know what to do because he's.

you haven't stopped to ask God. David says, show me the way I should go. And then he says, for to you, I entrust my life. And then in my own time, I remember just stopping as I read that and kind of meditate on it. And I just paused on the word entrust. I like that. I entrust my life to you.

That word stood out to me because I had also recently read about the parable of the talents and how the master entrusted, basically to us, different talents. And I did just a brief word study on the word entrust. And this is a full-on surrender. This isn't, God, I'm giving you part of my life.

But to you, you're the one who brings me your word. You're the one that has unfailing love. You're the one that's always faithful. To you, I entrust my whole life. Everything that I have to offer, everything that I'm going to do in the future, every hope that I have, every dream that I have, God, I wanted to bring you glory. For to you, I entrust my life. So I want to read it again, and then I want to pray for you. David said this. He said,

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. So if you have a decision to make today, if you're trying to figure out which way to go, I pray that God's word would come to you in the morning, that you would be filled with faith because of his unfailing love. love. And I want to pray that the good shepherd will speak to you and guide you. His role is to guide. Your job is to follow. So, Father, I pray that for everyone trying to make a decision today, that they would be very sensitive to the voice of your Holy Spirit. God, that you would speak clearly, that we would hear you through your inspired word, maybe through someone who knows you

and loves you. Maybe you direct it through circumstances. It might be, God, that you minister to us by the power of your Holy Spirit, that we'd hear from you, be faithful to what you. Be faithful to what you. you say. And God, that will follow and be obedient to you. Show us the way that we should go. I pray, God, for anyone that maybe is not seeking you as faithfully as they could, that first thing in the morning, their heart would be open to you. Your word would be living to them. Your spirit would guide and direct them. And God, may everything that we do bring you glory. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.