Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What's up, awakened?
[00:00:04] It's so good to be with you. Where are my young adults at today?
[00:00:09] Amen.
[00:00:11] Where's my young adults and faith?
[00:00:14] I'm with you. Yeah, it is. What a joy and honor it is to be here with you today.
[00:00:21] Jovan is my uncle. Didn't he do a great job, Uncle Jovan?
[00:00:28] No, but great word, brother. Thank you so much. I love hearing that guy preach, and it is. It's a joy to be here. And can we thank Sarah and Taylor Berger for all you guys do behind the scenes?
[00:00:45] What a special and beautiful night you guys have put together. So thank you so much. And how about our worship team? They met Crushing it.
[00:00:56] So awesome. And my name's Chet. If we haven't had a chance to meet. Thank you, Mom. Oh, no, Crossly.
[00:01:05] If we haven't had a chance to meet, I would love to meet you. But I think tonight, the heart of tonight is so cool. And I just. I love seeing so many young adults in this room giving their hearts and in worship and service to Jesus Christ.
[00:01:20] That is such a special thing. And not to exclude anyone else, but if you are a young adult tonight, I just want you to know, man, God is doing something special in your generation.
[00:01:33] God's anointing is on you, and your hearts are open to it. And your hunger for him is obvious. And it's so inspiring. Inspiring to people like me. So thank you for your hearts for the Lord.
[00:01:50] Amen.
[00:01:54] And keep fanning that flame. And I want to talk to you about that tonight, but let's ask God's blessing on this time. Father, I just thank you so much for everyone in this room, and I thank you for, Lord, their hearts, for Jesus Christ. And, Father, as you have gripped each of our lives, and maybe as you're gripping our lives now, Father, help us to grip you back.
[00:02:17] Help us to be the men and women that you desire us to be and to live the calling that you have for us. Would you meet us with your grace now? In the great name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
[00:02:33] Amen. Thank you.
[00:02:38] Any Ninja Warrior fans? Oh, is my mic messed up?
[00:02:50] Is that why I was only getting half claps before?
[00:02:54] Is it working now?
[00:02:55] Ish. Yeah? Good, you can hear me?
[00:02:59] Yeah. All right.
[00:03:01] All right. Any Ninja Warrior fans in here?
[00:03:04] Yeah, over this side. Ninja Warrior? No?
[00:03:08] All right, we'll talk later. Let's pray.
[00:03:12] I like the show American Ninja Warrior. And when I started watching it, I don't know if you ever had this sensation, but you look at it and you're like, man, I think I could do that anybody.
[00:03:24] And a few years ago, Ninja Warrior actually came to Cleveland, Ohio, and I went and saw the set that they had, and I was standing there while people were doing it, and I was watching it, and I was like, yeah, I definitely can't do that.
[00:03:40] It's a little bigger in person, a little more difficult. It looks. And I guarantee I couldn't do it. And when I'm watching the show, I always love to see people get really far. But what always happens is, is their grip wears out at some point.
[00:04:00] All the different obstacles. I mean, everything just kind of boils down to is like, how long can they hold on? How long can they hold on to that next obstacle? And they can only go as far as their grip.
[00:04:17] And I think in some ways that's true about a lot of life, is we can go as far as the grip that we have. And today I want to talk about strengthening our grip. And I want to talk about recognizing the grip that God has on us and learning to grip him back. You open to that tonight, and I want to talk to you about how when you see God's grip on you, it pulls something more out of you to grip him back. And here's what I want to look at tonight. First Timothy, chapter 6, verse 12. And the apostle Paul says this.
[00:04:58] Fight the good fight of the faith.
[00:05:02] And then this phrase, take hold or grab, grasp, grip.
[00:05:10] Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. And I just love that phrase, take hold of the eternal life of which you have been called.
[00:05:30] Paul is writing to his mentor or to the one that he's mentoring, a man named Timothy. And he says, timothy, God has called you. God has gripped your life.
[00:05:41] Now grip him back.
