Infinitely More than We Might Ask or Think

Last Sunday, June 30th, I had the opportunity to give the sermon at my home church, The Vine of the Mountains in Waynesville, NC. It was a daunting task: I had to try and look back on six packed months of ministry with YWAM and decide on the most important things to talk about in only a little over twenty minutes. Fortunately, though, God really helped me out and gave me a focused message. Before I got to the message, however, I started at the beginning, trying to briefly sum up my past year.

It starts last May, when I graduated from NC State with a degree in Ecological Engineering. However, I decided not to jump right into an engineering job but rather take some time out and focus on God. My friend Seth Blanton had the same idea, and we settled on doing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in New Zealand. We didn't know exactly what we were getting ourselves into (I don't think anyone who comes on DTS really does), but it turned out to be more incredible and life-changing than we could have imagined.

Our DTS started with three months of lecture phase in New Zealand. The essence of lecture phase is a that students are surrounded by a culture or an environment that is amazing for rapid spiritual (and mental and emotional) growth - it's like a spiritual greenhouse. The environment is built on encouraging, diverse, and loving community; lots of prayer; worship; good leadership; and Biblical teaching (lecturers are brought in each week from all over the world to speak on various topics). Next there are two months of outreach, which is essentially where the students put in practice what they learned on lecture phase and continue to be challenged to grow in different ways. The video below shows some of what we did on my last outreach, a trip to the Philippines.

Trying to sum up DTS is difficult. However, to simplify it as much as possible I said during my last presentation (six months ago) that the purpose is to help students shed the things that hold them back, then to empower them to do the work to which God has called them. This happens in all sorts of ways, but the main transformation comes simply as a result of growing closer to God in relationship and experiencing his incredible love and goodness.

Now, after having been a staff person, I have some more insight into how the process works and I have tried to summarize it in this way (although it's still not all-encompassing):

We all go through life with hurts, fears, or insecurities – big or small – that we either don’t know are there or we’ve lived with for so long that we’re used to them. So we don’t realize that they are holding us back in so many ways. DTS is the perfect environment to stop and look at those issues and discover that Jesus is offering healing and victory over them. With an open hand, God offers us a whole new identity as his valued children, and with it a new mindset to live a life of security, confidence, and freedom we didn’t realize was possible.

Of course, those are some pretty big claims, but I can honestly back them up by saying that I've seen evidence that this is true! In fact, I've experienced it in my own life!

So, coming back to my story... Partway through my own DTS I felt led by God to return and be a staff member on the next DTS. My hope was that assuming that role would allow me to continue building my foundations in God – prayer, Scripture, worship, intimacy with God - along with a greater focus on teaching, serving, and leading.

It turns out, I was exactly right about that. I've had the opportunity to be help create that environment that is so encouraging, accepting, and focused on God. I've been a mentor to students dealing with a variety of issues. I've planned an outreach in the Philippines (a country I've never been to) and co-led a team of 12 people (some of whom were older than me), and by God's grace it was pretty successful (I mean, no one got seriously injured or anything). Really, looking back I can see how this time with YWAM has been a perfect complement to my technical training in college. This experience has allowed me to round out that engineering foundation with a better understanding of relationships, leadership, and God himself, which in most ways is far more important than technical knowledge.

So, the past year has been far more life-changing than I could have expected, and now I'm going back to staff again for five more months. I will be doing a similar job, but I will have some new challenges because I'll have some different leadership roles. So as they say in Cambodia, "Same same, but different."

Now that I've given you some context, I could tell stories from DTS for the entire message time, no problem, but I think God has given me something else to share. It’s partly still about YWAM and my adventures with Jesus, but some will hopefully be an encouragement to you, and some is meant to be a challenge for all of us individually and as a church. We're going to talk generally about our relationship with God, in the process wandering off just a little to talk about what worship is. I have so much I want to say and I'm going to plow through a lot thoughts, so I hope you can stay with me.

