Opening And Welcome

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Good morning. My name is John Hilsenbeck, and I'm in recovery since October 22nd, 1991. This morning I've been reading a scripture from the book of Psalms 139. The verses 1 through 6 and then conclude with 23 and 24. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I

Psalm 139 Read Aloud

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rise up. You understand my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is too high. I cannot attain to it. And then move it to 23. Search me, O God. I know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts. And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. This is the word of the Lord.

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Thank you, John. My name's Ken Chenson, and um just want to wish you it all, all you dads, happy Father's Day. Um, and and especially, I think, for you dads who take responsibility for raising your children in the faith and being here as an example um of commitment and dedication to what God is doing in your life and transfer it on to that next generation. So um actually, I've been a father for more years than I want to admit,

Fatherhood Lectures And Lasting Impact

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but when I was at when our kids were teenagers, one uh Father's Day, they gave me this mug for Father's Day. I've kept it for how many years? But anyway, it says on the outside, Dad, thanks to your lectures, I never change horses in the middle of a job worth doing. I know the squeaky wheel always gets the worm, and I never count my chickens until I've walked a mile in their shoes. And then on the inside it says, and you thought I wasn't listening. I think um I think all fathers really want the very best for your kids. And all of those lectures, whether they are listened to or remembered or not, are really because you want them to become the best person they can possibly be. And that's really why you invest into your kids' lives. And and we are flawed and faulty as fathers. I've made enough mistakes of my own, but we do have a heavenly father who wants that very same thing for each and every one of us. And it's by his grace that he is able to transform our lives, which is kind of what we're in this whole series, is all about called Steps. How's that for a segue, right? From Father's Day Run into Steps. Um, this uh series that we're in is called Steps. It's based on John Ortberg's book by the same name. And it's actually based on the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery groups, which really actually have their roots in the biblical principles of transformation. And so we have been going through this. We're in week four. Week one, we talked about this idea of I can't. And it's just

The Steps Journey So Far

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coming to the place where I admit that my life is unmanageable, or maybe even just one aspect of my life that reveals that the rest of my life is unmanageable. But I realize I can't fix myself, which leads to the second step, which is about realizing that there is a God stronger than me who can transform my life. And then last week, um, Justin McRerts talked about this idea. I think I will let him, that I choose to turn my life over to God. And that's kind of where we're at so far. That's where we've been, if you're kind of tracking with us. And and and the thing is, it often it takes a crisis or a struggle or a dead end or just a point where we realize I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of dealing with this issue, that we come to that point of release. And we kind of call these, I would call them an alarm clock event, if you will. It's the thing that wakes us up to something bigger. And that's maybe what moves us to this idea that I can't, he can't, I think I'll let him. But today, what we're dipping into is really the deeper work, because underneath all of this, there's something that is driving this in us. And so we're going today to look at the fourth step, which is about taking a fearless and searching inventory. And that's what the psalm that was read earlier is all about. That the psalmist is praying, Lord, search me. And here's the whole point. The first thing is that self-examination has to be done together with God. If I do it on my own, it's going to be inadequate or even detrimental. He starts with his prayer, search me, O God. In other words, I can't even do this part on my

Step Four And Why It Matters

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own. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Um, because doing it on our own is not going to work. It will be inadequate because we have these blind spots. Um, Tasha Yorick, in her book, Insight, How People See Us and How We Ought to See Ourselves, says, Because focusing on ourselves doesn't mean that we know ourselves. We have these blind spots, and by definition, we can't see them. We have all kinds of biases that are that are going on in our own thoughts. We have a self-serving bias in which we attribute all of our successes to our great accomplishment and our abilities. And then any