[00:05:44] God has taken hold of you. He's at work in you.
[00:05:49] Now grip him back.
[00:05:52] And I don't know if you can look at your life and you can resonate with what Paul is talking about. I don't know if you can think about some experience or time where God gripped you.
[00:06:09] And maybe for some of us, maybe we're still on that journey. Maybe God is beginning to grip our hearts tonight. I pray that he is. But I remember for me, when it first kind of really began to click and make sense.
[00:06:23] I was 14. I lived on Lund Road. Anybody know where that's at? It's not that far from here, just a little bit around the corner. And at that time, Christ Church wasn't here.
[00:06:35] It was On Lund Road.
[00:06:37] And we had gone there at different times, just kind of in and out. But when I was about 14, I went to a Good Friday service. Just wandered in there and I heard our lead pastor Doc preach a message. And to this day I still remember what he said. That was 14. I'm like 20 now.
[00:06:57] It's a long time ago, or maybe 41, but who's counting?
[00:07:02] A long time ago.
[00:07:03] And I remember him preaching. He said, the Jews didn't kill Jesus, the Romans didn't kill Jesus, but my sins killed Jesus.
[00:07:16] And it was amazing because at that moment it was like my heart opened up to God in a way it never had.
[00:07:27] In that moment I realized that Jesus Christ died for me.
[00:07:33] That I wasn't the great person I thought I was. I was broken and sinful and messed up. But there was a great savior that came 2,000 years ago and lived and died for me and friends. God gripped me in that moment. It just clicked. It was like the lights went on and I realized that everything that I wanted in life, everything that I was trying to figure out, all of the hollow parts of my soul, I realized Christ was the answer to all those things.
[00:08:13] That what I was looking for was looking for me.
[00:08:18] And he found me there on Lund Road. And, and the little sanctuary we had pews back then, church wasn't near as cool looking as it is today.
[00:08:26] The worship was a little bit different.
[00:08:29] Our God is an awesome God. No, that's cool. I still like that one though.
[00:08:35] But God gripped my heart and I went home different.
[00:08:43] And I went home and God began to stir in my heart. And he began to stir a calling and a desire to serve him and to honor him in every way and to live the life that he was calling me to be. And so kind of at that time I was in high school and I was praying through the direction of my life and what college I was going to go to. And thankfully I didn't have a lot of college options. I wasn't the greatest student, but I was like, you know what? Either way though, I'm going to stay home because I want to be connected to the church and I want to keep growing and I want to keep learning. I want to see where God might be leading me.
[00:09:24] And over the course of years, he just began to make my calling more and more clear. But here's what I'm telling you. Church just God gripped my heart.
[00:09:35] And ever since then, my hope has been to grip him back.
[00:09:41] My hope has been to say, lord, thank you for what you've done for me.
[00:09:47] Thank you for who you are. Thank you for living and dying for me. And now, Lord, I want to spend the rest of my life taking hold of that for which you've called me.
[00:10:02] And so today, I just want to give you a couple ideas of how to take hold of the call, calling and the salvation that Christ has for you.
[00:10:14] And here's just a couple ways we can do it. A couple ways we can. We can strengthen or readjust our grip on the calling and purpose of God in our lives.
[00:10:25] First, we can strengthen our grip. We can take hold by making the main pursuit of our lives the pursuit of enjoying God.
[00:10:41] If you want to take hold of the calling and the life God has for you, pursue a life where you are striving to enjoy God because of who he is.
[00:10:57] When I was a real young kid, my parents got a little poor in the backyard, which is pretty awesome.
[00:11:04] And I had a neighbor.
[00:11:06] He was older than me. His name was Zach. I was probably in, like, first grade. He was in sixth grade. So just by the virtue that he was older, I thought he was cool.
[00:11:15] And I kind of looked up to him and I wanted to be friends with him. And it seemed like he wanted to be friends with me. So I was excited about that. And he would come to my house and he'd knock on the door and he'd say, hey, can we hang out today? I'd be like, yeah, I'd love to. My afternoon actually opened wide up, you know, and they'd be like, can we go swimming?
