Awakened to Grace

Chad Roberts: Welcome to Awakened to Grace. I'm Chad Roberts and I'm so glad you're joining us today. I believe God has connected us for a great purpose. Today you're going to hear a powerful sermon. But before we get to the sermon, I want to encourage you to check out my new book. It's called Blind Faith: Seeing God Through Darkness. It's published by our partners at Lifeway. The reason I wrote this book is because I am 100% blind. As I've walked this path of blindness, this path of suffering, I want to teach you how Christians can suffer well. I say that today my job as a blind pastor is to help people trust a God they cannot see.

You can order the book right now anywhere that books are sold in any format. Even if you're not much of a book reader, you can even get it in audio where you can listen to it. I hope you'll go right now to the official website, which is blindfaith.life. Again, that's blindfaith.life. I hope you'll not only get a copy for you, I hope you'll pick one up for someone who needs encouragement in their faith today.

Friends, when did Jesus begin to minister? Do you remember? After he was baptized, when the Holy Spirit fell upon him. Friends, if Jesus, the Son of God, needed the Holy Spirit, how much more so do we? The sad fact of the matter is in so many churches, the Holy Spirit could leave and no one would even know the difference. They would sing their same songs. They would preach their same sermons. Everything would be clockwork and routine. Who would even notice that the Holy Spirit wasn't present?

God forbid that ever happen at Preaching Christ Church. God forbid. We need the Holy Spirit. We need his empowerment, his enablement, and the power of God in our lives. Why do we need him? Number one, to be bold, courageous witnesses. Number two, we need him to discern the will of God. Do you realize the Holy Spirit helps us know the will of God? We need him to help us in this matter. Right now, you may be struggling with decisions, the right place to be, the right job to take, or the right person to marry. Whatever decisions that you face, you need the discernment and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We need the Holy Spirit to overcome fear. What fears are in our lives right now that we could overcome if we had more power of the Holy Spirit? We have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind, or self-control or self-discipline. That's what we've been given by God, not a spirit of fear, but power. If Jesus needed the Holy Spirit, how much more so do we?

What could the Holy Spirit enable you for in your life right now? Maybe it's an enablement to forgive someone. Maybe it's an enablement to live at peace with people who are causing trouble in your life. Maybe it's an enablement to walk through a fiery trial at the moment. Maybe it's an enablement to stand up under temptation right now. Maybe it's an enablement to make good decisions right now. Whatever you need right now, the Holy Spirit will enable you. The question is: are you inviting it? Are you seeking it? Are you longing for it? Are you waiting on it?

What did Jesus say? Go to Jerusalem and wait until the Holy Spirit has come upon you. What if nothing happens? Then you wait. What if it feels weird? Then you'll wait. What if it gets awkward? Then you'll wait. The Lord is saying you will wait. Friends, what a word for somebody today. You may be frustrated because it feels like God is not answering your prayer, but let me tell you, God is in the waiting. Learn to wait on the Holy Spirit. Sundays are good, but Tuesdays are great because we wait.

Have you learned how to wait on God? Why is it so important? Because there's power when you learn to wait on God. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned in my pastoring career, and I've been a pastor for 20 years now, is that Sunday mornings were very particular. We meet through the week, we pray about what God wants, and we know what songs we're singing. I know the text, and because I'm blind, I have to give enormous preparation to the day. Normally we know well what Sunday will look like. Then you have some days like today where God just did what God wanted to do and we stepped out of the way.

On a normal Sunday, we know from point A to point Z where we're going. Four years ago, God led us to start a Tuesday night prayer meeting. Do you know what the Lord told me? The scariest thing I've ever done in my pastoring. The Lord said you're not to plan a thing. Apparently, the Lord forgot I'm a planner and I get mighty anxious when I'm not in planning mode. Do you know what used to be my greatest fear as a pastor? Hearing crickets and people feeling bored. There is this weird thing in our church culture where if people feel bored, they won't come back.

This consumer mentality has crept its way into the church. Now, rather than showing up in the house of God and saying, "How might we minister unto the Lord?" it is, "How can we entertain a crowd?" So the Holy Spirit said the plan for Tuesday night prayer meeting is that there is no plan. You will wait for the Holy Spirit to come. Number three, the word glory. What does he mean by this? Follow the logic here. If the kingdom is my priority and I'm living for the kingdom, I seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and I'm not worried about everything else in life. I'm not putting things first and God last. I'm reversing it. I'm putting God first and things last, and I'm living for the kingdom.

Then what happens is as I'm living for the kingdom, then I begin to feel the enablement of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit personalizes the kingdom to me. He makes the kingdom real in my life, and I'm finding myself enabled by the Holy Spirit. I'm living with his fruit, his power, his sensitivity, and his intercessions. I'm living and walking in the Holy Spirit. If you walk according to the Spirit, you'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh. What's going to be the next result? For thine is the glory.

What is this word glory? In the Hebrew text in the Old Testament, it's Kabod. It's weightiness. The word means Shekinah weight. The glory of God is a weighty thing. Remember when the priests were in the temple and the cloud appeared and the glory of God came? They fell. It was so heavy, so weighty, that they couldn't even stand to minister. In the New Testament, the Greek word for this is doxa. It's where we get our English word doxology, and remember what we said a doxology is? It's an act of praise.

I think what's being implied here is if we're living for the kingdom, if we're living in the enablement of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit, then living for the glory of God is going to be the next result. Are we living for God's glory or are we living for our comfort, our interest, our desires, our luxury? When I'm living for the kingdom and being empowered by the Holy Spirit, then it's not going to be any trouble to incorporate what Paul taught: whether I eat, whether I drink, or whatsoever things I do, I do to the glory of God.