Blind Spots And Self-Serving Bias

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failures that we have is always somebody else's fault or external circumstances. We have a confirmation bias where we tend to favor information that reinforces what we already believe about ourselves. We have an incentive bias where we believe the things that we want to be true, and so we assume they are true about us. And all of those things get in the way. In her book, Tasha Urich talks about, she goes and speaks at um conferences and corporate events and things like that. And she said she will often, in one of her talks, say, bring up the the statistic that 50% of managers, managers are ineffective. And she lets it hang there for a while. And then she says, think about that. Now look to the person on your right, look to the person on your left. And then it begins to dawn on them. Well, if it's not me, it must be the guy next to me, right? The truth is we have this ability to see the character flaws and the wrong things about other people, but we have great difficulty seeing them ourselves. And that's why Jesus said, How can you say to your brother, take the speck out of your eye? Let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there's a plank in your own eye. Says, you hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye. We're really good at seeing the faults of other people, but have such difficulty seeing it in ourselves. John Ortberg in his book actually says, here is a good phrase that we all ought to practice on a regular basis. There is plenty wrong with me. So, audience participation today. Would you join me in saying this? There is plenty wrong with okay, some of you are not participating. Everybody, there is plenty wrong with me. Now, let's say it like we really mean it. There is plenty wrong with me. Because there is. And we're never going to get very far in this transformation process if we're not willing to admit it and take that honest inventory and say, what is it that needs work? Now, there's a more serious problem when we do it on our own, and that is that we get into this self-condemnation mode. That becomes a downward spiral, and we kind of get stuck instead of our own heads, and we start tying ourselves in these mental knots saying, Why can't I get better at this? Why can't I overcome this? What is wrong with me? And then we just kind of spile downward. So before the inventory, we start with God. Search me, O God. And by the way, did you notice at the beginning of this psalm? The prayer to search me, O God, isn't toward the end of the psalm. It's the last couple of lines in the psalm. The whole first part of the psalm starts with this verse one. You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before starting and asking God to search me, he's acknowledging up front, God, you really already do know me, don't you? You have searched me. You you've perceived my thoughts. You know me. You discern my going out. You are familiar with all my ways. And he then he goes into this. He says, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Was talking to somebody actually before the service this morning, asked what passage I was preaching on and talked, oh yeah, she goes, I know that one. She goes, That is terrifying. Search me, oh God. I said, Yeah, it's terrifying, but on this hand, other hand, it's comforting too. Because you know me and you haven't given up on me. He goes on and he says, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me

Known By God Without Condemnation

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to attain. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God. How vast is the sum of them. That he knows each and every one of us implicitly and intimately. In fact, the word that is used in that passage, you know me, and know me, O God, that is the very same word. The Hebrew word is the very same word that is used to describe sexual intimacy, where Abraham knew Sarah and they had a son named Isaac. It's that same word. It's talking about this intimate knowledge. Um, that there is nothing about you that is hidden from God. John Orper put it this way: we may be surprised at our faults, but he is not. I have, um, for years, actually, since I first started in pastoral ministry, I have kept a prayer journal. I've got stacks of them back home. And and the reason I decided to do prayer journaling was because I found that it made me slow down and really think about what's going on and what I needed and what God was doing in my life. And so writing out my prayers really helped me to kind of slow down and take some extended time to do it. Here's what I found. After a while, I found myself editing, self-editing my prayer journal. I mean, how crazy is that? You know, I would instead of dealing with exactly the issue that God was dealing with me, I would go all around it, you know, just you know, just very vague. And it's like, who am I trying to kid? He knows me inside and out. And what happens is that he comes alongside us in this self-exploration process with some objectivity. See, if I do this all by myself, it's going to be subjective. And either I will excuse and ignore the real problems or try to gloss over them, or I will get myself in this downward because it's all subjective inside myself. But when God comes alongside, he gives us a more objective look at our own lives, which kind of goes to the next thing that together with God, self-examination will reveal our character, our true character. So, how do we do this? How do we do this self-exploration? Particularly, how do we do it with God's help? Wortberg in his book gives a couple of different great examples. Um, he talks about traditionally, people have used like the seven deadly sins: um envy, greed, pride, sloth, anger, lust, those things, and just saying, which of these areas do I need help in? Martin Luther used the Ten Commandments, suggested that's a good way of doing this inventory. The psalmist here actually gives us a real easy three-category