[00:11:37] And anytime I said, no, we can't, because the pool is not open for this reason or that reason or this thing. Then he'd say, all right, I'm going back home.
[00:11:45] And he'd go back home.
[00:11:48] And then I began to realize the dude's not really interested in being friends with me.
[00:11:53] He's interested in my pool.
[00:11:56] And so he only wants to hang out to swim.
[00:11:59] It only took me a few years to figure that out, but once I did, I started charging him. No, I didn't.
[00:12:08] But he.
[00:12:09] I was just a means to an end.
[00:12:13] He was using me.
[00:12:16] And sometimes, friends, in our relationship with God, God just becomes a means to an end.
[00:12:24] I go to God because I need things, and we do need things in life. And God says, come to me when you need things.
[00:12:32] But sometimes, friends, if we're not careful, our relationship with God becomes all transaction.
[00:12:42] And no one wants to be in a relationship like that.
[00:12:47] No one wants to be in a relationship where you only like what you can get out of the person. You don't actually enjoy the very presence of that person. You with me on this.
[00:12:57] And here's a way to grab hold of the calling to which you have been called is to decide in your heart that I'm going to build a relationship with God that is about not just getting things out of God, but. But enjoying him for who he is.
[00:13:16] Because guess what, Church. There is no greater or deeper joy than the presence of God.
[00:13:23] And there are so many things you can go after in this world, and some of them are cool, and they're fine, and they're good, but none of it compares to the joy of God's presence.
[00:13:35] He is greater than all of it, and every day we can be in pursuit of it.
[00:13:44] My daughter, I have three kids, Emmy, Abby, and Teddy. Emmy is seven.
[00:13:48] And in these. Since it's been such beautiful weather, we've been going on morning walks together, which has been really cool.
[00:13:56] And today we went on a morning walk, and I gave Emery this old cell phone that I had. It's not turned on or anything. Relaxed.
[00:14:07] It's not activated, but, you know, she can just, like, pretend. And she loves it. It's like her favorite toy, which I'm like, not a great move, dad, but too late. Train already left the station. And so she brought it with her. And she was talking about it, and we were walking, and she said, you know, dad, there are cases you can get for phones that they can go in the water.
[00:14:31] And she's like, I want one of those.
[00:14:34] And our whole conversation was about iPhone cases that are waterproof.
[00:14:39] And we just kind of walked around the neighborhood, and, I mean, she was. It was like the coolest thing ever.
[00:14:45] It wasn't super productive.
[00:14:47] Wasn't my favorite topic of conversation.
[00:14:51] We didn't really go anywhere. We were just meandering around. But it was my favorite part of the day because I was with her.
[00:15:00] It didn't matter what we were doing. It didn't matter what we were talking about.
[00:15:05] The joy was being with her and church.
[00:15:11] The joy is being with God.
[00:15:14] The joy is not always what we get or where we go or how things might turn out, but it's the joy of being with him. Him, grip him back, decide that God is not just a means to an end in my life. God is the end in himself.
[00:15:34] He is what I'm after.
[00:15:38] Psalm 27 says, Only one thing do I desire that I would be in the house of the Lord to gaze on his beauty all the days of my life.
[00:15:49] I want to be that Type of Christian.
[00:15:52] I want to be that type of person that says man, God, you know what? I want a lot of things in life, but the thing I desire most is to gaze on your beauty in your house, with your people, and to delight in who you are.
[00:16:07] That's how you grip God back, build a relationship that is about delight, enjoyment in him. Here's the second thing I've learned in life, that it's easier to grip God when I lose some of the dead weight of sin in my life.
[00:16:28] Jovan talked about this.
[00:16:30] We all have parts of our life that in obedience to Christ, the way forward is to put to death the deeds of the body, is to battle those things which keep us away from God. Has anyone ever done a Murph workout before?
[00:16:52] All right. I figured there'd be some of you. There's some beasts in this room.