Our starting point is the following Scripture, from the book of Ephesians:

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20 NLT)

I want to talk about the " infinitely more than we can ask or think" part and what that means in the context of our relationship with God. It's some pretty strong language that should really mean something for us if we believe it! I'm going to come at from the perspective that this statement about who God is, is actually an invitation for us. It basically says that whatever it is we're expecting God to do or to be able to do in our lives and our world is actually TOO SMALL. It's not fanciful or amazing or delightful enough. Whatever you came to church thinking God wants to happen here, He really wants to do MORE. Whatever you think God can do with your life, whatever hurts you think He might be able to heal, whatever sins you think He can free you from - He can actually do MORE. God has MORE gifts for us; He wants to reveal MORE of himself to us. And if there's something that much greater out there that we have yet to wrap our heads around, why wouldn't we pursue it? That's the invitation, whether you've followed God for one day or half a lifetime - it's an invitation to a relationship with God that is always growing, always increasing, always experiencing new and more unbelievable things.

That brings me to this next Scripture, which takes us further into this invitation:

Oh sing to the Lord a new song,
    for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
      have worked salvation for him. ...
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
      to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
      the salvation of our God.  (Psalm 98:1,3 , ESV)

“Sing to the LORD a new song” indicates more to me than just writing some new lyrics and notes to worship with. To me it points to a freshness in our entire relationship with God. We’re told to sing a new song to the LORD - why? Because the Lord "has done marvelous things." And I think the command is not necessarily just to sing about the marvelous things God did long before our lifetimes (that we never experienced), but the idea is that God is constantly doing new marvelous things for us to write new songs about! So the question for me (and you) is:

Do I have the kind of relationship with God where I see and experience new (and sometimes really unexpected) things that God is doing now, in the present? Or is my relationship with God always in the same place, or even looking backwards? Just the same old, same old?

This idea of newness is all over Scripture. A verse in Lamentations (of all places) talks about God’s mercies being new every morning (3:22). 2 Corinthians says that "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation"(5:17) and that we are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory (3:18)! That evokes an image not of drudgery and stagnation but of excitement and novelty and…well,  freshness in our relationship with God. Now, that's not to say that there aren't times when moving forward is really hard and we don't see new things from God for a while (I mean, look earlier on in Lamentations!). But if we never see anything new from God, I think we're missing out on who He really is!

As I have begun to understand really what it is that Jesus is inviting us into, I’ve seen (and experienced!) that this journey is more like falling in love than anything else. We’ve probably all heard that Jesus wants a “personal relationship” with us and that we need to “fall in love with Jesus.” But these phrases have lost the ummph that they should have! This is no run-of-the-mill “personal relationship” we’re talking about here! For one, we’re talking about falling in love, which is one of the most powerful and intense and exciting things that can happen to a person. And two, this is a personal relationship with Jesus who, we read just right here, has done “marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation…and all the ends of the earth have seen…!” And even though you can’t see Him like you can other people, it’s still possible to relate to Him personally, to hear His voice, to spend time with Him. Peter says, “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him (1 Peter 1:8). In some ways It’s the most challenging relationship you’ll ever have, but think about all of that – how is that not exciting??!?! How is that not an adventure?? How did anyone ever turn that into a rule-focused, oppressive, Sunday-relegated way of maintaining the status quo? That is just crazy... because relationship with Jesus is the most freeing, dynamic, whole-life-encompassing adventure there is - and you made for it!!!!!

So, you see what DTS does to people J Sometimes I’m just like, “How did I find something this good?” and I just want to dance during worship time and sing whatever praises and truths come to mind. I want to tell God how much I love Him. I want to declare how great He is because I've seen it!

THIS is what I'm talking about what it says “sing a new song!” It's saying that a genuine relationship with God just naturally results in worship. It’s saying that the point of worship is to pour out the overflow of your personal relationship with God and express your response to His work in your life. It might involve dancing; it might involve prayer; it might involve generosity; it might involve singing whatever words come out about a God you’ve experienced and known. To put it another way, worship – or the ease with which I worship God from my heart – is really the barometer measuring the quality of my relationship with God. It’s not so much about drumming up some emotion and feeling for God with good music, but it's about expressing the feelings and adoration God has already drummed up inside of us through this love relationship I was talking about.