Glory also has another idea to it. The word glory also carries the idea of having an opinion. Has it ever occurred to you that God has opinions? I could care less about your opinion. I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican. I don't care if you're blue or you're red. I don't care what your politics are. I don't care how you were raised or what kind of background you come from. I don't care what denomination you're from. Let me tell you what I really care about: God's opinions. Do you know where God shares his opinions? In his word.

People will sometimes want to argue with me. I was on a radio show in New York City a couple of years ago doing an interview, and he was closing out the interview. It was a great interview and I was immensely pleased with it. It was a big opportunity. Then he closed out and said, "Chad, before I let you go, tell our listeners your opinion of same-sex marriage." People will want to argue really hot-button issues. Let me tell you how I respond to people who just want to argue because there are people who will hit their head against the wall just to enjoy the noise. I'm not one of those people.

If you want to bang your head against the wall, you do it all day long, but I'm not paying attention to you. I'm not going to get involved in quarrels, fights, and arguments. I don't argue with people on things. I have one question: do you care what God thinks? David wrote in Psalm 139, "Precious to me, O God, are your thoughts." If God's opinion doesn't matter to you, then go on and live life. But as for me and my house, God's opinion matters. I'm not interested in arguing with people over their opinion. All I want to do is find God's opinion and let everyone else be a liar.

Hear me, church. Hear me, precious friends. Some of you are so wrapped up in other people's opinions. Some of you are so wrapped up in your social media posts and who likes this and who's arguing over that. Some of you are so wrapped up in work and all the politics and all the in-fighting. There's only one opinion that matters, and that is: thus saith the Lord. Don't get entangled. Don't get entangled with people who just want to beat their head against the wall. Don't get entangled in fights, arguments, negativity, time-wasters, and energy-zappers. Just learn what God thinks and value God's opinion.

Then you'll learn what it means to be able to say, "For thine is the kingdom." It's what I live for. "For thine is the power." It's the strength of my life. "For thine is the glory." All praise and adoration unto the Lord. And as we finish today, what does he say? Forever. What a way to end this prayer. In Malachi 3:6, God says, "I am the Lord and I change not." How much have you changed throughout your life? How much will you change until the day you die? Yet the Lord never changes. Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever."

You don't ever worry about God changing on you. You don't ever worry about God walking out on you. You don't ever worry about God's consistency or his faithfulness. You don't ever worry about that because when you wake up every single morning, Lamentations 3 says his mercy is renewed for you. Then that brings us to the last and the final. He ends this prayer by saying Amen. Remember last year we did an intriguing little study called Church Words. We looked at words we use in church that we're going to use for all eternity. Words that really matter, that have a lot of weight to them.

We looked at the word glory, doxa. We looked at the word hallelujah. And we looked at the word Amen. Amen means "may it be so" or "let it be." That's what happens when you affirm God's truth. That's why we say Amen as Christians. We say Amen. What are we saying? So be it. May it be. We affirm his truth. And what is his truth today? The truth is that we're not building our own little kingdom in this little world. We're building something far greater. We're part of God's building. We're part of God's kingdom, and our King owns the kingdom.

We're empowered by a supernatural enablement of the Holy Spirit. No other God-follower in all of humanity history is filled with the precious Holy Spirit. What an amazing gift. What a precious thing. And he offers it to us. He helps us, he comforts us, he guides us, and he helps us pray. We can never get over that. His is the glory. All acts of praise belong to him. Is that how you live your life? It's how you can. You can live with kingdom principles. You can live in the enablement of the Holy Spirit. You can live to the sole glory of Jesus Christ, and not just for this life, but forever and ever.

Lord, we love you today. We thank you, God, for your word, how precious, how beautiful, how full, and how amazing it is. Lord, after today, we're going to shift gears and we're going to deep dive into the book of Revelation. God, give us understanding. Bless your people today. Thank you, God, for the mighty wind of the Holy Spirit that blew through this place today. We don't take it for granted, but we bow our hearts and our heads and we say thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.

If you'll stay with us here for a few more minutes, I'm going to ask our ushers to come forward. We're going to receive our offering today. If you're a guest today, we never ask our guests to be part of that. We want you to be where the Lord wants you. So many people talk to me about finding the right church. You would think in a city like Kingsport where you can throw a rock and hit a church, it would be so easy to find the right church. It's not, is it? I'm flying blind, people. I'm flying blind.

As they come, if you're praying about where the Lord wants you, I'd love to meet you. Even if this isn't the church for you, if the Lord desires you somewhere else, I still would love to meet you because whether you attend my church or another church, we're the family of God. Our goal has never been to fill every single chair. Our goal is to fill this city with the gospel of Jesus Christ. As we give today, those of you who participate and honor the Lord in your giving, let's pray together. Then Pastor Glenn is going to lead us in our graduates, and then you may be dismissed.

Lord, I thank you for today. What a special day to end the month of May. What a way to end and what a way to cast our eyes toward June and toward the summer. Thank you, God, for this Memorial Day weekend. Thank you for every man and woman who has served our nation. Thank you for every man and woman who has given their lives for our freedom, for our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights. We honor them today and we thank you, God, for such sacrifice.

Honor our veterans today, God. Honor those who are currently serving. Meet their needs and give them special blessings from your own hand. I pray you bless every person here today and everyone watching online. Bless us, God, as we seek you with our lives. Thank you, in Jesus' name, Amen.