[00:16:57] I've done one a long time ago, and I've watched a lot of people do them on TV and things like that.
[00:17:05] And one thing that I notice is that when the real serious people do it, they wear a weighted vest.
[00:17:13] And if you don't know what the Murph workout is, it's 100 pull ups. Is that right? 200 push ups, 300 squats, and a mile on either end of that.
[00:17:24] It's a good workout, right?
[00:17:27] But you're supposed to do it with a weighted vest.
[00:17:31] It's already hard enough.
[00:17:34] Who's the psycho that said you should wear a vest with it?
[00:17:39] Was that you, Xavier, or Laura? I feel like that's something you guys would.
[00:17:44] Would add to it.
[00:17:46] It's hard enough.
[00:17:47] Adding more weight is just going to make it harder. And I believe life is challenging enough and serving God well is hard enough. And anything that pulls you away from him is not worse at church.
[00:18:04] Anything that holds you back from gripping hold of God's purpose for your life, if it's adding weight and it's wearing out your grip, let it go.
[00:18:19] Can I get an amen on this young adult?
[00:18:23] There's one starting. Fizzled out quick.
[00:18:28] Maybe I need a new mic again. I. I don't know.
[00:18:32] And young adults, let me say this for those of you who are maybe dating, you're not married, but that's a desire on your heart.
[00:18:39] Do not bring into your life someone who's gonna pull you away from God.
[00:18:48] Many, many of us older folk will tell you it's not worth it. And God's got a good plan for your life. You with me?
[00:18:57] Find someone. There we go.
[00:19:03] That's the moms and Moms and dads in the room, they're like, that's right. And they're absolutely right.
[00:19:09] And God's got someone for you.
[00:19:12] But. But make sure that the person you're going after is going after Christ with you.
[00:19:19] And you're not pulling in two different directions.
[00:19:24] And anything that pulls us away from God is not worth it. Here's the third thing I've learned, is that as we grip hold of God, we can also take some of the pressure off of our life.
[00:19:37] When I think back to my 20s, I think about all the pressure that I felt. I don't know if anybody feels any pressure today. Probably not.
[00:19:48] Probably just like, nap, good to go.
[00:19:50] But, you know, when you're a young adult, you're trying to make a lot of big decisions. Amen, right? Like, that's a lot.
[00:19:58] School, work, dating, marriage, career, and the list goes on. Right?
[00:20:07] That's a lot of stuff to figure out. And sometimes if we're not careful, we're like kind of one of those pump sprayers. You're just pumping, pumping, pumping. And we're so filled with pressure that we start popping and things start spraying everywhere and making a mess.
[00:20:27] But here's. Here's the good news, Church.
[00:20:31] You can trust God with the big things in your life.
[00:20:37] If you worry about the micro, he'll take care of the macro.
[00:20:41] You worry about every day. Look, I'm just gonna serve him. I'm gonna follow him one day at a time.
[00:20:48] I'm gonna connect with him. I'm gonna do the next right thing. Friends, you stay on that path and you can trust God's gonna work out the big stuff.
[00:20:57] One of my favorite scriptures of all time is Proverbs 3. It says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
[00:21:03] Lean not on your own understanding.
[00:21:06] In all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.
[00:21:14] Church. God will get you where he wants you.
[00:21:18] He's really, really, really good at that.
[00:21:23] He's been thinking about your life and your purpose for a long time.
[00:21:32] The scripture says Christ was crucified before the foundations of the world.
[00:21:36] That means long before you and I ever existed. God already provided the way of salvation and he's already thought through all of it.
[00:21:47] He is trustworthy. You don't have to be it all or figure it all out.
[00:21:52] You just need to trust him day by day, moment by moment, season by season.
[00:21:59] And here's the last thing I'll say to you is think about your life in this moment, in this season, as a stewardship. How do I grip God back.
[00:22:13] I recognize that this time in my life and this moment in my life God has entrusted to me and what I do with it and how I live in this moment matters to him.