All of this really forms the basis for what I think is maybe the best thing about the culture of YWAM as an organization, and one of the main things that is transferrable from DTS to "normal" life at here at home. DTS is a really unique environment, but everything about it need not remain isolated. What I'm talking about is this mindset, this approach to relationship with God  that is based on a CONSTANT DESIRE FOR MORE. More of God Himself in relationship, more His Spirit, more of His wisdom, more of His love, more of His power.

In Scripture, this idea is actually a crazy paradox you see in the psalms: that we can be totally satisfied with Christ and yet absolutely longing for more. Case in point – David in Psalm 63. He says things like, "I earnestly search for you; my soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you..." And then just a few lines later, "You satisfy me more than the richest feast. I will praise you."

As new students come to DTS, the ones with the most promise and potential for transformation aren’t the ones with the greatest skills or the most Bible knowledge, but those who come with open and seeking hearts, hungry and thirsty for God. In the same way, I think we are most on track as followers of Jesus when we have an earnest and active desire for more of Him. Didn’t Jesus say something like that? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”(Matthew 5:6, ESV)

The unfortunate news here is that we can’t suddenly make ourselves hungry for God. In reality, the Holy Spirit does most of that work. But we can totally set ourselves up for that deep desire, knowing that what we’re after is something incredible, the one thing that is most worthy of our effort and focus. One starting point is to really take ownership of our own journey, understanding that because it’s a personal relationship, it’s not up to your pastor or your small group leader or your friend to do it for you. Jesus wants you to seek Him; he wants a relationship with you. And so we can start seeking God in the Word and in prayer and just spending time with Him; we can start wanting that relationship with Him, even a little bit. We can start stepping out in faith, trusting that God will come through for us. And we can do it together, working as a community to create a culture that is satisfied with loving Jesus, but totally unsatisfied with seeing only what God has already shown us.

The good news is that this whole process moves itself forward. As I have sought God, I've found him, and what I've found is so good that I just want more! We step out on a limb in faith – i.e. we get in situations where we will crash and burn if God doesn’t come through for us, and every time when He does come through it makes it that much easier to trust in Him again. The more we seek to satisfy our hunger for God, the more He satisfies us and the more hungry we get. How’s that for a paradox?

Now I really don't want to come back to the Vine and say, "Oh, I've been in YWAM, where we do everything right and you should be just like them." No, I just think God wants to extend this invitation to you. He wants to do more in and through you as an individual and through this church as a whole. Some of the things He is capable of doing here won't necessarily be expected, comfortable, or easy, but they'll be on the way to "infinitely more than we can ask or think." I don't know about you, but that sounds like good news to me. I don't want to stay where I am because right here I see all kinds of issues that still need to be fixed, all kinds of seeds that still need to grow. But God doesn't want me to stay where I am; He is calling me (all of us) forward, closer to Him and into fuller restoration!

I know I've made some pretty big claims here that probably need some backing up, and I understand that "more" is pretty ambiguous if you don't have any specifics. So I had thought I would tell stories from my time on in New Zealand and the Philppines to follow up, but God gave me a crazier idea. Now don't get me wrong; I do have stories. I wouldn't be so excited if there weren't something to be excited about. I mean, besides falling in love with Jesus myself, I've seen people miraculously healed, thousands of dollars provided in a few minutes,  and money multiplied inexplicably. I've seen prayer transform lives and realities almost immediately. I've seen God align circumstances that no one else could have lined up. I've heard people speak in tongues and see visions. I've seen visions. I've heard God's voice in unmistakable ways.

 So here's the crazy idea. God said that I could be the evidence for you, right here, right now.  It starts with a song that I first heard on my DTS and it has since become one of my favorites. It's called "Set a Fire," it's written by a guy named Will Reagan, and the lyrics just happen to line up exactly with what I've been talking about. But the real kicker for me is that I think God wants me to play and lead you guys in singing it, and I have never even played and sang in front of people before, let alone led any kind of worship. So I'll be your example that God calls us into new and unexpected things, and praise Jesus, the result is just more of Him.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for me), I don't have a video of my singing, but it may be a part of the podcast when it comes out. For now, here are the lyrics and a video of the song. This short worship session was how I ended my sermon time.

There's no place I'd rather be

No place I'd rather be

No place I'd rather be

Than here in your love

Here in your love

Set a fire down in my soul

That I can't contain

That I can't control

I want more of you God

I want more of you God