Three-Part Inventory Heart Emotions Habits

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process. He says, Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there is any offensive way in me. In other words, he breaks it down into three categories. He first starts with the heart. Know my heart. Your heart is your inner being. How do you know what's in your heart? Tim Keller in his book Counterfeit God says, if you want to know your heart, he says, the true God of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. In other words, ask this question: what occupies your mind when you have nothing else to think about? When you had that downtime, where does your mind go? It's a revealer of your heart. The other thing he says is, know my anxious thoughts, test my anxious thoughts. Might expand that to all of your emotions, your fears, your anger, your guilt, your hurt, your bitterness, resentment, any of those emotions. And what you want to look for here is look for the triggers. What sets you off? What what what causes you deep fear when you think about it? Or what makes you truly angry that just fly off the handle. When I do premarital counseling with couples, um, when we talk about uh communication and and good communication, talk about the different levels of communication. And one of the deeper levels of communication is your on the emotional level. And what I tell couples is it's kind of like if you think of your emotions as the dashboard of your car, it's telling you what's going on under the hood. So, for instance, if you look and the temperature gauge on your dashboard is getting really, really hot. Problem's not the gauge. It's telling you there's something under the hood that needs attention. Or your gas gauge starts to go down. It's not the gauge. The gauge is telling you it's time to stop and fill up the gas tank. Your emotions are kind of like that. When you find yourself, especially your most uncontrolled emotions, whatever they might be, when you find yourself reacting emotionally, it's a really good thing, it's it's a trigger. It says, What is causing this? Why am I reacting in this way? Why am I so afraid of this? Why am I so angry at that? Because it's telling you there's something going on on a deeper level. And then he goes on, he says, See if there be any offensive way in me. Offensive way you might call your habits, your obsessions, your compulsive activities. And what you want to look for when it talks about your habits, the offensive way is look for patterns. Because typically there will be some patterns. If there's a particular issue or sin that you stumble in, there's an addiction that you're going, if you could look at the pattern, okay, this is where I end up. Where does that start? Where, what, what are the things, if I can recognize the early warning signs up front, I can stop it before I end up over here because I know where that path leads. And so you want to look for the patterns. If there's a struggle that you have, if there's something that you're dealing with and you keep finding yourself stuck in, back up for a bit and just say, what is the pattern here? How can I recognize this sooner and not set myself up for failure? And by the way, when you do the inventory, it's not all negative stuff because God has given each and every one of us certain gifts and abilities and talents and skills. And so there are good things, there are strengths that He has put into your life. So be grateful for those. But also realize that with the strength, there is always a weakness that seems to be alongside of it. In fact, here's an example. It is great to have dreams and ambition and dedication. It will get you far in life and make you successful and have a productive life. But if pursuing your career and giving all of your attention

Strengths With A Hidden Dark Side

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to that, it can turn you into a workaholic. And you might succeed in your career, but lose your family. It might be a strength of yours, but it can also have a dark side to it. Pursuing positive emotions like happiness and optimism and affection, that's all, those are good things that God gave you. But if you pursue pleasure and it becomes the thing, it can wreak all kinds of havoc in your life, can lead to addictions, compulsive activities, even sexual immorality. So recognize those things, but also beware of them. I'll give you a personal example. Um, you may not know this about me, but I tend to have a driven personality. I know, I know it's hard to believe, right? I have I have a driven personality. I can be very determined. I am self-starting, self-motivated. I am dedicated, some would even say a little competitive. And those are all really good strengths and good qualities, especially if you are planting a church. You need that kind of dedication and self-motivation and all of those things. And those served me well for 14 years until they didn't.