[00:22:31] I have a good buddy that grew up.
[00:22:35] He had just a really, really rough upbringing.
[00:22:41] Both his parents were drug dealers and addicted to drugs. And so from the moment he was born, he lived in that environment.
[00:22:49] You know, he was brought into that environment and all the violence and the chaos of it. I mean, this was a guy that had no chance.
[00:23:00] No chance. But by God's grace, a lot of different moments and opportunities opened up, and he was able to make different decisions and get out of it and play college football and do some really, really cool things.
[00:23:16] And his story is so inspiring to me.
[00:23:21] But I remember one day when we were younger, we were probably in our mid-20s, and I was at his house, and he was just renting this little kind of beat up house, and it's like somewhere on the east side of Cleveland. And he was doing all these projects around the house. And I was like, hey, man, what? Like you're doing a lot and you're just renting here.
[00:23:40] What's up with that?
[00:23:42] And he said, well, wherever I'm at, wherever I live, my goal is to make it better.
[00:23:53] I don't own this place. I'm not gonna be here. But while I'm here, I'm gonna make it better.
[00:23:59] And that conversation has just stuck with me. It's like, what a. That's stewardship where you're at right now. How can you make it back better for Christ?
[00:24:12] Maybe you're not in a place you want to be. That's not where he wanted to be. It's not where he wanted to end up, but it was where he was at.
[00:24:22] But instead of looking at everything he didn't have, he said, how can I make it better?
[00:24:28] And I believe we can grip back the calling and purpose God has when we say, all right, Lord, I'm going to bloom right where I'm planted.
[00:24:39] I'm going to give God my best wherever I'm at.
[00:24:44] If I'm single and I don't want to be well, I'm going to do this in the way that honors God the most.
[00:24:51] That's good stewardship.
[00:24:53] If I'm in school and I know it's the right path for me, but I don't want to do it, I'm going to see it as a moment God is entrusting me with, I'm going to do the best I can for his Honor and for his glory.
[00:25:07] Because here's the truth. Those who are faithful with little will be trusted with more.
[00:25:15] And when we get in the habit and practice of taking whatever God gives us and seeing it as service to him and doing it the best way, the way that honors him, we grip back the calling and purpose he has for you.
[00:25:35] Now, here's the last thing I'll say to you. I know I said the other thing was the last thing, but that's what preachers do.
[00:25:43] Amen. I still got like four sermons left. Is that all right?
[00:25:48] But here's the truth. I want to grip God as best I can.
[00:25:55] But here's the unfortunate reality. Sometimes, like the people on Ninja Warrior, my grip wears out and your grip wears out.
[00:26:05] And you and I will hit seasons. And maybe we were walking in here today and we just feel like. And we're in a season where I've lost my grip on God or I'm just not where it should be.
[00:26:20] Here's the good news I have for you, Church. Your grip on him may wear out, but his grip on you never does, Church. And the strength of your life is not your grip on him. It's his grip on you.
[00:26:36] And when Jesus Christ chose you and died for you and rose again, nothing will take you out of his hands.
[00:26:45] So take courage, take heart.
[00:26:48] And as God grips you, grip him back with all your might.
[00:26:54] Let's pray.
[00:26:58] Father, we thank you that you are the God who grabs hold of us.
[00:27:08] And Lord, we pray that maybe if some of us today are just struggling and floating through life and feeling lost and confused and out of place. Lord, we pray that we could be drawn to you by the power of your spirit.
[00:27:30] We could see the greatness of Jesus Christ.
[00:27:35] We could behold his glory. Glory, Lord.
[00:27:38] And we could be shaped by it.
[00:27:41] Father, we pray for other others of us, Lord, that maybe where we've lost some of our grip on you. Help us to grip you back.
[00:27:51] Help us to take hold of the eternal life to which you've called us.
[00:27:55] Help us to press on and to make Christ our own as you have made us your own.
[00:28:03] And may we live a life that honors you and serves you and glorifies you. Thank you for these good men and women. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