When Driven Becomes A Crash

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And in about year 15 of planting Northgate, I hit a wall and I crashed big time. I remember going to a pastor's conference and hearing one pastor actually write in his prayer journal, the way that I am doing God's work is killing God's work within me. And all of a sudden I realized what he was talking about. And I just totally went, boom. I went into a clinical depression. I finally went and saw a doctor at my wife's urging. And he said, So what's been going on in your life? And I told him, you know, all the things that were going on. We were in the middle of a building project. And um and uh he said, Well, when was the last time you took a significant break? I said, Well, we had actually took a full week's vacation this year. He says, No, no, a significant break. I said, A week's vacation? That's that was significant for me. And finally he said, You know, you have been running on adrenaline for about the last 15, 14, 15 years, and your body is not meant to run on adrenaline. And your body has finally said, no more. I'm done. And that was the source of my crash. Now, it was really easy for me to justify all of my drivenness because after all, I'm doing the Lord's work. What could be more important than that? How can I not pull back from that? I've got to give this 100%, 110%. It was easy to justify it all, but what it led to was a crash, and that became my alarm clock. And it made me wake up and say, okay, the way that I am doing God's work is killing God's work within me. See, alarm clocks wake us up, but then we need to do the deeper work. And together with God, the self-examination allows for an applied grace. And when I say applied grace, here's what I mean. Because we often think about grace as just about forgiveness, but it's about much, much more than that. Grace is about forgiveness, yes, but it's also about transformation. And the purpose for all of this self-examination with God is transformation. That's how He leads, He ends his prayer this way. Listen lead me in the

Applied Grace And Spiritual Disciplines

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way everlasting. Show me, Lord, my faults. Show me my offensive way, show me things, but now lead me in the way everlasting. Or the message paraphrase puts it this way: lead me along the path of everlasting life. See, self-examination can diagnose our character flaws and our struggles. But it's applying God's grace that's really going to bring about the transformation that we need. We need to grow in grace. That's what Peter wrote. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In other words, it's not just about, Lord, forgive me and then I fall again, and Lord, forgive me and I fall again. He will continue to forgive, but he says, what you really need is transformation from the inside out. And that's where we start applying his grace to everyday life. I begin to replace those destructive and harmful patterns in my life with new and better ones. And very often this is done through what is called the spiritual disciplines. Dallas Willard actually wrote a book about it a number of years ago called The Spirit of the Disciplines. And he breaks them down into two categories. There are disciplines of engagement, things like worship, study, prayer, fellowship, things that I do that engage. And by the way, fellowship is such an important part of the recovery process. Did you know that? That's what whole 12 step groups are all about coming together and being able to stand and say, hey, my name. Can and I'm alcoholic or whatever the struggle might be. And to be there in community with other people who are also in recovery. That's one of the key strengths of recovery groups, is the fellowship part of it. So there are these engagement disciplines, but then there are also some that are called disciplines of abstinence. And these are things like fasting, solitude, silence, secrecy. There are things that I withdraw and I don't do, that I that I don't, I'm not engaging in doing something. I'm actually stepping back from it. And that's what I found for me. So my alarm clock event was my crash. And it woke me up to some things that were out of order and out of balance. And then I had to say, okay, how do I address these things? What's the deeper issue? And it's not easy for me to admit, but the deeper issues in my life were my pride, my ego, the admiration of other people, needing to prove myself.

Pride Approval And Practices That Heal

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Those were the deeper issues. And I thought it was because I was doing God's work. And I was, and that was a big motivator. But underneath the surface was this, I'm going to prove myself. Because, see, I had been passed up for a possible position as a senior pastorate. And part of my motivation was, okay, well, I'll show you. I'll show you. I've been I struggle with that to this day. My ego, it comes up all the time. Even, even there are times when I'm preaching, and in the back of my mind, I am evaluating my sermon. How's it going? Is it going good? Are people engaging? Are they liking what I'm saying? Are they there connecting? By the way, how am I doing this morning? No. But see, that's that's what's inside of me, and that's what needed to be dealt with. And I'm still dealing with it. You would think, you would think after 71 years, I would have myself together. I don't. I'm still learning, I'm still growing, still dealing with stuff. But what it caused me was to say, okay, I need to make some changes. And there were a couple of changes that I made. I started making a regular every year, I called them study breaks. They were really soul breaks. Where I got off by myself, went off. My uh aunt and uncle had property up in Lake Beriesa on the far side of the lake where nobody lives, just farms on that side of the lake. And they would let me stay in their place. And I would take a week and just get alone with God, away from the cheering crowd, if you will, the applauding crowd that I so crave, and just spend some time alone with God. Let Him deal with my heart. How am I doing? Where do I need to change? What are you speaking to me about? I that's the kind of that's the discipline I needed. Another one that I took on was the discipline of secrecy. Doing something for somebody without them ever finding out who did it, which is really, really hard. Because I want the approval. I want the thank you. What if nobody ever says thanks? Can I be okay with that? And I've been able to do some really cool things, but I can't tell you about them because that would ruin the whole process. No, I'm I'm kidding. But but you see, there are these disciplines that God has given to us to start bringing grace into our whole life, not just about fixing a problem, but bringing about true transformation from the inside out. And this, by the way, is not about earning your salvation or even proving how spiritual you are. It's really about letting God do the deeper work that he wants to do. John wrote about it in his first letter. He said, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But he says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. See, the forgiveness and then the life change. And by the way, this will be a lifelong process. And there will be fits and starts to it

Confession Lifelong Growth And Hope

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all. And sometimes it'll be two, three steps forward, two steps back, sometimes it'll be two steps forward, three steps back. It's an ongoing process. And when you fail and when you struggle once again, it's real easy to get down on yourself. But John also tells us about this. He says, this is how we know we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. See, even when we struggle and fail, and we feel like this is never going to change, and you will, you will stumble, but that whole process is covered by his grace. And he knows our hearts, and he knows what's really going on down inside there. And it's it's that note of grace that allows us to keep moving forward. So at the root of all of this, all of our struggles, is really this problem of sin. And we can excuse it, we can ignore it, we can justify it and rationalize it, and we will remain stuck in those endless patterns of destructive behavior and harmful behavior. Or we can admit our powerlessness, God, I can't, and look to him for his strength, his grace, and strength, mercy, and forgiveness, and say, You can. And then we can say, I'm gonna let you. And that begins the process that then carries us through of examining all of our life. And in there and in his grace, he does his work. Again, 1 John 1, 8, and 9. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We can keep fumbling around in the dark. Or if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Don't you bow your heads with me? Jesus came and gave his life on a cross and paid the penalty for our sin. And to overcome his power. See, he died for the forgiveness of our sin. He was raised to new life to give us that new life. And it was also that ordinary, flawed, failing, faulty, and guilty people like us could find not just forgiveness, but a completely new life. And maybe you're here today,

Prayer To Surrender And Be Changed

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and maybe it's really you're at the first step. And maybe that's what even brought you here this morning. My life is unmanageable. Things are getting out of hand, and I don't know what to do about it. There's a God who loves you and He can change you. If you're willing to just let it go and turn your life over to Him. You put your faith and your trust in what Christ has already done for you and find that new life. Maybe you've taken those first steps, but maybe for you the next step is really the deeper work. Letting God make those transformational changes from the inside out. Wherever you're at this morning, would you join me in your this prayer? Lord, my life is unmanageable. I do my best to try and keep things going, but every once in a while those plates fall and crash to the floor, and I remember I can't do this. I can't. Not on my own. But you are there for me. And I know your love and your mercy and your grace, demonstrated to me through Christ on the cross, gives me hope. And I'm putting my full faith and trust in you, not just to forgive my sin, but for the transformation that you want to do in my life. Would you take me as I am today and move me towards that life that you have for me? In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.